Governmentality imposes a “tyranny of transparency” on the education system – this exacerbates inequality

Depolitization of the social that Foucault (1978–1979/2008) describes as a key feature of neoliberalism is well manifested in the Department of Education rhetoric on the underachievement of minority- and low-income students. The neoliberal political rationality assumes that the problems of schools and colleges in the marketplace of educational services will be solved by the market. From that perspective, the gaps in the academic achievement and college access for those students are interpreted not as a political problem of social inequality but as an economic issue of the declining US economic pre-eminence, as the accountability codes in this study reveal, or as a personal issue of low expectations on the part of teachers, as the second excerpt suggests. In the neoliberal political regimes of the USA and Europe, the resolution of social disparity through accountability has a mixed record. On the one hand, accountability policies can exacerbate inequality (Daniel 2004) and can be appropriated for politically conservative causes at the expense of social justice (Epstein 1993). On the other hand, there is evidence that accountability can be used to subvert discriminatory practices and advance equal- ity in the workplace (Luke 1997). However, largely because accountability within the dominant new managerialist paradigm seeks to manage rather than erase inequality, it has a limited potential for critical evaluation of and change in the existing praxis of education. Part of the ideology of new managerialism, the unquestionable value of account- ability, or more specifically, market-oriented forms of accountability, is a taken-for- granted assumption in the Department of Education speeches. Backed by legislation such as NCLB and public opinion, accountability is an idea on which educational systems of states within the USA and of nations outside it converge, leading to homogenization, or in the terminology of organization theory, isomorphism (DiMaggio and Powell 1983) of organizational structures and practices worldwide. While the actual implementation of accountability may render different meanings and approaches in local contexts, the fact that educational organizations adopt accountability measures signals their adherence to proper entrepreneurial behavior in the market of educational services, thereby enhancing their legitimacy among peers and the public, contributing to their competitiveness, and ensuring their survival. In short, as an institutionalized set of practices, accountability follows what March and Olsen (1989) call the logic of appropriateness and aims at conformity for the sake of survival and success.

Based on the logic of appropriateness, the officially promoted goals of account- ability to enhance the quality, efficiency, and opportunity in education are eclipsed, if not diverted, by the roles of accountability in enforcing the openness of educational institutions to market mechanisms and government oversight. Although benevolent in its intent, that oversight imposes a ‘tyranny of transparency’ (Strathern 2000) by insisting on making visible, through measurement, poorly quantifiable aspects of teaching and research. The requirement of transparency therefore may not always be economically and organizationally rational because it diverts the energy of those whose performance is being inspected and made transparent from their work to the task of passing the inspection. This regime of continuous performance assessment and surveillance creates what Perryman (2006) calls panoptic performativity, where schools and teachers make a conscious effort to produce behaviors to be displayed, seen, and accounted for. Yet, no discourse has a totalizing power, and power relations necessarily contain the possibility of resistance (Foucault 1997). As the rhetorical analysis demonstrates, dissident discourses lurk at the periphery of the dominant discourse, marking its boundaries and helping the speaker define her position through what it is not. In this sense, counter-conducts are constitutive parts of governmentality. Secretary Spellings’ understanding of accountability and her critics’ definitions of accountability are enabled by the same episteme that makes it possible to interpret social issues in economic terms and at the same time to contest such interpretation. Furthermore, a counter-conduct is not so much about seeking different ends, as it is about finding different ways to lead (in the Foucaultian meaning of conduire, to conduct) to these ends. In the second excerpt, Spellings’ colorblindness and the silenced discourse that affirms race for causes of social justice seek the same goal: social equality and equity. Where they fundamentally differ is in choosing how to direct society to it: one vision endorses a new managerialist approach, the other suggests a critical social justice stance. Thus, counter-conducts do not seek to dismantle accountability, but to infuse it with new relations of power, e.g., accountability to peers, citizens, bureaucrats, etc.