Program Admissions: Merit Is More Than Just a GPA

• In Event: Toward Transforming a Teacher Education Program: Uprooting Whiteness, Replanting Seeds of Racial Justice and Equity

Abstract

Given the racist history of the United States, it is necessary to prepare teachers that are able to work toward creating more just educational spaces (Ladson-Billings, 2000). Yet, the teaching profession is overwhelmingly White (US Department of Education, 2016), partially because many teacher educators and policy makers have been complicit in creating and enacting policies and procedures that maintain systems of white supremacy. That is, teacher educators have designed processes, like admissions, that have produced racist outcomes. Moreover, these processes typically do not include any measure that would evaluate a pre-service teacher’s (PST’s) willingness to engage in anti-racist work. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to highlight one department’s efforts to change the process of admitting PSTs to teacher education.

Authors

• David Kimori, Minnesota State University - Mankato

• Beth Beschorner, Minnesota State University - Mankato