First, some background: The House vote last week dealt with a $15 billion “rescissions” package proposed earlier this year by President Donald Trump. The Trump team is seeking to slash the government’s bottom line—even though Trump signed a big spending increase into law for fiscal 2018. Most of the cuts would come from unspent federal funds.
Nearly half of that rescissions package, part of a bill that the House passed 210-206, comes from CHIP, which provides health care to kids from low-income families. As we reported earlier this year, $5.1 billion of the rescission would come out of a part of CHIP that reimburses states for certain expenses. Roughly $2 billion would be cut from CHIP reserves, which help states deal with higher-than-expected enrollment in the program. The Trump team has argued this unspent money is no longer needed. The rescissions would not impact current payments to states.
But when the Republican-controlled House moved to approve the rescission package, including the CHIP cut, opponents of the Trump administration’s move re-upped their previous criticisms of the proposal.
The rescission package included a $1.9 billion, or 80 percent, raid on the CHIP Child Enrollment Contingency Fund, while in the middle of the fiscal year. Again, the CHIP contingency fund is part of a fragile financing mechanism that protects the health coverage of children. (16)
In the last three years, Alejandra Guerrero Morales has been making her way through the education profession with the Salem-Keizer School District in Oregon. Two years ago, she started as a bilingual instructional assistant. Today, she’s a special education instructional assistant. By September, 2017, she’ll be a special education teacher. Born in the U.S. to Mexican parents, Guerrero brings her skillset and commitment to the table. She also brings her culture—a resource that centers on the need for more teacher diversity.
Guerrero was one of the many panelists who were brought to Washington, D.C. on May 17 for a two-day conference called, “Grow Your Own: Teacher Diversity and Social Justice Summit,” hosted by the National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, and the AFL-CIO. The summit focused on a growing recruitment strategy called “Grow Your Own” This approach addresses the national need to recruit, develop, and retain diverse and culturally responsive, community-based educators of color to help advance the achievement of all students—particularly students of color.
Research supports that students of color who are taught by a teacher of the same race or ethnicity perform better in school. In March, the IZA Institute of Labor Economics released a study called, “The Long-Run Impacts of Same-Race Teachers.” One of the findings underscored that “assigning a [B]lack male to a [B]lack teacher in the third, fourth, or fifth grades significantly reduces the probability that he drops out of high school, particularly among the most economically disadvantaged black males.”
John Hopkin University’s Nicholas Papageorge, one of the co-authors of the study, said, “Black students matched to [B]lack teachers have been shown to have higher test scores but we wanted to know if these student-teacher racial matches had longer-lasting benefits. We found the answer is a resounding yes.”
Despite evidence that shows the need for diversity within the education workforce, gains have been slow.
In her remarks to summit participants, NEA President Lily Eskelsen García shared that when she entered the profession, she had all the right support systems: support from other teachers, encouragement from her family, and federal grants to help her get through college.
“Today, that is happening against all odds, especially in communities of color and in communities of poverty,” she said. “How do we find ways to get people to college and not be crushed by student debt … How do we help those who should be [in classrooms] working with students who look like them, sound like them, and will connect with them?”
The answers may rest within grow-your-own programs.
What Is Grow Your Own?
In short, these programs recruit local community members and help them become teachers, creating a workforce that’s reflective of the full diversity of the student population.
No one program is alike. Some programs have an intense focus on undergraduate students while others reach out to students in middle school and high school. Colorado-based Pathways2Teaching, for example, works with high school juniors and seniors. Throughout the school year, students explore related careers through a social justice and equity lens.
“It’s a sad reality to think that a child can go from K-12, get a bachelor’s degree, get a masters, and complete a Ph.D., and never have one teacher of color throughout his or her trajectory,” says Margarita Bianca, an associate professor in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Colorado Denver—and founder and executive director of Pathways2Teaching.
Alejandra Guerrero Morales
“What message does that send to students of color,” she asks, adding that “you can’t be who you don’t see.” A point that is critically important considering the growing shift in demographics.
Approximately 42 percent of PK-12 public school students today are students of color, and this number is expected to rise through 2024.
For Oregon’s Guerrero, she wants to be seen as someone who can represent the growing Latino population in the Salem-Keizer school district. This was one of the reasons that propelled her to apply for a grow-your-program through Pacific University’s Master of Arts in Teaching Flex Program. The program is a 17-month experience composed of university coursework and school field experience. The program is flexible and accommodates part-time students with courses that meet late afternoon, early evening, and on weekend. Upon completion of the program, Guerrero will qualify for a Master of Arts in Teaching degree and an Oregon Initial Teaching License.
“Many of our teachers in the Salem-Keizer district are not bilingual, and with a population of students who are Latino, they need a voice, “says Guerrero, who grew up in the Salem-Keizer area and is the first generation in her family to graduate from a four-year university. “We need more people who speak Spanish and who know what it’s like to live and grow up in the area.”
The Summit
During the summit, participants discussed some of the framework for growing your own teachers. One key takeaway emphasized that this work needs to be done with different organizations.
Brian A. Turner, a special education teacher, high school baseball coach, and athletic director from the Salem-Keizer district, urged participants to work with local unions to help change school policy. “Our local union established a pathway for paraeducators to get into the teacher workforce,” he explained. “The change allowed them to work in the schools that they’re currently in—that’s a policy change.”
Other programs have been developed with the help of higher education institutions, which have offered free or reduced college tuition for students entering education programs.
State legislators have passed laws that promote respect for different cultures, too.
“You often don’t feel included if your mascot is racist,” says Matt de Ferranti, legislative director for the National Indian Education Association. He explained that states like Washington and Montana have passed legislation that incorporates native American history, culture, language, and government into the curriculum.
This curriculum change opens the doors for elders in native communities to become teachers. “Elders can be phenomenal teachers, and we have to get them to the classrooms,” said de Ferranti. “They know the history, culture, and language—and those are the pieces that are often missing.”
Cultural sensitivity and cultural diversity are essential components of a qualified teacher workforce that positively impacts student learning. These components need to be inclusive and mindful of students and their communities, too.
“There are a number of programs to diversify the workforce, but it’s done the wrong way,” says Colorado’s Margarita Bianco. “Bringing teachers from Puerto Rico to teach Mexican kids, just because they have brown skin, doesn’t mean they understand the kids and the community. Insider knowledge is what we have to promote.”
Any lingering questions over how aggressively the Trump administration was going to pursue school privatization were answered on March 16 with the release of its FY2018-19 budget proposal. If approved by Congress, federal education programs will be slashed across the board, all to pay for an initial down payment of $1.4 billion this fiscal year on a national expansion of private school voucher programs. The eventual price tag for the program will be $20 billion annually.
It doesn’t matter how their proponents try to disguise them – education savings accounts, tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships – vouchers are destructive and misguided schemes that use taxpayer dollars to “experiment with our children’s education without any evidence of real, lasting positive results,” says NEA President Lily Eskelsen García,
That was also the consensus of a panel of experts who convened recently at the Center for American Progress (CAP), a progressive think tank based in Washington D.C, to explore the implications of the Trump-DeVos privatization agenda. The discussion focused on three ways school vouchers pose a danger to the nation’s most vulnerable students, which were identified by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) in a memo to her Senate colleagues and summarized in her keynote remarks.
Vouchers Help Private Schools Skirt Accountability and Transparency
Strong accountability measures help prevent students from falling through the cracks. “We fly blind without the information we need to make sure our students are succeeding,” said Murray. “We strive to make accountability as effective as possible. ‘Unfortunately that system breaks down completely when it comes to public money going to private schools.”
Unlike public schools, private schools have almost complete autonomy with regard to how they operate: who they teach, what they teach, how they teach, how — if at all — they measure student achievement, how they manage their finances, and what they are required to disclose to parents and the public.
In addition to the financial fraud and abuse that some voucher programs have generated, students in these programs often end up doing worse academically. “We’ve seen real negative impacts on achievement,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach of the Brookings Institution. Recent evaluations of voucher programs in Indiana, Louisiana and Ohio found that students attending private schools on a voucher scored worse than their public school counterparts on reading and math assessments.
Vouchers Fund Discrimination
Anna Caudill, a parent of a special needs child in Tennessee, told the CAP audience that vouchers do give students a choice: “You can trade your child’s federally-protected civil rights under the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for a one-time monetary amount to pay for private school tuition.”
After her son fell too far behind academically in public school, Caudill looked for another option. Her family was offered an “Individualized Education Account,” the state’s version of a voucher. The Caudills would have received $6,300 – as long as their son waived his rights under IDEA. They also would have had to re-enroll annually with no guarantees they would receive the same amount. And even with the voucher, Caudill’s family still wouldn’t have been able to afford full-time private school instruction.
The best solution is for Congress to fully fund IDEA. Caudill said. “I believe in public schools. I believe that general and special education teachers with support from their districts and their states are the best equipped professionals to address the unique learning needs of students with disabilities.”
Neena Chaudhry, Director of Education and Senior Counsel at the National Women’s Law Center pointed out that vouchers use taxpayer dollars to discriminate against many other vulnerable groups. “We see this regarding LGBT students and students of color especially,” Chaudhry said.
Some voucher-funded, private religious schools in the South, for example, have explicitly anti-gay policies. And a recent study from the Century Foundation found that voucher programs actually increase racial segregation. Some states have expanded eligibility to include more higher-income families, who are more likely to be able to take advantage of the voucher. “Vouchers can be used as tools of white flight,” Chaudhry explained.
Accountability is critical because “allowing private schools to operate in the dark will only exacerbate these problems.” Even under a new national voucher program, states can find ways to skirt federal civil rights protections. In fact, Chaudhry warned, members of Congress may design the legislation to make that easier.
Vouchers Leave Communities and Students Behind
In many remote areas of the country, private schools are simply not an option. An expansion of vouchers nationwide, Senator Murray said, could “devastate rural schools.” She cited the example of the tiny community of Plevna, Montana, where the closest non-boarding private achool is 240 miles away. “If funding is diverted to private schools, not only would the school in Plevna sever, its students wouldn’t even be able to access the private school that are receiving public funds,” Murray explained.
A new CAP analysis on vouchers found that there 9,000 “sparse” school districts (five or fewer schools) that would be decimated by a national voucher program. The ability of an additional 2200 “average” districts (5-8 schools) to serve all its students would be seriously undermined. Together, “sparse” and “average” districts constitute roughly 85% of the nation’s regular school districts.
Cassia County School District in south central Idaho has 17 schools but is still located in a remote area. “Our biggest challenge is funding,” said Superintendent Gaylen Smyer, “We have a hard time finding qualified teachers. and bringing in new opportunities for students so they can compete after they graduate. Vouchers are not going to help. If anything, I think they would just undermine our public schools.”
Is there a demand for vouchers in Idaho? “I’m not seeing it,” Smyer said. “Geographic distances pose a challenge for private schools to be set up and parents aren’t willing to transport their children a long way to a private school. So there’s no demand for vouchers in south central Idaho. Our focus is on improving all schools for all our students.”
Senator Murray calls the Trump-DeVos privatization agenda a “false choice,” because it leaves out the best option for students: strong, well-funded public schools in their own neighborhood. “Public schools by definition are open and inclusionary and many students thrive in their neighborhood schools,” Murray said.
But the federal government must make the proper investments and “ensure that the states are creating strong accountability and improvement mechanisms so that groups of students previously denied access to an equitable education do not fall through the cracks once again.”
(National Education Association, Published on Jul 28, 2016) — For 14 long years, students and educators have lived under the deeply flawed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) returns decision making for our nation’s education back where it belongs – in the hands of local educators, parents, and communities – but only if we all work together to make sure this new law becomes the game changer it promised to be.
Teachers, administrators, and support staff from Sylvania Schools are developing a plan for each of the district’s 12 schools to better meet the needs of minority students and those who face economic hardship.
About 80 representatives from the district last week participated in a three-day training on cultural competency. They heard stories about Arab students struggling to learn English and impoverished students who don’t have access to computers or the Internet to complete assignments.
Teachers, administrators, and support staff from Sylvania Schools are developing a plan for each school to better meet the needs of minority students and those who face economic hardship.
Much of the training revolved around ways to make education more equitable, school board President Julie Hoffman said.
In the end, representatives from each building and the central offices were tasked with recognizing diversity within the district and making sure all students’ needs are met, regardless of race, religion, culture, or socio-economic background.
“It was a profound experience,” Ms. Hoffman said. “I’m blessed to be in this community and to be part of this district that is willing to learn new things and respond to the needs of our students, and the needs of our students are changing.”
Adam Fineske, the district’s executive director of teaching and learning, said the makeup of Sylvania Schools’ roughly 7,500 students has changed in the past decade, both culturally and economically. He said there are more students who speak English as a second language, and of the district’s ESL students 120 speak Arabic as their primary language. There are also more students who qualify for free and reduced lunches, he said, particularly on the district’s east side.
As the district’s dynamics shift, so then must its approach to education, Mr. Fineske said. He’s hopeful the cultural competency training will help shape that process.
“The teachers are needing this, they need some support,” he said. “And how do we respond to help all the kids? It’s not what we did 10 years ago. It has to be different.”
The training tied in with the Every Student Succeeds Act, the new federal education law that calls for input from local districts and their communities when it comes to educating students. A $12,000 grant from the National Education Association made the training possible, and facilitators from both the NEA and the Ohio Education Association ran it.
Sylvania Education Association President and high school English teacher Dan Greenberg said he believes Sylvania Schools is the first district in Ohio to hold such a training, and he hopes to see other schools in the are replicate it.
“We are far ahead of the curve in that way, and I’m really proud of it,” he said.
Mr. Greenberg said he hopes to put on a community forum in the coming months to further gather public input on the district’s growing diversity and keep community members in the loop on the work that’s being done.
“I don’t see it as one and done,” he said of the training. “I see it as a springboard for future activities that are really going to benefit our students.”
The Obama administration recently published long-awaited regulations for programs that prepare new K-12 teachers.
The U.S. Education Department had attempted to do this several years ago, but that effort was notable for several controversies, one of them a suggestion that teacher-preparation programs be evaluated in part by the standardized test scores of the students being taught by program graduates. Now we have the final regulations — and critics of the original draft remain unsatisfied.
For one thing, the new regulations, as this story by my colleague Emma Brown explains, require states to issue annual ratings for teacher-prep programs, an effort, supporters say, to separate the successful programs from the failures. They still also require each state to evaluate teacher-training programs based on student learning, but this time leaving it to the states to decide how to measure academic growth and how much it should weigh in an overall rating. That means that the department will permit states to use test scores for evaluation — a method that is not used to evaluate any other professional preparation program.
There are other problems with the new regulations, as well, as explained in this post by Lauren Anderson and Ken Zeichner. Anderson is a professor and chair of the Education Department at Connecticut College. Zeichner is a professor of teacher education at the University of Washington at Seattle who has done extensive research on teaching and teacher education.
By Lauren Anderson and Ken Zeichner
Teacher preparation is shaping up to be the next frontier for entrepreneurs. Growing attention from federal and state policymakers and newly available capital from large philanthropic sources such as the Schusterman and Gates Foundations are attracting attention from entrepreneurs looking to break the lock that universities have on preparing teachers. — Stacey Childress, CEO, New Schools Venture Fund, 2016
How to put half of the institutions out of business? . . . The federal government thinks that tighter regulation of these institutions is the answer. — John Merrow, 2016
The new federal teacher-preparation regulations reveal much about how contemporary education reform “works” — and for whom. And given how the regulations are likely to work on teacher education in the coming few years, they should be cause for concern — both about the future of teacher education in the United States and the increasing penetration of education policymaking by private interests.
To be sure, while education is a state responsibility, some federal regulation is reasonable. Given that teacher-preparation programs receive funds from federal student aid programs, it makes sense for the federal government to expect that states will hold programs to certain standards, such as demonstrating responsiveness to local districts’ hiring needs, as well as graduates’ and employers’ feedback.
It’s likewise reasonable to expect that programs of all stripes will demonstrate not only commitment to continuous improvement but also evidence of progress along that path. In fact, these and similar expectations are already a part of some states’ monitoring of teacher-preparation programs.
Concerning the Content of the Regulations
Some aspects of the new regulations, however, are less reasonable, and are also inconsistent with the new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). For example, the new regulations require that states hold teacher-education programs accountable for the achievement outcomes of their graduates’ students, an approach that many, including Presidents Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers and Lily Eskelsen García of the National Education Association, have criticized and for which there is not a robust evidence base.
Indeed, in none of the professions that policymakers often claim teaching should emulate are programs held accountable in a corollary manner. Medical schools, for example, are not evaluated based on the health outcomes of their graduates’ patients, both because of methodological challenges inherent to establishing such linkages and because of accepted understanding about how complex the variables are that impact health, much like learning.
The new regulations also embody the same unreasonable (and unwise) label-and-punish mechanisms that were discredited under No Child Left Behind and are out of step with its successor ESSA.
And, as stated by both Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the Senate Education Committee, and Rep. John Kline, the Minnesota Republican who chairs the House Education Committee, the requirement for states to evaluate programs in particular ways and to group programs into categories of quality also appear to violate the Higher Education Act. It does this by dictating the form evaluation takes instead of leaving such decisions for states to make — we would hope — in collaboration with professional accrediting bodies.
Other aspects of the new regulations are worrisome for how they conspire with a particular aspect of ESSA — the optional teacher-preparation academy provision in Title 2 — to “serve up” or “unlock” the field of teacher education for innovative disruption and corporate intervention.
This “academy provision” originated in the GREAT Act in 2011, which was developed by representatives of the New Schools Venture Fund and Relay Graduate School of Education and a few members of Congress. Its aims were written into ESSA such that Title 2 dollars can now be used to support the expansion of entrepreneurial “start-up programs” (i.e., teacher preparation “academies”). These will be exempted from many of the requirements that states will enforce for other programs — such as hiring faculty who hold advanced degrees or conduct research, holding students to certain credit hours or course sequences, or securing accreditation from the field’s accrediting bodies.
The provision is particularly critical to examine because, to date, new entrepreneurial programs have focused almost exclusively on preparing teachers to teach “other people’s children” in schools within high-poverty communities — not on preparing teachers for socioeconomically advantaged communities. Therefore, the entry of such programs into the field raises important questions not only about effectiveness but also about equity.
Advocates of the academy provision have argued that deregulation and a release from “unnecessary restrictions” on programs are necessary to stimulate innovation in teacher education. This is not the case; in fact, Title 2 of ESSA presents opportunity for states to invest in evidence-based approaches — such as residency, induction, and “Grow Your Own” programs — that can be used to address teacher shortages without lowering standards as the academy provision does. Investments by states in such approaches would be wise.
Conversely, the academy provision, which lowers standards for “start-ups,” introduces a mechanism by which venture philanthropists and other corporate actors can infuse competition into the teacher education “market” and supply programs to meet the need that will arise when existing college and university programs are closed by states enforcing the new regulations.
Thus, while the new regulations rhetorically position as equal parties, entrepreneurial alternative routes and university programs, their intersection with the academy provision evidently favors expedient expansion of the former and winnowing of the latter. Indeed, it’s this dynamic that accounts for early endorsement of the “academies” idea among corporate reform entities, a number of which were also involved in drafting the new regulations from which they now stand to benefit.
Rhetoric, relationships, and the regulations
These linkages between the regulations and ESSA’s academy provision are reflected in the rhetoric and references woven throughout recent announcements. Consider, for example, that the Department of Education’s under-1500-word press release mentions by name only two “preparation providers,” one of which is Relay Graduate School of Education.
Despite its unsubstantiated claims to effectiveness, recent rejection by the state Education Department in Pennsylvania and controversial methods, Relay receives praise from the Department of Education for offering programs that “require teachers to demonstrate evidence of effectiveness in classrooms before completion,” as if ensuring candidates’ effectiveness is what distinguishes Relay.
Rather what distinguishes Relay is that it is not a graduate school in any recognizable sense. It is precisely the kind of independent program enabled and encouraged under the academy provision. What also distinguishes Relay, but goes unmentioned in the written release, is that its co-founder and current president is, among other things, also founder and board chair of the same politically connected charter network, Uncommon Schools, that employed John B. King Jr., the current education secretary, prior to his previous job in New York as state education commissioner.
Consider, too, how these linkages are reflected in the composition of those around the table at the live-streamed announcement of the regulations in Los Angeles on October 12. Notably absent were representatives from the field’s key professional organizations: National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), Council of Chief State School Officers (CSSO), and Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), all of whom soon after released their own responses.
Notably present, meanwhile, were Benjamin Riley, executive director of the Texas-based Deans for Impact group, and Ted Mitchell, his former New Schools Venture Fund colleague and now undersecretary of education. Both were key players in the development of ESSA’s academy provision and its predecessor, the GREAT Act.
In light of their connection, it wasn’t surprising that Mitchell, roughly 30 minutes into the event, mentioned how the new regulations encourage states to “design mechanisms that will take student learning outcomes into account” and then followed with a quick handoff to Riley, “is that the right direction …. Ben?” Riley, unsurprised by the question, quickly affirmed the “direction” and then mentioned related “provisions of the new federal education bill [ESSA]” as a “sea change” for teacher education and higher education.
Besides King, Mitchell and Riley, other attendees included two deans, one from the hosting institution, USC’s Rossier School of Education, and the other from an historically black college and university. Both, along with Relay’s Dean, are among the 20 members of Deans for Impact, which Riley helped found and now leads. Remaining participants were a mix of educators, all affiliated with the host institution: a local superintendent who is also a doctoral student, a local teacher and principal who are also graduates and adjunct faculty, a clinical faculty member, and an education “entrepreneur and innovator” who holds a chair “Educational Entrepreneurship, Technology and Innovation” and whose career has included founding, co-founding and/or leading online education ventures.
As with named providers in the press release and invited participants at the live-streamed event, the choice of host reveals much about the federally favored future of teacher education, too. The University of Southern California’s Rossier education school is among just a handful of schools and colleges of education in research institutions without tenure-track or tenured members among its teacher-education concentration faculty, of which there are 60, 19 clinical and 41 adjunct. Faculty in its other three concentrations, meanwhile, are 26 percent, 38 percent and 39 percent tenure-track or tenured. It follows then, that despite the university setting, not one tenure-track or tenured teacher educator was featured among attendees at the announcement of the new regulations.
Evidence not evident, and other mixed messages
There are other telling — and troublingly mixed — messages at work here.
While the Department of Education has repeatedly emphasized the importance of evidence in using federal education dollars, it has promoted — in and around the new regulations — “innovations” absent a research base (or faculty configurations that support research).
For example, King has stated that “relevant, rigorous evidence must be an essential part of decision-making”; the new regulations themselves also emphasize the importance of “useful” data that can drive continuous improvement. And yet, the department has endorsed Relay, which has expanded from one campus to 13 despite no credible evidence to suggest it has met its goal of preparing teachers who can raise student achievement in urban districts.
And when during the live-streamed event Rossier is touted for increasing enrollments — from “75-80 student graduates a year” to “in the last six years 2,700 around the country,” there is no indication given, or called for by King, Mitchell, or Riley, as to whether or how the production of “high-quality teachers at scale” is predicated on “rigorous” research and continuous improvement.
The most evident mixed message to us is woven throughout, wherever the rhetoric of respect for the work of teachers and teacher educators collides with real-time disregarding of their knowledge, marginalizing of their voices, and co-opting of their language and labor in the service of corporate reform.
Consider, for example, that Riley’s first comments during the live-streamed event stated what is common knowledge for those in teacher education and most any educational program — that we face a multiplicity of challenges and desire deeply, but often struggle to know, how students fare after graduation. He recounted learning this not from experience, having never been a teacher or teacher educator, but from the “privilege” of traveling the country visiting programs. It’s the kind of privilege that teacher educators, especially clinical ones, rarely receive and from which they would arguably glean more new insight than someone who has never engaged in their work. Indeed, they have been working, often amid fiscal and material scarcity, at solutions to such challenges for years.
To that very point, it was the clinical faculty member who offered some of the only pushback during the event, in response to Riley’s call for programs to “lead” by signing up to be “held accountable for student outcomes.” Speaking as a science educator, he reminded those present that quality data depends on “excellent assessment” and contrasted “authentic assessments … where kids get to do science” with “low-level” assessments.
He then gestured toward his former student, explained that he wanted, “to go on the record . . . all that she’s doing as a teacher, it’s hard to measure,” and invited her to “just list some of the things.” Her list included serving on the school’s professional development committee, as head of girls basketball, as assistant athletic director, as head of the science fair, and so on, all while teaching AP chemistry, sleeping five hours a night, and commuting an hour or more each morning and evening.
The list’s length led to some laughter and an assurance from Mitchell that the Department of Education wasn’t looking for a “one size fits all measure” but an understanding of “the total impact that teachers are having in their community, on their students, and their colleagues.”
For us, the exchange spoke volumes about the power dynamics at play in policy — and in the press event itself — and about long-standing debates concerning how to measure justly young people’s development and the labor that facilitates it. The exchange was also one that we recognized would not have occurred if not for the risky engagement of a seasoned teacher educator going off-script and “on the record” without the protection of tenure.
In response to the event-ending invitation for all present to offer one thing they would like to see addressed going forward, that same science educator mentioned the importance of exemplary candidates and early field experiences, and closed with an emphatic assertion of teaching as “an amazing profession.”
Riley, up next, responded immediately. “Yes, and . . .” he began, stitching his comments to the faculty member’s, and then breaking from them; he warned he’d be “a little controversial” and then stated that he “would love to see programs around the country reward the people who actually do the work of preparing future teachers as much as they do the people who do the research in the journals that I don’t read.”
Of course bragging — or even joking — about not reading research journals is a startling admission from the representative of an education deans organization. Even more striking is how the broader comment captures so much of what the incursion of private interests into education policy looks and sounds like to many teacher educators: co-optation of language and of labor.
For example, if any group has been advocating for teacher education and teaching, it has not been the corporate-funded reformers; it has been teacher educators — often from the margins of their own institutions, often up against those with fancy pedigrees and big bankrolls but limited understanding of or respect for the work teachers do.
This is why, even though aspects of the new regulations are reasonable, there is also real and reasonable cause for concern about which priorities — substance or scale, evidence or illusion, innovation or integrity, collaboration or co-optation — the regulations reflect and will refract throughout the system.
Put simply, increasing regulation for some while decreasing regulation for others is not just unreasonable. In this case, it’s cynical, dangerous and rationalized more by special interests than by sound judgments or policy precedent.
Getting real and reaching for reasonable
There is wide variation in quality among all types of teacher education programs and ongoing improvement of all programs is needed. That said, the new federal regulations will not bring us where we need to go. We canpromote innovation and reasonable, high standards for all programs; it’s possible if we allow states and accrediting bodies, with real involvement of educators, to engage in a process that has professional integrity, rather than one hijacked by educational entrepreneurs who know little of the work.
We need a sincere federal investment in program improvement, and a genuine discussion of different policy options. We don’t need a simplistic, corporate reform-serving approach that encourages — precipitates even — the closure of some programs and the funding of more nimble “start-up” ventures with lower standards.
We won’t benefit from a public and policy discourse that simply ignores the long tradition of critique and reform within teacher education, including the work of scholars such as John Goodlad, Linda Darling-Hammond, Christine Sleeter, and Peter Murrell, and organizations such as the Holmes Group and the National Association of Multicultural Education, and that frames the concerned responses of teacher educators as simply knee-jerk and “anxious about needed changes . . . in a field that has not made progress in a long time.”
If anything, such an approach and discourse only take us further from the promise of supporting accomplished teaching practice.
Last week, the House of Representatives voted to approve a package revoking about $7 billion in funding reserved for the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The decision hasn’t gone over well in the children’s advocacy community. But what’s next for this controversial proposal?
Any lingering questions over how aggressively the Trump administration was going to pursue school privatization were answered on March 16 with the release of its FY2018-19 budget proposal. If approved by Congress, federal education programs will be slashed across the board, all to pay for an initial down payment of $1.4 billion this fiscal year on a national expansion of private school voucher programs. The eventual price tag for the program will be $20 billion annually.
Strong accountability measures help prevent students from falling through the cracks. “We fly blind without the information we need to make sure our students are succeeding,” said Murray. “We strive to make accountability as effective as possible. ‘Unfortunately that system breaks down completely when it comes to public money going to private schools.”
Anna Caudill, a parent of a special needs child in Tennessee, told the CAP audience that vouchers do give students a choice: “You can trade your child’s federally-protected civil rights under the 
In many remote areas of the country, private schools are simply not an option. An expansion of vouchers nationwide, Senator Murray said, could “devastate rural schools.” She cited the example of the tiny community of Plevna, Montana, where the closest non-boarding private achool is 240 miles away. “If funding is diverted to private schools, not only would the school in Plevna sever, its students wouldn’t even be able to access the private school that are receiving public funds,” Murray explained.
