THANKS W:

Conventional wisdom about the past decade of education reforms has been that a number of policies have reduced teachers' autonomy and constrained how and what they teach. Whether it is blamed on No Child Left Behind, Common Core, the meddling district, the scripted curriculum, or the foolish local principal, the widely held belief is that teachers have been losing their autonomy. My colleague Rick Hess even wrote a book to help teachers work around those familiar constraints and assert more autonomy.

Now, the problem with conventional wisdom is often that it is not always right (teacher shortages are a case in point). But when it comes to teacher autonomy in public schools, new data back up the conventional wisdom.  A report released last week by the National Center for Education Statistics (which I co-authored when working for a prior employer) looked at teacher reports of classroom autonomy in 2003-04, 2007-08, and 2011-12. From 2003 to 2012, there were statistically significant declines in teacher autonomy.  

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