• Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact

Nancy Bailey's Education Website

Revive, Rally and Recover Public Schools

  • Activism
    • Anti-Charter Schools
    • Anti-Common Core State Standards
    • Anti-Corporatization of Schools
    • Anti-High-Stakes Testing
    • State Action Groups
    • School Buildings
  • School Curriculum
    • General Education
    • Educators
    • Parents
    • Reading
    • Writing
    • Math
    • Science
    • Social Studies
    • The Arts
    • Technology
    • Behavior
    • Diversity
    • English Language Learners
    • Special Education
      • Autism
      • Emotional and Behavioral Disabilities
      • Learning Disabilities
      • Developmental Disabilities
      • Gifted
      • Other
    • Early Childhood Education
    • Elementary School
    • Middle School
    • High School
    • Student Careers
  • Other Countries
    • England
    • Finland
    • Australia
    • New Zealand
    • Canada

Killing Teacher Prep During a Teacher Shortage: A Mystery? (Maybe Not)

October 14, 2016 By Nancy Bailey 1 Comment

Post Views: 15

Are you in the mood for a mystery?

Education Secretary John King recently came out with the intent to kill university teacher prep programs. His predecessor Arne Duncan, who never taught a day in his life, cheered him on.

They will do this by denying future teachers TEACH grants to go into teacher preparation programs. So even if you want to be a teacher, if you can’t afford college, you won’t be able to realize such a dream.

Isn’t this strange during a teacher shortage?

If anything, King should be canvasing the country to bring back teachers who are no longer teaching due to draconian reforms. There should be incentives aplenty for real teacher prep programs in our colleges of education.

Instead, King is yapping about how bad those old college programs are, and how they better check on the graduates after they graduate and evaluate teachers accordingly.

It never stops being hostile does it? But why?

If you skim the document about teacher preparation regulations you don’t find the words “teacher shortage” once.

And be sure to check out the link to the President’s Testing Action Plan which is all about ongoing testing by technology.

I think that’s a big clue!

King himself has education credentials, but his experience was with uncommon schools and charters. We all know about his controversial background leading education in New York. He supports Common Core and is all for what he is directed to do.

Today that means privatization through technology. Common Core is a step in that direction.

O.K. I just solved the mystery for you, if you didn’t know–you probably did.

Today’s privatization is online, digital, personalized, or competency-based instruction—teacherless classrooms.

The other incentive programs–Investing in Innovation Fund (i3), the Teacher Incentive Plan, and the Race to the Top Fund try to mask this reality. But look hard enough and you will find where they lead–to alternative teaching routes–future facilitators–while talking teacher leadership and transformation. Teachers, it looks like, will lead themselves right off the cliff!

King makes grandiose statements. He claims teachers graduate from university teacher preparation programs and don’t feel prepared. Who are these teachers and why don’t they feel prepared?

At the same time he is on board for fast track alternative programs like the Relay Graduate School of Education which figures prominently in this plan.

Relay has never demonstrated superior teaching. Relay will prepare tech supervisors—also facilitators—who collect data and make sure students are disciplined accordingly. They will be ready-made temporary employees for charters—tech charter warehouses.

If you still don’t believe that there is a huge push to get rid of teachers for all-tech charters or sitting children home on their computers, just consider the Huffington Post’s recent list of possible education secretaries after the election.

This is a HUGE clue!

We’ve all heard of Diane Ravitch, Randi Weingarten, and Howard Gardner. Andy Hargreaves might be a little less known.

But Charles Fadel is all about school transformation. 

And who is Julia Freland Fisher?

Fisher is the director of education research at the Clayton Christensen Institute. She is all about the power of so-called “disruptive innovation” for K-12 through higher education. She used to work with the NewSchools Venture Fund, so she is a privatization darling. A lawyer, I don’t know if she’s ever taught a child, or done any useful research about how children learn developmentally, or what makes them tick. But there she is, being considered for education crown of the nation.

I find it also interesting that the Huffington Post title is not about a U.S. education leader but one who is “global.” Marketing tech is a world venture.

So in the age of a so-called teacher shortage with a concurrent attack on professional teacher programs in higher education, it doesn’t take much to figure out what’s going to happen next when we turn the page. Mystery solved.

And, thus far, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a happy ending for the students, the teachers, and the parents.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Andy Hargreaves Charles Fadel, Arne Duncan, Clayton Christensen Institute, Competency-Based Instruction, Diane Ravitch, Digital Learning, Education Secretary, Facilitators, Howard Gardner, i3, John King, Julia Freland Fisher, Online Learning, Personalized Learning, Public School Transformation, Randi Weingarten, Relay Graduate School of Education, Teacher Leaders, Teacher Preparation, Teacher Shortage, Technology

Comments

  1. Lyn H says

    October 15, 2016 at 8:51 pm

    So the have everyone throw up their hands and say “we just don’t have teachers” so we need to replace them with facilitators and teach with the computer? No thanks. We are trying to decrease screen time in my house. Increase attention spans and increase human interactions. Attention spans needed to read entire books slowly and enjoy reading. Not click and learn one dimensionally on the computer.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

front cover

An education glossary with an attitude.

Buy Now

front cover

Do we really want an America where we no longer own our public schools?

Buy Now

front cover

This book says “no” to the reforms that fail, and challenges Americans to address the real student needs that will fix public schools and make America strong.

Buy Now

Follow me!

Enter your email address to subscribe to my blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Connect With Me!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Nancy E. BaileyFollow

SPED Teacher, Author, PhD Ed. Leadership, Blogging for Kids, and Democratic Public Schools that should belong to all of us.

Nancy E. Bailey
Retweet on TwitterNancy E. Bailey Retweeted
lauranbowmanLaura Bowman@lauranbowman·
15h

Cherry-picking data to undermine schools 90% of us send our kids to & privatize for profit. Way to further demoralize an already beaten-down workforce & push for EVEN MORE standardized testing & data collection. Nothing new & exciting. Sounds so very dreary/ punitive/out-of-touch https://twitter.com/roanoketimes/status/1527313907034910721

The Roanoke Times@roanoketimes

Virginia's K-12 school performance is backsliding due to reduced expectations for students and schools and a lack of transparency, resulting in widening achievement gaps, according to a critical new assessment from Virginia's superintendent of publi… https://roanoke.com/news/state-and-regional/youngkin-administration-report-finds-alarming-trends-in-virginias-k-12-performance/article_2e6f32bb-878b-5d05-b900-9b6ce2b41860.html?utm_campaign=blox&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

Reply on Twitter 1527429346696343553Retweet on Twitter 15274293466963435538Like on Twitter 152742934669634355315Twitter 1527429346696343553
Retweet on TwitterNancy E. Bailey Retweeted
cherkiesCheri Kiesecker@cherkies·
18h

Interesting. Wonder how the USDOE Office of Edtech will incorporate FTC's new COPPA policy statement. "Students must be able to do their schoolwork without surveillance by companies"
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/05/ftc-crack-down-companies-illegally-surveil-children-learning-online https://twitter.com/EdScoop_news/status/1527373549198946327

EdScoop News@EdScoop_news

The Office of EdTech is updating its national edtech plan, the strategy document outlining how technology is used in U.S. education @OfficeofEdTech https://edscoop.com/national-edtech-plan-2022-refresh/

Reply on Twitter 1527380243178082310Retweet on Twitter 152738024317808231011Like on Twitter 152738024317808231010Twitter 1527380243178082310
Retweet on TwitterNancy E. Bailey Retweeted
plthomasEdDPaul Thomas@plthomasEdD·
24h

Media and Political Misreading of Reading (Again): NYC Edition http://radicalscholarship.com/2022/05/19/media-and-political-misreading-of-reading-again-nyc-edition/

Reply on Twitter 1527297911054159873Retweet on Twitter 15272979110541598732Like on Twitter 15272979110541598731Twitter 1527297911054159873
Retweet on TwitterNancy E. Bailey Retweeted
NancyEBailey1Nancy E. Bailey@NancyEBailey1·
18 May

@PennBat I worry that many students with disabilities will miss out on inclusion classes with their non-disabled peers with vouchers. The best they will find are segregated charters or private schools that only focus on the disability.

Reply on Twitter 1527060376814231556Retweet on Twitter 152706037681423155610Like on Twitter 152706037681423155616Twitter 1527060376814231556
Retweet on TwitterNancy E. Bailey Retweeted
PennBatPA BATs R Pro Charter Reform@PennBat·
18 May

1. You lost
2. Where are the Special Ed students supposed to go when all the public schools are gone and voucher schools won't accept them?

"School Choice" isn't for ALL kids. Anyone who says it is, is full of 💩 https://twitter.com/DeAngelisCorey/status/1513571301155348481

Corey A. DeAngelis@DeAngelisCorey

@RepKrajewski the money doesn't belong to the government schools.

education funding is meant for educating children, not for protecting a particular institution.

we should fund students, not systems.

Reply on Twitter 1527046639420157952Retweet on Twitter 15270466394201579526Like on Twitter 152704663942015795212Twitter 1527046639420157952
Load More...

Archives

Tag Cloud

Arne Duncan Autism Betsy DeVos Bill Gates charter schools class size Common Core Common Core covid-19 disabilities dyslexia early childhood education Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Florida high-stakes testing kindergarten learning disabilities Online Learning parents Personalized Learning phonics preschool private schools privatization public schools reading recess retention School Choice school libraries School Privatization school reform schools Social Emotional Learning special education students Students with Disabilities Teacher Preparation teachers Teach for America teaching Technology testing the arts vouchers

Copyright © 2022 Nancy E. Bailey · Website powered by Standing Pine Media.