Who Should Guard the Gates? Evidentiary and Professional Warrants for Claiming Jurisdiction

Abstract

This article explores empirical and theoretical literature relevant to accreditation of teacher education programs. The lack of substantial research on accreditation makes it impossible to make empirically based claims about the value-added of such processes, including how accreditation processes enhance the professionalization of teacher education. Contemporary scholarship, especially in sociology, also raises questions, especially about the uncritical acceptance of the professionalization movement in teacher education. After briefly reviewing three lines of criticism concerning professionalization, the authors use that literature to “read” both Wise’s (2005) description of the benefits of NCATE’s work and Murray’s (2005) description of TEAC’s role in enhancing professionalism in teacher education. Both authors presume that professionalization is a good; both fail to confront some of the central concerns about the exclusionary practices of professions in their descriptions of NCATE and TEAC. The authors conclude by suggesting that the professionalism movement within teacher education—while important—requires that we encourage and embrace both internal and external forms of criticism.

Teacher Retention and Career Commitments Among DeLeT Graduates: The Intersection of Teachers' Background, Preparation for Teaching, and School Context

“…Teaching is largely considered a "semiprofession" (Etzioni, 1969;Ingersoll & Perda, 2008) by the general public (academics included) and teacher educators have long been mocked and viewed as unintellectual (Bestor, 1953;Kahlenberg, 2007) and engaged in pseudoscience (e.g., Labaree, 2004Labaree, , 2005. The failure of the profession to establish teaching around a specific content knowledge that is backed by scientific evidence (Tamir & Wilson, 2005) has resulted in constant interference by politicians and state bureaucrats and reduced autonomy of teachers and teacher educators, as illustrated by decades of struggles around teacher certification (Cochran-Smith, 2005;Tamir, 2008Tamir, , 2010aTamir & Davidson, 2011;Wilson & Tamir, 2008). Consistent with this general undervaluing of teaching, JDSs tend to pay low salaries to their teachers, do not require their teachers to hold teacher certification (according to Ben-Avie & Kress, 2008, only half of all JDS teachers hold state teacher certification), and provide unsatisfactory levels of professional development (see Gamoran, Goldring, Robinson, Tammivaara, & Goodman, 1998;Stodolsky, Dorph, & Feiman-Nemser, 2006; The Commission on Jewish Education in North America, 1990).…”

Theorizing the Politics of Educational Reform: The Case of New Jersey’s Alternate Route to Teacher Certification

“…In addition, the field has been traditionally identified with women who were both poorly trained and compensated (Lanier with Little 1986;Sedlak and Schlossman 1986). To make things even worse, the field has been accused by many of refusing to consider criticism and being overwhelmingly defensive about its ideas and practices (Conant 1963;Hess 2005;Tamir 2006;Tamir and Wilson 2005;Wilson and Tamir 2008). Finally, the field has become unjustifiably associated with many pressing unsettled social problems (e.g., low performance of students, increased violence in schools, and consistently unfixed staggering educational inequality).…”

A Lethal Threat to U.S. Teacher Education

“…Some of the changes I analyze have been well documented and contested, such as creation of "fast-track" programs, allowing teacher candidates to bypass traditional preparation (Darling-Hammond, 2000) and accreditation of programs that prepare teachers (Tamir & Wilson, 2005;Vergari & Hess, 2002;Wise, 2003). A gaping hole in the analysis of challenges facing university-based teacher education emerges from the historic isolation of universities from K-12 school systems (Weiner, 1993).…”

“…For reasons that Tamir and Wilson (2005) explain, neoliberalism's use of the rhetoric of equity cannot be effectively countered by arguments for professional control of teacher education and a concomitant reliance on shoring up regulations that give institutions of higher education exclusive control over entry into the profession. The failure of institutions of teacher education to stem proliferation of alternateroute programs is evidence of the profound weakness of the strategy used thus far.…”