SABER’s domain of teachers: A critique

• In Event: The World Bank’s SABER: critical analyses of assumptions, operations, and consequences

Proposal

The presentation notes that while the SABER Teachers framework paper states that “[a] number of studies have found that teacher effectiveness is the most important school-based predictor of student learning” (Vega et al., 2013, 5), this domain does not propose that because of the importance of their role “teachers and educators should be empowered” (UNESCO et al., 2015, 21; emphasis added). Although the framework paper occasionally refers to the teaching “profession,” it deflects a focus on power (whether through individual practitioner autonomy or occupational group control/influence over compensation, working conditions, and other policies), which has been identified as a key element of being a profession. Instead of being presented as those who should have autonomy, decision-making authority, and a level of control over their professional responsibilities, the SABER Teachers’ Framework, presents teachers as those who should be monitored, led, and motivated by others.
The presentation argues that decisions about which policy indicators to include in the rubric appear to be based as much on the World Bank’s ideological biases against teachers and teacher unions as they are on available RCT or correlational research findings or the policies/practices of “best-performing” countries. It documents how the World Bank’s ideological biases trumps empirical evidence in influencing the policy recommendations of SABER Teacher is demonstrated by the inconsistent use of “unclear” or “contested” research findings in determining what policies to recommend or not recommend. For example, it excludes the areas of “teacher workload and autonomy” of “teacher representation and voice” and but retains a focus on “linking teacher compensation to performance.”

Author

• Melanie J Baker, University of Maryland