In this article Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan Lytle offer a critique of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) related to the implications for teachers in educational improvement. Through an analysis of the NCLB legislation and accompanying policy tools that support it, the authors explore three images or central common conceptions symbolic of basic attitudes and orientations about teachers and teaching that are explicit or implicit in NCLB: images of knowledge, images of teachers and teaching, and images of teacher learning. The authors argue that NCLB leaves teachers void of agency and oversimplifies the process of teacher learning and practice. Furthermore, NCLB undermines the broader democratic mission of education, narrows curriculum, and exercises both technical and moralistic control over teachers and teaching. They conclude by sketching a richer framework for teaching that embraces its myriad complexities and acknowledges teachers’ agency, activism, and leadership in generating local knowledge.

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Marilyn Cochran-Smith is the John E. Cawthorne Professor of Education and director of the doctoral program in curriculum and instruction at the Lynch School of Education, Boston College. Cochran-Smith has written numerous articles and books on diversity in teaching and teacher education, teacher research, teacher learning, and competing agendas for education reform. Her recent published works include Policy, Practice and Politics in Teacher Education: Editorials for the Journal of Teacher Education (2005), and Walking the Road: Race, Diversity and Social Justice in Teacher Education (2004).

Susan L. Lytle is an associate professor and chair of language and literacy in education at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. She recently authored a chapter in Reconceptualizing the Literacies in Adolescents’ Lives, 2nd edition (edited by D. Alverman et al., 2006); and coauthored a chapter in the International Handbook of Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices, Part I (with M. Cochran-Smith; edited by J. J. Loughran et al., 2005).