Teach For America and Teach For All: Creating an Intermediary Organization Network for Global Education Reform

• In Event: Alternative and traditional approaches to teacher preparation

Abstract

Objectives
Locally and globally among policymakers and edupreneurs, what constitutes “good teaching and learning” is highly contested, and prototypes that seem to embody “what works” are highly valued. In the U.S., many accept Teach For America (TFA) as an exemplar of “what works.” Recently, TFA has recalibrated and expanded into Teach for All (TFAll), an international organization with extensive reach. This expansion represents a new form of imperialism and colonization, as TFAll seeks to shape global education into its model that is informed by its narrow perspective about what is best for “other people’s kids.” In this pilot study we focus on theory and implementation of education reform by comparing domestic TFA ideology and practices with those of TFAll. Also, we conceptualize a global network of IOs engaged in global education reform.

Main perspective or theoretical/conceptual framework utilized
To achieve these aims, we draw upon several complementary conceptual frames including the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF, Ball & Junnemann, 2012), Local Advocacy Networks (Author-c, 2014), as well as literature that highlight the important role of foundations in policymaking (Reckhow, 2013; Scott, 2009; Scott & Jabbar, 2014). Recent scholarship is highlighting the growing influence of advocacy organizations that are serving an intermediary function in education policy processes — a phenomenon not accounted for in the older “iron triangle” model, much less in simplistic problem-solution paradigms. In education policy, we are seeing a plethora of such Intermediary Organizations (IOs) at the federal, state and local levels in the U.S. [Author-d, 2011]. IOs can include multi-faceted entities that may themselves produce or use research evidence, but also serve a brokering function within larger networks. ACF posits that the idea of networks is critical to understanding how intermediaries function within the broader policymaking dynamics. Furthermore, because issue networks are ephemeral, IOs do not necessarily operate discreetly or independently but rather work within larger, issue-based coalitions of researchers, funders, activists, new and old media, lobbyists, policymakers, and others [Author-d, 2013].

Research Design and Data Sources
To examine national and global IONs, we use qualitative case study (Bogdan & Biklen, 1998; Stake, 1995) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA, Fairclough, 2003). We draw heavily upon the TFA and TFAll websites, publicly available data from the World Bank, tax refunds, Annual Reports, and existing literature on TFA and IOs. CDA offers several tools to analyze discursive language in these documents such as assumptions, intertextuality, and difference.

Results and/or conclusions
As an IO that acts as a hub for national-level affiliates, TFAll explicitly facilitates a neoliberal economic and political discourse. The TFALL “theory of change” proposes power through a public sphere (i.e. Teach For All) that opposes the state, mediates the society and state through reasoned opinion, and gains attention and power through supervision (Habermas, 2006). Change happens through the press and private sector, through consensus politics and gold plating (Sennett, 2007); and through a strong narrative that is grounded in usefulness (Sennett, 2007). The enterprise provides a sense of accomplishment, happiness, betterment, and commitment to the value of transforming their society. These foundational values at the base of TFA appear to be cloned or replicated in other contexts by TFAll, without the compelling evidentiary basis that reformers have claimed. TFAll’s notable global proliferation demonstrates how the values and dispositions of this brand of education reform can disseminate through formal or informal networks of like-minded advocates in vastly different contexts.

Significance of the study to the field of comparative or international education.
Literature on policy mobilities has generally tended toward the theoretical (McCann & Ward, 2013; Peck & Theodore, 2012), and the ground-breaking work by Stephen Ball (2007, 2012) along with his colleagues (Ball & Junemann, 2012) begins to map out these cross-national policy networks. However, we have virtually no research on how intermediaries interact with their counterparts in what we might call intermediary organization networks (or IONs) to advance particular education policy agendas. Teach for America is an IO that brokers evidence and functions within a vast policymaking network in order to transform their society. Given TFA’s significant impact upon US education reform and policymaking, the proliferation of the TFA IO network on an international scale is an important study and contributes to a more complete understanding of how IONs’ participation in global education policy processes. Critical conversations around Teach For All must continue to uncover the micro- and macro-level ways the organization is a part of the greater context of global capitalism and “unmaking and remaking of schooling” (McCarthy, 2011).

Authors

• Priya Goel La Londe, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Timothy Brewer, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Christopher Lubienski, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign