‘Quality’ at a cost: the politics of teacher education policy in Australia

Abstract

Amid this global landscape for education and policy, this paper focuses on the subject of teacher quality through the lens of teacher education reform and one particular Australian policy initiative: The Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education (LANTITE). Introduced by the federal Australian government in 2016 as a gate-keeping mechanism for students entering teacher education, we apply a four-dimensional framework to analyse LANTITE's role as a reform measure aimed at improving teacher education, and its impact on shaping understandings of 'teacher quality' and 'quality teacher education' in relation to the broader field.

Do disadvantaged schools have poorer teachers? Rethinking assumptions about the relationship between teaching quality and school-level advantage

“…Conclusions about whether students in disadvantaged schools experience poorer quality teaching depend on how teaching quality is defined and measured. As a discipline, we are yet to agree upon what ‘good’ teaching looks like or, in fact, on how, and if it is even possible, to measure it (Gore, 2021 ; Barnes & Cross, 2018 ; Desimone & Long, 2010 ). Classroom teaching is undeniably complex and measuring a practice so intricate is challenging.…”

Teacher education policy to improve teacher quality: Substantive reform or just another hurdle?

“…The preoccupation with who enters the teaching profession as an approach to teacher education reform is shaped by a discourse of inputs (Barnes & Cross, 2018;Rowe & Skourdoumbis, 2017). The construction of the problem of teacher education (e.g., Cochran-Smith, 2004;Cochran-Smith et al, 2013;Ellis, 2010) is perceived as being rooted in the quality of candidates admitted into teacher education programmes (Barnes & Cross, 2018); that is, the failure of teacher education providers to select the right candidates with competencies deemed essential (e.g. literacy and numeracy skills) to being a quality teacher from the outset.…”

“…Thus, although LANTITE has been cost-neutral for the government to implement, the initiative has the potential to generate up to 3.7 USD million in revenue annually, with around 20,000 teacher education graduates sitting the test each year (Knott, 2016). With Australian universities struggling in the face of decreased public sector funding (Klopper & Power, 2014;May et al, 2013)-and teacher education programmes scorned as 'cash cows' because they provide easy-to-fill student places (Zyngier, 2016, p. 32)-the financial incentives afforded by a test such as LANTITE has raised concerns (Barnes & Cross, 2018). In addition to generating revenue, without any clear sense of how profits are being reinvested to support other measures that might also help to improve teacher education, such as course innovation, and echoing similar concerns about the commodification of US teacher performance assessment data (e.g., Petchauer & Baker-Doyle, 2016;Reagan et al, 2016), LANTITE has also created private sector opportunities, such as tutoring companies and publishers, to flourish with LANTITE seminars and support materials now being widely promoted to the graduate student market.…”

“…As concepts, teacher quality and gatekeeping are inextricably linked, with teacher quality being the problem (in this case, with respect to the preparation of teachers through teacher education) and gatekeeping being the policy solution (though mechanisms such as LANTITE; Barnes & Cross, 2018). Understood in this way, the notion of teacher quality implies a discernible line between those who possess it and those who do not, warranting a gatekeeping test.…”

Organising the ‘industrialisation of instruction’: Pedagogical discourses in the Swedish Primary Teacher Education programme

“…Another worldwide governing discourse is the focus on how teacher education is responsible for training highly qualified teachers as well as teacher education's significance in terms of progress of the educational system in general. This trend is rooted in 'think tanks' as well as international organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank (Ball, 2012;Barnes & Cross, 2018;Darling Hammond & Bransford, 2005;European Commission, 2015;Grek, 2009;McKinsey & Co., 2007;OECD, 2005OECD, , 2015. For example, when the Swedish teacher education system was reformed in the beginning of the new millennium, the policy texts (SOU 2008:109) were based upon the so-called McKinsey Report, written by the global management consulting company McKinsey & Company.…”