How Will Market Forces Transform Teacher Preparation?
This week I have published interviews with three leaders in the field of teacher preparation. They shared a common vision regarding the responsibility they take on when preparing teachers to enter the classroom. This IS rocket science - teaching is a profession that requires tremendous skill and dedication, and the programs that are successful recognize this, and demand commitment and intense work from all who are involved.
The sort of teacher preparation Kevin Kumashiro, Francisco Rios and Tim Slekar described will not be long for this world if corporate reformers have their way. For the past few years, reformers have had their eyes on teacher preparation, and are following a familiar playbook. Appoint your own set of umpires, issue reports and "grade" the programs, find the ones not aligned with your ideology to be faulty, and erect market-driven alternatives to replace them. This is the path taken by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), the Gates-funded advocacy organization thatappointed itself the arbiter of quality for teacher preparation, and last year issued a report based largely on their review of course catalogs for the programs being rated. This was the set-up. Because in order to replace these programs, they must first be discredited.
A new research paper by Ken Zeichner and Cesar Peña-Sandoval describes the upsurge in interest in marketizing teacher preparation.
They point out the activist role now being played by corporate philanthropists:
Unlike educational philanthropy of the past--before the entry into teacher education of individual venture capitalists and large funders like the Gates and Walton Foundations--current educational philanthropy in teacher education has taken a more hands-on approach and openly political role in pushing particular policies through their allocations of funds. This new wave of philanthropy supports policies that create conditions favorable to establishing a teacherHow Will Market Forces Transform Teacher Preparation? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher: