"This School is Killing my Soul": Threat Rigidity Responses to High-Stakes Accountability Policies.

This article examines how accountability-era reforms, particularly high-stakes standardized testing and related punitive policies, shaped the socialization of novice Teach for America Corps Members (CMs) within an urban school district implicated in a large-scale cheating scandal. Analyzing nearly 6,000 daily reflections from 38 elementary school CMs, the study reveals that schools' threat-rigidity responses—characterized by increased surveillance, hierarchical control, and narrowed curricula focused on test preparation—created a mesosystem of chronic violations adversely affecting teachers' and students' wellbeing, trust, and professional growth. The authors integrate critical theory, Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory of development, and threat rigidity theory to highlight how systemic inequities and external threats intersected to produce maladaptive organizational behaviors, while also identifying rare instances of supportive leadership. The study concludes with implications urging school leaders to foster trust, teacher autonomy, and open dialogue to mitigate the harmful effects of accountability pressures and promote more equitable, just educational environments.