Shadow Elite of Teacher Education Reforms: Intermediary Organizations’ Construction of Accountability Regimes

Abstract

In the 2010s, teacher education witnessed the rise of accountability regimes. Studies examining efforts to introduce teacher preparation accountability focused predominantly on federal or state actors, leaving the involvement of intermediary organizations in the construction of these regimes largely underexplored. To address this gap, I analyze nonprofit and for-profit actors’ advocacy for teacher preparation accountability. Using the tools of anthropology of policy and social network analysis, I demonstrate that these actors’ success rests on their ability to work together as a flex net, or a collective that pursues a shared vision and pools together resources to accomplish a common agenda.