Ethan Hutt | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (original) (raw)

Papers by Ethan Hutt

Research paper thumbnail of Toward a Framework for Public Accountability in Education Reform

Educational Researcher, 2020

Public accountability through information disclosure is a pillar of modern education reform effor... more Public accountability through information disclosure is a pillar of modern education reform efforts. Despite the ubiquity of this approach, we argue that public accountability in education is undertheorized and often predictably unlikely to achieve its intended policy goals. Drawing on examples from an equity-oriented court case in California and the literatures on democratic engagement and parent use of school performance data, we propose a framework for thinking about the
design of public accountability systems in education. The framework could provide guidance for policymakers considering new efforts at improving schools through the production and dissemination of educational data.

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Research paper thumbnail of Hutt CV

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Research paper thumbnail of A History of Achievement Testing in the United States Or: Explaining the Persistence of Inadequacy

This essay offers a historical analysis of the structural and cultural aspects of American educat... more This essay offers a historical analysis of the structural and cultural aspects of American education that help explain the durability of standardized testing in the face of more than a century of persistent criticism. Background/Context: For more than a century standardized achievement tests have been a feature of American education. Throughout that time critics of standardized tests have argued that their use has detrimental effects on students, schools, and curriculum. Despite these critiques, the number and uses of standardized tests has increased steadily. Though a great deal of research has focused on the technical design of tests, the history of individual tests, and general critiques of testing, there is little research that helps explain the continued use of standardized tests in American education despite near constant criticism.

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Research paper thumbnail of A Brief History of the Student Record: A Paper for the Asilomar Conference on Student Data and Records in the Digital Era

This paper provides a brief history of the development and evolution of the student record. It ar... more This paper provides a brief history of the development and evolution of the student record. It argues that this history is best considered as generally consisting of three distinct periods: (1) an early period (1840-1910) that was characterized by large variation in student record keeping and a lack of defined relationships and hierarchy among educational institutions and levels. Uniformity in student record keeping—particularly with the adoption of the Carnegie Unit—became a way of solidifying practices of record keeping but also of institutional status and belonging; (2) a period of rapid expansion of higher education (1910-1970) in which postsecondary institutions had to address the record keeping challenges posed by incorporating new kinds of students, new kinds of institutions, and new patterns of course taking and degree seeking; (3) the modern period (1970-2010) that was characterized both by the continued evolution of the postsecondary sector in terms of new institutions, programs, and types of learners and by new external demands placed on university recording keeping by student privacy and public accountability concerns. Cutting across each of these three periods are questions concerning which institutions may legitimately inscribe on the student record; what information, experiences, and achievements should be recorded; the reciprocal obligations among institutions that maintain student records; and the proper role of educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and governmental entities in addressing these issues.

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Research paper thumbnail of The 'Crisis' Problem: On the Pervasiveness of Crisis Rhetoric in American Education Research

Educational Research: Discourses of Change and Changes of Discourse

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Research paper thumbnail of The GED and the Rise of Contextless Accountability

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Research paper thumbnail of Accountability: Antecedents, Power, and Processes

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Research paper thumbnail of Formalism Over Function: Compulsion, Courts, and the Rise of Educational Formalism in America, 1870–1930

Teachers College Record, Jan 1, 2012

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Research paper thumbnail of The New Education Malpractice Litigation

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Research paper thumbnail of Making the grade: a history of the A–F marking scheme

Journal of Curriculum Studies, 2013

This article provides a historical interpretation of one of the defining features of modern schoo... more This article provides a historical interpretation of one of the defining features of modern schooling: grades. As a central element of schools, grades—their origins, uses and evolution—provide a window into the tensions at the heart of building a national public school system in the United States. We argue that grades began as an intimate communication tool among teachers, parents, and students used largely to inform and instruct. But as reformers worked to develop a national school system in the late nineteenth century, they saw grades as useful tools in an organizational rather than pedagogical enterprise—tools that would facilitate movement, communication and coordination. Reformers placed a premium on readily interpretable and necessarily abstract grading systems. This shift in the importance of grades as an external rather than internal communication device required a concurrent shift in the meaning of grades—the meaning and nuance of the local context was traded for the uniformity and fungibility of more portable forms.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review: William J. Reese, Testing Wars in the Public Schools: A Forgotten History

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Research paper thumbnail of William A. Fischel. Making the Grade: The Economic Evolution of American School Districts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. 304 pp. Cloth $55.00

History of Education Quarterly, Jan 1, 2011

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Research paper thumbnail of The Rhetoric of Reform

tcrecord.org

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Research paper thumbnail of Toward a Framework for Public Accountability in Education Reform

Educational Researcher, 2020

Public accountability through information disclosure is a pillar of modern education reform effor... more Public accountability through information disclosure is a pillar of modern education reform efforts. Despite the ubiquity of this approach, we argue that public accountability in education is undertheorized and often predictably unlikely to achieve its intended policy goals. Drawing on examples from an equity-oriented court case in California and the literatures on democratic engagement and parent use of school performance data, we propose a framework for thinking about the
design of public accountability systems in education. The framework could provide guidance for policymakers considering new efforts at improving schools through the production and dissemination of educational data.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Hutt CV

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of A History of Achievement Testing in the United States Or: Explaining the Persistence of Inadequacy

This essay offers a historical analysis of the structural and cultural aspects of American educat... more This essay offers a historical analysis of the structural and cultural aspects of American education that help explain the durability of standardized testing in the face of more than a century of persistent criticism. Background/Context: For more than a century standardized achievement tests have been a feature of American education. Throughout that time critics of standardized tests have argued that their use has detrimental effects on students, schools, and curriculum. Despite these critiques, the number and uses of standardized tests has increased steadily. Though a great deal of research has focused on the technical design of tests, the history of individual tests, and general critiques of testing, there is little research that helps explain the continued use of standardized tests in American education despite near constant criticism.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of A Brief History of the Student Record: A Paper for the Asilomar Conference on Student Data and Records in the Digital Era

This paper provides a brief history of the development and evolution of the student record. It ar... more This paper provides a brief history of the development and evolution of the student record. It argues that this history is best considered as generally consisting of three distinct periods: (1) an early period (1840-1910) that was characterized by large variation in student record keeping and a lack of defined relationships and hierarchy among educational institutions and levels. Uniformity in student record keeping—particularly with the adoption of the Carnegie Unit—became a way of solidifying practices of record keeping but also of institutional status and belonging; (2) a period of rapid expansion of higher education (1910-1970) in which postsecondary institutions had to address the record keeping challenges posed by incorporating new kinds of students, new kinds of institutions, and new patterns of course taking and degree seeking; (3) the modern period (1970-2010) that was characterized both by the continued evolution of the postsecondary sector in terms of new institutions, programs, and types of learners and by new external demands placed on university recording keeping by student privacy and public accountability concerns. Cutting across each of these three periods are questions concerning which institutions may legitimately inscribe on the student record; what information, experiences, and achievements should be recorded; the reciprocal obligations among institutions that maintain student records; and the proper role of educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and governmental entities in addressing these issues.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The 'Crisis' Problem: On the Pervasiveness of Crisis Rhetoric in American Education Research

Educational Research: Discourses of Change and Changes of Discourse

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The GED and the Rise of Contextless Accountability

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Accountability: Antecedents, Power, and Processes

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Formalism Over Function: Compulsion, Courts, and the Rise of Educational Formalism in America, 1870–1930

Teachers College Record, Jan 1, 2012

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The New Education Malpractice Litigation

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Making the grade: a history of the A–F marking scheme

Journal of Curriculum Studies, 2013

This article provides a historical interpretation of one of the defining features of modern schoo... more This article provides a historical interpretation of one of the defining features of modern schooling: grades. As a central element of schools, grades—their origins, uses and evolution—provide a window into the tensions at the heart of building a national public school system in the United States. We argue that grades began as an intimate communication tool among teachers, parents, and students used largely to inform and instruct. But as reformers worked to develop a national school system in the late nineteenth century, they saw grades as useful tools in an organizational rather than pedagogical enterprise—tools that would facilitate movement, communication and coordination. Reformers placed a premium on readily interpretable and necessarily abstract grading systems. This shift in the importance of grades as an external rather than internal communication device required a concurrent shift in the meaning of grades—the meaning and nuance of the local context was traded for the uniformity and fungibility of more portable forms.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review: William J. Reese, Testing Wars in the Public Schools: A Forgotten History

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of William A. Fischel. Making the Grade: The Economic Evolution of American School Districts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. 304 pp. Cloth $55.00

History of Education Quarterly, Jan 1, 2011

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The Rhetoric of Reform

tcrecord.org

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact