Educational Policies and Teacher Education for Social Justice

• In Event: Keeping the Vision in Changing Times: Preparing Teachers With Commitments to Equity and Social Justice

Abstract

Objectives

This presentation will discuss selected policies at the state and federal level and their impact on the contribution of teacher education to creating greater social justice in schooling and the broader society. The policies that will be discussed include: (a) those at the federal and state level that support further deregulation of teacher education and the growth of early entry programs, (b) efforts by the state of Washington to increase the number of teachers of color entering Washington’s teaching force and the preparation of teachers for high need schools through its accountability system for teacher education programs, support for prospective teachers of color and efforts to better connect communities of color and teacher educators in the state, (c) policies in several states including Washington that require the demonstration of cultural competency for all new teachers, and (d) interventions by states to lessen the discriminatory effects of the testing of teacher candidates. Following a discussion of these specific types of policies, we will discuss, in a more general way, how policymaking can better support the contribution of teacher education to greater social justice.

Data Sources

Data sources used for the analysis include several national studies on the distribution of teachers who were prepared for teaching in different kinds of programs to schools serving students with different characteristics (e.g., Peske & Haycock, 2006), research on the impact of alternative pathways into teaching (e.g., National Research Council, 2010), research on the impact of teacher testing (e.g., Gitomer, et,al. 1999) , interviews with key staff of the Washington State Professional Educator Standards Board, and data from the state of Washington on the characteristics of teacher candidates and teachers.

Findings

Our findings show that federal and state policies that have promoted the deregulation of teacher education have contributed to furthering the inequitable distribution of the teaching force in the U.S., where less experienced teachers and those teaching out of field are more likely to teach in the most poverty-impacted schools with high teacher turnover rates, thereby lessening the role of teacher education as a force for greater social justice. There is little empirical support to date that Washington state policies designed to increase the ethnic and racial diversity of the teaching force or focus teacher education programs more on high need schools have done so, or that policies that have led to the establishment of cultural competencies for all new teachers have actually resulted in more culturally relevant teaching. Despite the lack of empirical evidence related to these later policies, it is argued that it is through reforming the system of college and university teacher education, rather than by dismantling it and creating a teacher education market, that teacher education for social justice will be best achieved.

Authors

• Kenneth Zeichner, University of Washington

• Lorena Guillen, University of Washington