Teacher Education Reform in the United States: Where's the Field Turning?

• In Event: Policy, Governance, and Quality in Teacher Education Systems: Four Cases

Abstract

1. Problem/Objectives
In the U.S. there has been a shift in the policy rhetoric over the last decade—from a clamor for “highly qualified teachers” to a demand for “highly effective teachers” (Hess & McShane, 2014). Consistent with this shift, there have been many calls for the radical repair or the replacement of “traditional” university-based teacher education (Duncan, 2009; Levine, 2011). The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore the goals, practices and politics of controversial new initiatives in U.S. teacher preparation, including their implications for the future of teacher education.

2. Perspective and Modes of inquiry/Questions/data sources
Three contemporary teacher education initiatives were selected: (1) new graduate schools of education not affiliated with universities (Gastic, 2014); (2) government and accreditor initiatives to evaluate preparation programs using students’ test scores (Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, 2013; United States Department of Education, 2014); and, (3) professional initiatives to prepare and evaluate candidates’ readiness to teach independently using simulated clinical assessments (Green, 2015; Hayes, Straub, Dieker, Hughes & Hynes, 2013; Sawchuk, 2014). For each initiative, a data base of recent relevant texts was developed, including: policy documents and tools; information produced by sponsors and advocacy groups; newspaper accounts; critiques, position statements, opinion pieces, and blogs related to the initiatives; and scholarly publications. This paper addresses key questions about each group of initiatives: How do the advocates, sponsors and opponents of the initiatives conceptualize “the problem” of teacher preparation and preferred solutions? What are their assumptions about the core practices of teaching, their notions of equity and justice, and their approaches to evaluating teacher preparation effectiveness? What do these approaches say about the society that advocates and opponents are seeking to shape for future citizens?

3. Analysis/Results and contributions/significance
To address these questions, the paper combines two theoretical frameworks. Grounded in social movement theory, frame analysis highlights the rhetorical strategies reformers use to connect their positions to the “common sense” of their audiences, particularly diagnostic and prognostic frames (Entman, 1993; Gamson, 1988; Snow & Benford, 1988). Social network theory emphasizes the webs of relationships through which information, ideas, and resources flow (Carolan, 2014; Daly, 2010). Application of these frameworks reveals the multi-layered policy and political dimensions of the initiatives, relationships among them, and contrasts with “traditional” university preparation. The paper suggests that each initiative reflects a major turn in the development of teacher preparation in the U.S.. The paper elaborates the dimensions and implications of each turn: new graduate schools of education dislocate preparation from the knowledge sources of universities, thus reflecting an “anti-university turn;” new accountability systems based on students’ test scores focus on the power of feedback loops, reflecting a “data turn;” and new clinical assessments emphasize not what teaches know but what they do, reflecting a “practice turn” (Reid, 2011) The paper argues that although the three turns are distinctly different from one another, the reform initiatives are also linked through a loose coalition of advocacy organizations and groups that share certain assumptions, funding sources, and reform strategies.

Author

• Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Boston College