Transcript So What Good Is Teacher Education Anyway?

So What Good Is
Accreditation Anyway?
Suzanne M Wilson
Michigan State University
January 2006
“The surest, quickest way to add
quality to primary and secondary
education would be addition by
subtraction: Close all the schools of
education” (George Will, Newsweek,
16 January 2006)
Accreditation
• As one form of institutionalized
traditional teacher education,
accreditation is at the center of this
discourse
Accreditation
• So today I wanted to do three things:
• 1. Briefly summarize the research findings
that exist in this area
• 2. Discuss some of the contemporary
criticisms of accreditation
• 3. Discuss some problems with the
professionalism agenda, that both NCATE
and TEAC ascribe to
Research
• There is a great deal of writing on
accreditation, but it tends to be
informational: stories of the process,
how to do it well, problems with it,
why one needs to do it.
• Wilson and Youngs found two studies
Research
• Goodlad and colleagues
– Visited 29 institutions in 1987-88
– Teacher ed was the field most affected
by outside forces
– Teacher educators were resigned to
this, and reacted by conforming to state
requirements
– Goodlad et al. concluded that the state
focus on regulation lowered quality
Research
• Gitomer, Latham, and Ziomek (1999)
analyzed data for all individuals who took
the SAT or ACT between 1977 and 1995
and who took Praxis I and/or Praxis II
between 1994 and 1997. The study
reported that passing rates on Praxis I and
II were higher for those who had attended
NCATE-accredited institutions than for
those who attended institutions not
accredited by NCATE.
Research
• Clearly, two studies does not a research base make
• There is other scholarship that helps us see the effects of
increased bureaucracy, as well as the effects of ignoring the
encroachment of authority over teacher education by state
departments
• For instance, Pat Graham and her colleagues have argued
that
– Internal accountability should attend to teaching and
learning
– External accountability should act as audits of the
internal processes
– But if those things get confused, misalignment can
undercut educational quality
Research
• Ludlow, Shirley, and Rosca (2002) found that, in
response to high failure rates of prospective
teachers on state teacher tests
besieged institutions: test prep sessions,
alignment of the teacher ed curriculum to the
tests, teachers were encouraged to read high
school textbooks as a means to beef up their
content knowledge
less threatened institutions offered
orientation sessions and workshops, as well as
extra support to at risk teachers
Concerns about
accreditation
We do not know the effects of these kinds
of reactions on program quality
Indeed, we do not know the effects of
accreditation at all.
The Critics
Four critiques of the “monopoly”
of traditional teacher education
Criticism 1: The
market argument
• Like everything else in the educational
establishment, teacher education is seen as
conservative, mired in tradition, inflexible
and -- worse -- not working.
• So we need to open up the “market”
• Sub-arguments:
– Unjustifiable costs
– The power of alternatives
– No accountability
Criticism 1: The
market argument
"As usual with vexing policy dilemmas, the education field has
developed a conventional wisdom about how to resolve this one. And as
too often happens, the conventional wisdom in this case boils down to:
more of the same. We're told to improve the [schools] by adding
more formal training and certification requirements to those already
in place. . . . The alternative approach -- open more gates, welcome
people from many different directions to enter them, minimize the
hoops and hurdles and regulatory hassles, look for talent rather than
paper credentials -- has already taken root in public school teaching. .
." (Finn)
Market 1:Unjustified
costs
• The traditional system is expensive -- in
personal, social, material costs
Prospective teachers "pay tuition, sacrifice the opportunity
to work in order to attend courses, practice teach for eight
to 12 weeks without compensation, and endure the red tape
of obtaining additional certification if one wants to work in a
state other than the one in which they trained. . . . by
requiring aspiring teacher to jump through a series of timeconsuming but little regarded hoops, this system will
disproportionately deter the entrepreneurial and energetic."
(Hess, 2001)
Market 1: Unjustified
costs
Accreditation is just as costly and just as bad
“Unfortunately, the teacher educator's role in credentialing has
become more a matter of assuring the right course distribution than
documenting graduates' expertise and effectiveness . . . All those
complicated matrices may look official but they are, fundamentally,
bureaucratic ruses rather than convincing evidence of competence. . . .
We can continue to be hindered by participating in the accreditation
and credentialing sham or begin the harder work of providing clear
evidence of the effects of our efforts. Unfortunately, I see no way
to do both." (Allington, 2005)
Market 2: The magnetism of
alternatives
Traditional teacher education keeps some
people out -- smart people, career
changers, people of color. Only flexibility
will get those people in.
Market 3: History of no
accountability and resistant to any
internal or external criticism
"The fact that schools of education could no longer rely on a captive
body of aspiring teachers would expose them to the cleansing winds of
competition." (Hess, 2002)
Criticism would increase quality. Critics have long noted that teacher
education has been resistant to any criticism at all:
To the scholar from an established discipline, one of the most
shocking facts about the field of education is the almost complete
absence of rigorous criticism from within. Among scientists and
scholars, criticism of one another’s findings is regarded as a
normal and necessary part of the process of advancing knowledge.
But full and frank criticism of new educational proposals rarely
comes from other professional educationists. (Bestor, 1953)
Market 3: History of no
accountability and resistant to any
internal or external criticism
“The [education] establishment is overly defensive; it views any
proposal for change as a threat and assumes that any critic
intends to enlarge its difficulties and responsibilities while
simultaneously undermining its ability to bear them. In short,
there is too much resentment of outside criticism and too little
effort for vigorous internal criticism. In some instances, I
found the establishment’s rigidity frightening.” (Conant, 1963)
“In responding to such malicious onslaughts, the teacher
preparation community does itself no favors by presuming that
sharp critiques are necessarily malicious or illegitimate." (Hess,
2005)
Market criticism
• In sum, critics of teacher education or
certification sometimes draw on a market
argument, noting that the bureaucracy is
constraining, costly for prospective
teachers, closed to important alternatives,
and would be improved by the
accountability and need for evidence that
would come with a market framework.
Criticism 2: The Researchbase Argument
Despite years on end of teacher education programs, we have
very little evidence that teachers prepared in traditional
programs are any better off than teachers who have
alternative training
In the case of this criticism, the critics rely on what Cochran
Smith and Fries (2001) call “the evidentiary warrant”:
"Each side endeavors to construct its own warrant but also to
undermine the warrant of the other by pointing out in explicit
detail where methodological errors have been made, where the
data reported are incorrect and incomplete, and/or where
faulty logic or reasoning have led to inaccuracies and errors
about the nature or size of effects" (p. 6)
Criticism 2: The Researchbase Argument
Furthermore, teacher education advocates are
accused of misusing, misinterpreting, and
misrepresenting the research
– Research is cited selectively
– Imprecise measures that obscure the fact that we know so little
– Researchers focus on variables that are poor measures of the qualities
they are interested in, sometimes ignoring variables that are better
measures.
– Old research and often irretrievable work is cited
– Research that has not been subjected to peer review, and an
overreliance on dissertations
– Studies that support teacher certification routinely violate basic
principles of sound statistical analysis that other academic disciplines
take for granted; methodological errors go unchallenged (Walsh, 2001)
Criticism 3: The
ideology argument
•
The educational establishment has been taken over by a
suffocating ideology that -- despite its assertions to care about
diversity -- are not welcoming to alternative perspectives
•
“Many education schools discourage, even disqualify, prospective
teachers who lack the correct "disposition," meaning those who do
not embrace today's "progressive" political catechism. Karen
Siegfried had a 3.75 grade-point average at the University of
Alaska Fairbanks, but after voicing conservative views, she was told
by her education professors that she lacked the "professional
disposition" teachers need. She is now studying to be an aviation
technician.” (Will, 2006)
Criticism 3: The
ideology argument
•
The concern here is that institutions, in accreditation, are being held to
ideologically based standards:
• Reading the NCATE documentation, one critic argues that:
all programs are to "reflect multicultural and global
perspectives" . . . . That a teacher education has to be
"infused with a particular sociopolitical perspective -- a
matter well removed from the issue of teacher
effectiveness and one that policymakers and the public
might well question” and that "teacher training programs
must 'first and foremost' be 'dedicated' to 'equity,'
'diversity,' and 'social justice.' that teachers and
administrators are morally obliged to promote social justice”
Criticism 3: The
ideology argument
During their training, prospective teachers are at a formative
and impressionable stage. By entrusting schools of education
with control over entry into teaching, certification lends the
instructors a privileged position in sensitive social and moral
discussions. This would be of little concern if education faculty
mirrored the divisions with the larger society, but this is not
the case. Professors of education tend to espouse a
"constructivist" conception of pedagogy, curriculum, and
schooling. It is received wisdom in teacher education that
aggressive multiculturalism is a good thing, that aspiring white
teachers ought to be forced to confront society's ingrained
racism . . . ( Hess, 2001)
Criticism 4: The
professional knowledge/
professionalism argument
• Verbal ability and subject matter
knowledge are all that matters
• We don’t agree on what the “hard
technology of teaching” is, so until we
do, let’s not stifle innovation
• Teaching is NOT a profession like law
or medicine
In sum
• Teacher ed is stale, entrenched, has not proven its
worth (with internal accountability or research),
and discourages the best and the brightest
• Teaching is not the same kind of profession as
medicine and law
• The “knowledge base of teaching” is debatable and
ideologically narrow
• Opening up the market would help
• Focusing on what we know -- content knowledge
and verbal ability -- would help
• Without an agreed upon knowledge base, it is
premature to keep people out
The Supporters
We had deregulation
There is a professional
knowledge base
• There is (growing) consensus, based
on both normative and empirical
grounds
Deregulation will lead
to social reproduction
Suspicious motives: For or
against the public good?
• "A market policy lens is based on
competition, choice, winners and losers, and
finding culprits. Yet teachers must assume
that all children can learn, so there cannot
be winners and losers. Market policies
applied to public education are at odds with
collaboration and cooperative approaches
to teaching and learning . . ." (Earley, 2000)
There is convincing
research
• There is evidence
• Good research takes many different
forms
The problems with teacher quality are not
only the fault of colleges of education
• Teacher education as university wide
• Mass enterprise
What to think?
• The professionalizers say:
• "Strengthening teacher education will take
political will, money, culture, and attitude change
at the universities and the public schools. . . . The
best answer to high quality teaching is
professionalism: High quality professional
training,high standards for entry into teaching, a
strong induction program for beginning teachers,
competitive pay, administrative support and
continuous opportunities for professional growth."
(p. 11)
What to think?
The critics argue:
• If proponents of teacher certification can clearly,
concisely, and convincingly explain what it is that
certified teachers need to master and how they
will assess and ensure mastery, then a more
narrowly tailored and more useful certification is
entirely possible. If proponents cannot do this,
then -- while recognizing that many forms of
teacher preparation probably have real value -preparation ought not to be made a prerequisite
for pursuing a teaching position.” (Hess, p. 22)
“Classic”
professionalism
“The foundation of a strong profession is a shared body of knowledge,
based on research, and public confidence that professionals are fit to
practice” (Wise, 2005).
•Professionals . . .
–Promote the public good
–Need autonomy to do their work
–Make decisions based on codified knowledge
–Police themselves
“The classical functionalist view disseminated by Durkheim, Spencer,
Tawney, and Parsons emphasized positive characteristics such as
institutionalized expertise, democratic control over knowledge and
technology, and a collective ethos of disinterested public service”
(Pels, 1995).
Critiques of
professionalism
•The problems . . .
•Serving society v. fortifying privileges
•Self-serving, monopolistic, and exclusionary
Professionalism a “Janus faced”: the concept
of professional autonomy “came to display an
intrinsic duplicity or duality in which good and
evil, functional necessity and dysfunctional
domination, appeared to conspire closely”
(Pels, 1995).
Neo-Weberian and
public choice critiques
Professions result in
• market closure (to preserve privileges),
• monopoly (sacred symbols, social rituals),
• exclusion (licenses),
• inefficiency (reduced productivity), and
• overall lack of productivity.
Professions as
oppressive
The rise and fall of faith in science
* The Enlightenment’s faith in science -freeing us from oppression
* Frankfurt School and postmodernists -knowledge is a social construct, never
objective, and can exacerbate inequities
instead of ameliorating them
Neo-Weberian, public
choice, and postmodern
critique
To sum up, these critiques of the faith in professionalism
suggest that the social space is being excessively controlled
and maneuvered in the service of professionals (NeoWeberians) or public employees (public choice). Since the
teaching profession follows both definitions, it is flawed,
according to its critics; it utilizes its excessive power to push
issues in and off the agenda of policy makers, it attempts to
influence the policy making process to achieve favorable
results for insiders, and when unpopular reforms are enacted,
the teaching profession controls implementation, thereby
diminishing “evil” intent of those unpopular reforms. And, in
naively embracing the ideas of professionalism it also (perhaps
unwittingly) contributes to oppression.
What are the implications for
accreditation?
• The point is to offer high quality teacher education,
anything that gets in the way of that right now if
problematic
– Don’t waste institutional time
– Be wary of the internal and external goals, and the ease by
which these might be aligned
– Be wary of the siren’s call of “evidence”
– Protect against besieged mentalities that turn good ideas like
being accountable into problematic processes like collecting bad
data
– Professionally responsible and publicly credible might need to
be disentangled
– Perhaps consider some cross institutional research/comparisons
on the effects of teacher education and/or the effects of
accreditation
What are the implications for
accreditation?
• And it might make sense to be constantly
asking of accreditation:
• Do we really need it? And if so, to what
ends?