Teacher Policy, Public Education, and Democracy

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

During the last 20 years, governments of many nations have paid increasing attention to the recruitment, preparation, support, evaluation, and retention of teachers. In the U.S., teacher quality has become a significant policy issue, taken up by policy-makers at the highest levels with teachers often perceived as the lynchpins of educational, economic and social reform. This concern with the teaching force is based on the assumption that the quality of education and the health of national economies are inextricably linked. International economic competitiveness, so the argument goes, depends on high-quality education, and high quality education depends on teacher quality. This session focuses on teacher policy in the U.S. as it relates to public education and democracy.

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chair

• Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Boston College

Papers

• Why Human Capital Policies Fall Short in High-Poverty Schools - Susan Moore Johnson, Harvard University

• Troubling Rhetoric on U.S. Education and Democracy: Paradoxical Positionings of Teachers in Public School Reforms - Kevin Kumashiro, Self-employed

• Reclaiming Accountability in Teacher Education - Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Boston College

• The Teaching Profession in the Era of Market-Based School Reform: The Case of New Orleans - Douglas N. Harris, Tulane University

Discussant

• David Cohen, Harvard Graduate School of Education