Neoliberal Competition and Normalized Abnormal Demands in Teacher Education

• In Event: Elevating the Dialogue About Equity and Teacher Education: An Intergenerational Structured Dialogue

Abstract

In recent years, attempts to name and proscribe core practices in teacher education have been challenged for marginalizing justice and equity centered praxis (Daniels & Varghese, 2020; Dutro & Cartun, 2016; Philip et al., 2018) and for oversimplifying the complex work of teaching (Authors, 2019). However, the popularity of one-size-fits-all educator preparation programs centered around core practices reflects a major problem of practice confronting teacher educators; the neoliberal push for efficiency and market-based solutions (Kumashiro, 2010; Royal, & Gibson, 2017; Author, 2019).

According to the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE), enrollment in educator preparation programs (EPPs) declined by 35% in the past decade, meaning more than 1,100 educator preparation programs (EPPs) within higher education institutions (HEIs) confer fewer than 100 bachelor’s degrees annually with over 300 conferring less than 10. Related, only 30% of instructors within teacher education programs nationally are tenured, full time faculty members, leaving less faculty to complete the same amount of service—a demand disproportionately impacting women (Johnson, 2017) and Women of Color (Hartlep and Ball, 2019). With the addition of pandemic-related demands (Authors., 2021), stagnating salaries (AAUP, 2022), and faculty burnout (Siskind et al., 2022), the surviving faculty in many small EPPs are pulled across programs and areas of expertise to fill the gaps while trying to sustain enrollment.

Yet enrollment is increasing in one space: AACTE’s most recent data from 2018-2019 shows 33% of teacher candidates obtain alternative certification, with the bulk of this enrollment (69%) in for-profit organizations that require asynchronous coursework, no clinical field experiences, and limited to no supervision of instruction. However, there is little data that demonstrate the effectiveness of these programs (Authors, 2022). Thus, within neoliberal reforms focused only on market trends, faculty are competing against programs that offer faster, cheaper, and less rigorous pathways to certification. The sense of urgency from administrative leaders to replicate for-profit models through increased asynchronous instruction, lower costs, and faster paths to completion is ever-present and normalized within the Authors’ institutions, despite its impact on faculty well-being (Thompson and Jones, 2021). These trends raise troubling questions regarding the commodification of teaching, learning, and students, with ramifications that extend beyond higher education.

While this problem of practice points to the systemic, we are—like other teacher educators in this symposia-- though stretched thin and battling burnout—interested in solutions easily enacted at the microlevel that are capable of disrupting practices and discourses that seek to normalize the abnormal within teacher education. In particular, the proposed symposia authors will explore how to disrupt normalized neoliberal assumptions reforms within teacher education (d’Agnese, 2022; Torres-Olave & Bravo González, 2021) through localized solutions such as forming research-practice partnerships that are community-driven, facilitating community-led dialogue about schools and schooling, and creating spaces for coalitional response and action with teachers and families.

Authors

• Leah Panther, Mercer University
  Presenting Author

• Nora Peterman, University of Missouri - Kansas City
  Presenting Author

• Ekaterina Strekalova-Hughes, University of Missouri - Kansas City
  Presenting Author