The Politics of Accountability: Assessing Teacher Education in the United States

• In Event: The Politics of Policy in Teacher Education: International Perspectives

Abstract

Objectives and Significance to the Field

In the U.S., there is widespread consensus that teacher education programs should be accountable for their impact. However, there is great controversy about which assessments to use, who should conduct assessments, and what goals should drive state, federal and professional accountability policies.

Perspectives and Analyses

This paper uses a discourse approach to policy analysis (e.g., Bacchi, 2000; Ball, 2008; Luke, 2002) wherein policymaking is regarded as an ongoing struggle over ideas, values, and worldviews (Stone, 1997) rather than the objective assessment by experts of how to obtain fixed goals. From this perspective, policymaking is understood as an argument-making process, intimately involved with the exercise of power (Fischer and Forester, 1993).

This paper focuses on the highly publicized controversy regarding the National Council on Teacher Quality’s (NCTQ) “National Review of Education Schools” as a strategic site for the examination of the politics of accountability. A private non-profit, NCTQ is grading all U.S. collegiate teacher education programs according to NCTQ standards, primarily through analysis of course descriptions and syllabi, with ratings to be reported in U.S. News and World Report (USNWR). However, a recent survery by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education indicated that 65% of member institutions would not participate with another 22% undecided. This paper analyzes this controversy based on analysis of policy documents as well as written communications, newspaper/radio coverage, editorials, public forums, and position statements.

Findings and Implications

Our analysis reveals two primary arguments. NCTQ/USNWR justify the initiative given the necessity of teacher quality in the knowledge economy and the widely-known “fact” that teacher preparation is a broken system with teacher educators resistant to change. Thus, they propose making teacher education publically accountable to the standards of external expert evaluators (Abramson, 2011; Walsh, 2011; Walsh, Morse, Ginsberg, & Robinson, 2011). On the other hand, education school leaders reject evaluating “inputs,” such as syllabi; they point out flaws in NCTQ’s research methodology, including its standard-setting procedures, absence of peer review, and lack of transparency regarding compliance. (Education Deans, Presidents, Directors from AAU Universities, 2011; Zimpher, 2011a,b).

Our analysis suggests this controversy is best understood as part of the larger politics of accountability. This revolves around two related issues: who should have jurisdiction for the education of teachers (Yinger, 1999) and the ongoing clash between deregulation and professionalization, which emerged as competing agendas in the 1990s, reflecting the rise of market-based reforms (Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2001; Zeichner, 2003). Since then, university teacher education has been consistently cast as a defender of the status quo (and thus a culprit in education reform), and the professionalization discourse has been marginalized (Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2011). It is not surprising, then, that the teacher education community’s position is reactive with little attempt to reframe the debate (Lakoff, 2004). NCTQ, on the other hand, has constructed itself as a reformer, standing for teacher quality. Given this, they speak from a position of power in the debate, which largely determines their language, stance, and approach.

Authors

• Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Boston College

• Peter Piazza, Boston College

• Christine Power, Boston College