This ethnographic case investigates the relationship between the daily organizing work of one education technology “intermediary organization” (IO) in Silicon Valley, California and federal education technology policies. I argue that the IO constructed policy knowledge that reified discourses of “digital meritocracy”: a belief in digital technologies as a means of evaluating individual success, regardless of historic, place-based material inequities. To develop this concept, I trace themes of “personalization” and “everywhere” as they emerge in the IO’s daily work and in federal education technology policies. This study extends research on IOs as “brokers” of information, resources, and social ties between public schools and private service providers and argues that IOs also construct “policy knowledge,” or “definitions of what counts as education.”
AkomA. A.ShahA.NakaiA. (2016). Kids, kale, and concrete: Using participatory technology to transform an urban American food desert. In NogueraP.PierceJ.AhramR. (Eds.), Race, equity, and education (pp. 75-102). New York, NY: Springer International.
2.
AkomA. A.ShahA.NakaiA.CruzT. (2016). Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) 2.0: How technological innovation and digital organizing sparked a food revolution in East Oakland. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29, 1287-1307.
3.
AnyonJ. (2005). What “counts” as educational policy? Notes toward a new paradigm. Harvard Educational Review, 75(1), 65-88.
4.
AuW. (2016). Meritocracy 2.0: High-stakes, standardized testing as a racial project of neoliberal multiculturalism. Educational Policy, 30, 39-62.
BaldridgeB. J. (2014). Relocating the deficit: Reimagining Black youth in neoliberal times. American Educational Research Journal, 51, 440-472.
7.
BallS. J. (1990). Politics and policy making in education. New York, NY: Routledge.
8.
BallS. J. (1995). What is policy? Texts, trajectories and toolboxes. In BallS. J. (Ed.), Education policy and social class: The selected works of Stephen J. Ball (pp. 43-53). New York, NY: Routledge.
9.
BallS. J. (2005). Education policy and social class: The selected works of Stephen J. Ball. New York, NY: Routledge.
10.
BallS. J. (2008). New philanthropy, new networks and new governance in education. Political Studies, 56, 747-765.
11.
BinghamA. J. (2016). Drowning digitally? How disequilibrium shapes practice in a blended learning charter school. Teachers College Record, 118(1), 1-30.
12.
BoningerF.MolnarA.MurrayK. (2017). Asleep at the Switch: Schoolhouse Commercialism, Student Privacy, and the Failure of Policymaking–The Nineteenth Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercializing Trends, 2017. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved September 1, 2017 from http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/schoolhouse-commercialism-2017
13.
BridgesD. (2008). Educationalization: On the appropriateness of asking educational institutions to solve social and economic problems. Educational Theory, 58, 461-474.
14.
BuchananR.HolmesK.PrestonG.ShawK. (2015). The global and the local: Taking account of context in the push for technologization of education. In BulfinS.JohnsonN. F.BigumC. (Eds.), Critical perspectives on technology and education (pp. 227-244). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
BulkleyK. E.HenigJ. R.LevinH. M. (2010). Between public and private: Politics, governance, and the new portfolio models for urban school reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
17.
BurchP. (2009). Hidden markets: The new education privatization. New York, NY: Routledge.
18.
BurchP.GoodA. G. (2014). Equal scrutiny: Privatization and accountability in digital education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
19.
CarterP. L.WelnerK. G. (2013). Closing the opportunity gap: What America must do to give every child an even chance. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
20.
CohenD. K. (1987). Educational technology, policy, and practice. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 9, 153-170.
21.
CubanL. (1986). Teachers and machines: The classroom use of technology since 1920. New York City, NY: Teachers College Press.
22.
CubanL. (2001). Oversold and underused: Computers in the classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
23.
Darling-HammondL. (1996). The right to learn and the advancement of teaching: Research, policy, and practice for democratic education. Educational Researcher, 25(6), 5-17.
24.
DeBrayE.ScottJ.LubienskiC.JabbarH. (2014). Intermediary organizations in charter school policy coalitions: Evidence from New Orleans. Educational Policy, 28, 175-206.
25.
DiemS.YoungM. D.WeltonA. D.MansfieldK. C.LeeP. L. (2014). The intellectual landscape of critical policy analysis. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 27, 1068-1090.
DumasM. J. (2011). A cultural political economy of school desegregation in Seattle. Teachers College Record, 113, 703-734.
28.
DumasM. J.AndersonG. L. (2014). Qualitative research as policy knowledge: Framing policy problems and transforming education from the ground up. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 22(11), 1-24.
29.
DumasM. J.DixsonA. D.MayorgaE. (2016). Educational policy and the cultural politics of race: Introduction to the special issue. Educational Policy, 30, 3-12.
30.
EmejuluA.McGregorC. (2017). Towards a radical digital citizenship in digital education. Critical Studies in Education, 60(1), 131-147.
31.
FoucaultM. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972–1977. New York, NY: The Harvester Press.
32.
GaleyS. (2015). Education politics and policy: Emerging institutions, interests, and idea. [Special issue]. Policy Studies Journal, 43, 12-39.
33.
GianellaE. (2015). Morality and the idea of progress in Silicon Valley. Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 59, 1-8.
34.
GoldenN. A. (2017). “There’s still that window that’s open”: The problem with “grit.”Urban Education, 52, 343-369.
35.
GreenT. L. (2015). Places of inequality, places of possibility: Mapping “opportunity in geography” across urban school-communities. The Urban Review, 47, 717-741.
36.
GreenT. L. (2017). Community-based equity audits a practical approach for educational leaders to support equitable community-school improvements. Educational Administration Quarterly, 53, 3-39.
HonigM. I. (2004). The new middle management: Intermediary organizations in education policy implementation. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 26, 65-87.
43.
HonigM. I.HatchT. C. (2004). Crafting coherence: How schools strategically manage multiple, external demands. Educational Researcher, 33(8), 16-30.
44.
KatzM. B. (2001). The irony of early school reform: Educational innovation in mid-nineteenth century Massachusetts. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
45.
KatzM. B.RoseM. (2013). Public education under siege. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
46.
LabareeD. F. (1997). Public goods, private goods: The American struggle over educational goals. American Educational Research Journal, 34(1), 39-81.
47.
LabareeD. F. (2011). Someone has to fail: The zero-sum game of American schooling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
48.
Ladson-BillingsG. (2006). From the achievement gap to the education debt: Understanding achievement in US schools. Educational Researcher, 35(7), 3-12.
49.
LeonardoZ. (2010). Affirming ambivalence: Introduction to cultural politics and education. In LeonardoZ. (Ed.), The handbook of cultural politics in education (pp. 1-45). New York, NY: Routledge.
50.
LipmanP. (2011). The new political economy of urban education: Neoliberalism, race, and the right to the city. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
51.
LopezM. E.KreiderH.CoffmanJ. (2005). Intermediary organizations as capacity builders in family educational involvement. Urban Education, 40, 78-105.
52.
LovinkG. (2011). Networks without a cause. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
53.
LubienskiC.ScottJ.DeBrayE. (2011). The rise of intermediary organizations in knowledge production, advocacy, and educational policy. Teachers College Record, 22, 1-3.
54.
LubienskiC.ScottJ.DeBrayE. (2014). The politics of research production, promotion, and utilization in educational policy. Educational Policy, 28, 131-144.
55.
MannH. (1848). Twelfth annual report to the Massachusetts Board of Education. In CreminL. (Ed.), The republic and the school: Horace Mann on the education of free men (pp. 79-97). New York City, NY: Teachers College Press.
56.
MarshJ. A.KerrK. A.IkemotoG. S.DarilekH.SuttorpM.ZimmerR. W.BarneyH. (2005). The role of districts in fostering instructional improvement lessons from three urban districts partnered with the institute for learning. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
57.
MattheisA. (2017). A mashup of policy tools and CDA as a framework for educational policy inquiry. Critical Policy Studies, 11, 57-78.
58.
MetzM. H. (1990). Real school: A universal drama amid disparate experience. In MitchellD. E.GoertzM. E. (Eds.), Education politics for the new century (pp. 75-91). New York, NY: Falmer Press.
59.
MitraD. (2009). The role of intermediary organizations in sustaining student voice initiatives. Teachers College Record, 111, 1834-1870.
60.
MoeT. M.ChubbJ. E. (2009). Liberating learning: Technology, politics, and the future of American education. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley.
61.
NygreenK. (2017). Negotiating tensions: Grassroots organizing, school reform, and the paradox of neoliberal democracy. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 48(1), 42-60.
62.
OakesJ.RogersJ. (2006). Learning power: Organizing for education and justice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
63.
ParsonsB. M. (2016). Local autism policy networks: Expertise and intermediary organizations. Educational Policy, 32, 1-32.
64.
PedroniT. C. (2007). Market movements: African American involvement in school voucher reform. New York, NY: Routledge.
65.
PetersenE. B. (2015). Education policies as discursive formations: A Foucauldian optic. In GulsonK. NClarkeM.PetersenE.B. (Eds.), Education policy and contemporary theory: implications for research (pp. 63-72). New York: Routledge.
66.
PillowW. S. (2004). Unfit subjects: Educational policy and the teen mother. New York, NY: Routledge.
67.
Player-KoroC.RensfeldtA.SelwynN. (2018). Selling tech to teachers: Education trade shows as policy events. Journal of Education Policy, 33, 682-703.
68.
ReardonS. F.OwensA. (2014). 60 years after brown: Trends and consequences of school segregation. Annual Review of Sociology, 40, 199-218.
69.
RowanB. (2002). The ecology of school improvement: Notes on the school improvement industry in the United States. Journal of Educational Change, 3, 283-314.
70.
RowanB. (2006). The new institutionalism and the study of education organizations: changing ideas for changing times. In. MeyerH. D.RowanB. (Eds.), The new institutionalism in education (pp. 15-32). New York: SUNY Press.
71.
RowanB.MillerR.CamburnE. (2009). School improvement by design: Lessons from a study of comprehensive school reform programs. Philadelphia, PA: Consortium for Policy Research in Education.
72.
RuddT. (2013). Schooling technologies, techno-romanticism and false promise: The ideological construction of educational technologies and the paucity of critical perspectives. Unpublished manuscript, University of Brighton, Brighton, England.
73.
SabatierP. A. (1999). The need for better theories. Theories of the Policy Process, 2, 3-17.
74.
SaldañaJ. (2013). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
75.
SaltmarshS. (2015). Michel de Certeau, everyday life and cultural policy studies in education. In GulsonK. N.ClarkeM.PetersenE. B. (Eds.), Education policy and contemporary theory: Implications for research (pp. 27-38). New York, NY: Routledge.
76.
ScottJ.JabbarH. (2014). The hub and the spokes: Foundations, intermediary organizations, incentivist reforms, and the politics of research evidence. Educational Policy, 28, 233-257.
77.
SelwynN. (2014). Distrusting educational technology: Critical questions for changing times. New York, NY: Routledge.
78.
SimsC. (2017). Disruptive fixation: School reform and the pitfalls of techno-idealism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
79.
StreeckW.ThelenK. A. (2005). Introduction: Institutional change in advanced political economies. In StreeckW.ThelenK. (Eds.), Beyond continuity (pp. 1-39). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
80.
TateW. F.IV. (2008). “Geography of opportunity”: Poverty, place, and educational outcomes. Educational Researcher, 37, 397-411.
81.
TrujilloT. M. (2014). The modern cult of efficiency: Intermediary organizations and the new scientific management. Educational Policy, 28, 207-232.
82.
TrujilloT. M.WoulfinS. L. (2014). Equity-oriented reform amid standards-based accountability: A qualitative comparative analysis of an intermediary’s instructional practices. American Educational Research Journal, 51, 253-293.
83.
TyackD. B. (1974). The one best system: A history of American urban education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Weaver-HightowerM. B. (2008). An ecology metaphor for educational policy analysis: A call to complexity. Educational Researcher, 37, 153-167.
89.
WebbP. T.GulsonK. N. (2015). Policy scientificity 3.0: Theory and policy analysis in-and-for this world and other-worlds. Critical Studies in Education, 56, 161-174.
90.
WertsA. B.BrewerC. A. (2015). Reframing the study of policy implementation: Lived experience as politics. Educational Policy, 29, 206-229.
91.
WilliamsonB. (2016). Silicon startup schools: Technocracy, algorithmic imaginaries and venture philanthropy in corporate education reform. Critical Studies in Education, 59, 218-236.
92.
WilliamsonB. (2017). Educating Silicon Valley: Corporate education reform and the reproduction of the techno-economic revolution. Review of Education, Pedagogy, & Cultural Studies, 39, 265-288.
93.
WinnerL. (1996). Who will we be in cyberspace?The Information Society, 12, 63-72.
94.
WintonS.BrewerC. A. (2014). People for Education: a critical policy history. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 27(9), 1091-1109.
95.
WohlstetterP.MalloyC. L.ChauD.PolhemusJ. L. (2003). Improving schools through networks: A new approach to urban school reform. Educational Policy, 17, 399-430.
