Abstract
Massachusetts education reform of the last twenty years creates an impossible paradigm to realize true social progress and the preservation of democratic ideals. An accountability and compliance monitoring culture has created an oppressive bureaucracy for schools and educators. The reform principles narrowly framed in business and market values elevate efficacy, utility, competition, individualism and exceptionalism above public values of social progress for all. Under the guise of numerically measurable progress we have seen the erosion of resources and the wearing away of values of learning as necessary for social change. Recently this accountability extended broadly into the realm of student behavioral health as the answer to increased student anxiety, depression, substance use, and risky behavior. Instead of critically examining the socio-economic structural conditions of poverty, trauma, and violence that impact student achievement, specific to emotional health, the reform agenda has normalized the educationalization of emotional/behavioral health as the answer to poor student achievement test scores and low graduation rates. Through a critical situational analysis this project will examine how Massachusetts education reform has shifted the responsibility for social-emotional/behavioral health of students onto schools and how this has transformed the role of schools and administrators.