The politics of teacher education: Lessons from New York City

Education policy, including teacher education policy, is largely grounded in political and economic arguments, arguments that have to do with power and resources. Most teacher educators I know believe that education policy should be grounded first in moral arguments with a focus on democratic practice and social justice and in educational arguments that lead to high-level understanding and the ability to think critically. Many teacher educators, and even deans of education, are not part of the process to influence the politics affecting the education of educators, perhaps because they find the process distasteful (it sometimes is), do not understand how to act politically, or continue to use moral and educational arguments. Acting politically and morally are not necessarily mutually exclusive concepts. For the past decade or more, I have tried to influence deans of education and other educational leaders to become active in shaping the policy affecting teacher education, and it is, of course, policy that is the focus of the politics of teacher education. In Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making, Stone (2002) argued that we are in error if we think of policy formation as rational. Instead, Stone argued that "the very categories of thought underlying rational analysis are themselves a kind of paradox, defined in political struggle. They do not exist before or without politics, and because they are necessarily abstract, they can have multiple meanings" (pp. 8-9). A good example of paradox, and multiple meanings embedded in a political struggle, is the concept of a "highly qualified teacher." For the first time in our history, we have a legal definition of a highly qualified teacher. In the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), the definition for a highly qualified teacher in any public elementary or secondary school is that generally, the teacher has met state certification requirements (including alternate routes), passed state tests, and has a high level of competency in academic subjects taught measured by an appropriate major or advanced credentialing (NCLB, 2001, pp. 544-545). And so, a highly qualified teacher knows his or her content, and we know that this is so because he or she has either passed a test, has an academic major, graduate degree, equivalent coursework, or advanced certification or credentialing. (Note that there is a nod to teaching skills for new elementary teachers.) In his review of the research on teaching, former Secretary of Education Rod Paige (U.S. Department of Education, 2003) concluded that although individual teachers make an enormous difference in student achievement, we do not know which attributes matter. Furthermore, Paige cited research that although teacher experience and content knowledge are linked to student achievement, training in pedagogy or field experiences or master's degrees have not been linked to student success, nor have certification requirements. Curiously, meeting state certification standards is one of the standards for identifying highly qualified teachers (U.S. Department of Education, 2003, p. 2). Of course, there is a great deal of other research that counters this limited perspective that quality depends on content knowledge and two other variables not seemingly in NCLB-cognitive ability and length of service (see, e.g., Darling-Hammond, 2000; Darling-Hammond & Sykes, 2003; Wilson, Floden, & Ferrini-Mundy, 2001). Why would the policy reflect such a narrow definition of the qualities we would look for in a highly qualified teacher? Why would the policy allow one to demonstrate that quality of academic content knowledge by so many means--a test, a major, an equivalence of a major, state certification (a quality the secretary is not confident in)? I think I know. Not too long ago, a senior member of the Bush administration's education hierarchy (who will remain nameless) met with a group of researchers who were, in part, debating the meaning of having highly qualified teachers for every child--seemingly a core goal of NCLB. …