Education Commons^™

Developing Dispositions: Professional Ethic Or Political Indoctrination, Lorraine Kasprisin

Journal of Educational Controversy

During 2005 and 2006, Gary Howard, the founder of the Reach Center for Multicultural Education and author of We can’t teach what we don’t know: White teachers, multiracial schools, facilitated several workshops at Western Washington University. Gary’s workshops provided the impetus for reexamining what it means to be a teacher in a multiracial society, and the kinds of dispositions that should be promoted in the education of a teacher (view video of the workshops from Mar. 30, 2006 and May 12, 2005). We are dedicating this issue to Gary Howard, who has written a special prologue for this …

Dispositions For Good Teaching, Gary R. Howard

Journal of Educational Controversy

The central focus of my work over the past 30 years has been to struggle with two overarching and related questions. First, what are the qualities of personhood that the adults in our nation’s classrooms must embody to be worthy of teaching our richly diverse students? And second, how do we best prepare ourselves and our colleagues for this work? In this article I reflect on the first of these questions, and do so in light of the fact that any discussion of “teacher dispositions,” either in pre-service or in-service contexts, is best engaged from the perspective of the students …

Turning Our Ideals To Concrete Deeds, Jonathan Kozol

Journal of Educational Controversy

Among the many burning issues of concern to educators and educational ethicists during the past few years, none appears to provoke more heated controversy than the devastating backswing of our urban public schools to racial segregation at a level of intensity the nation has not seen in decades. The proportion of black children who are educated in a deeply segregated school has now reverted to a higher level than in any year since the death of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968. In New York and California, only one in eight black children is a student in an integrated school. …

Advocacy And Teaching, Stanley Fish

Journal of Educational Controversy

Reprinted by permission of the author, from a New York Times article, March 24, 2007. This article is part of a larger project entitled "Save The World On Your Own Time: Or Why Colleges and Universities Should Tear Up Their Mission Statements and Just Aim Low."

When a bill before a state legislature bears a woman's name, it is usually because someone has been abducted or raped or murdered. But in Missouri, House Bill 213, or the Emily Brooker Intellectual Diversity Act, is under consideration because someone was given an assignment.

Ideological Indoctrination And Teacher Education, William Hare

Journal of Educational Controversy

Philosophers who have been concerned with the problem of indoctrination have focused attention chiefly on teaching, textbooks, and the curriculum in elementary and secondary schools where the age of the students and the fact that they have yet to fully develop their own critical judgment suggests a certain vulnerability and susceptibility to non-rational persuasion. On the one hand, teachers may abuse their power and authority and seek to impose certain beliefs and values, actively discouraging their students from raising problems or objections; on the other hand, certain views may simply escape scrutiny and pass unchallenged in education because they have …

Return Of The Deficit, Curt Dudley-Marling

Journal of Educational Controversy

"What is it about school that manages to transform children who are good at learning . . . regardless of their economic and cultural differences, into children who are not good at learning, if they are poor or members of certain minority groups?” (Gee, 2004, p. 10)

Education as the great leveler of social class is one of the enduring myths of American culture. With hard work and a good education “any American can grow up to be president.” It was in this context that the Brown v. Bd. of Education decision of the US Supreme Court held such …

Making Sense Of Dispositions In Teacher Education: Arriving At Democratic Aims And Experiences, Thomas Misco, James Shiveley

Journal of Educational Controversy

Dispositional aims are found in many teacher education programs and they embrace numerous laudable ideals. These ideals often stand for a wide variety of goals and tend to be abstract in nature, which may make them vulnerable to attacks. For example, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (Shibley, 2005) criticized teacher education programs for liberal bias and imposing a politicized litmus test for pre-service teachers. This was largely due to the amorphous dispositional goals containing social justice language and because many dispositional goals, as high inference constructs, are largely left to the discretion of teacher educators. If teacher educators …

Excerpts From The 2006 Report: Racial Transformation And The Changing Nature Of Segregation., Gary Orfield

Journal of Educational Controversy

Editors: The excerpts below are from "Racial Transformation and the Changing Nature of Segregation," a report by Gary Orfield and Chungmei Lee for the Harvard Civil Rights Project. Too often in our national conversations, racism and segregation are treated as though they are things of the past or problems that remain only in isolated pockets. This report makes clear that racism in education remains a significant problem and that segregation has reasserted itself with a vengeance over the last decade. It also points out that racism and segregation can no longer be understood as simply a black/white problem while reminding …

Jonathan Kozol’S Nation Of Shame Forty Years Later, Lorraine Kasprisin

Journal of Educational Controversy

On September 29, 2005, Jonathan Kozol spoke at Western Washington University on his latest book, The Shame of the Nation, the Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. We have used the occasion of his talk as the impetus for this issue of our journal. For those interested in viewing Mr. Kozol’s lecture, we have provided a link to the video of his presentation. Against a background of the concerns he has raised over the last forty years, we asked authors to consider the following dilemma:

Jonathan Kozol reminds us that this country’s schools are more segregated now than …

Lessons From The Periphery: The Role Of Dispositions In Montessori Teacher Training, Keith Whitescarver, Jacqueline Cossentino

Journal of Educational Controversy

In 2002 the term “dispositions” entered the vocabulary of teacher education with a vengeance when the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) added the concept to its inventory of required standards Teacher education programs across the country developed lists of professional dispositions that their graduates should attain based on NCATE provided guidelines. Caring, fairness, honesty, responsibility, and social justice were values included in NCATE suggestions; these values were emphasized and, subsequently, assessed in teacher education programs. Students who were found lacking in these traits were counseled out of education programs or given unsatisfactory grades, at least at some …

Antecedents Of Disposition Testing: Lessons From The History Of The Good Teacher, Jennifer De Forest

Journal of Educational Controversy

In 2002 the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) published new standards for its 632 member schools of education. The first standard included a requirement that schools of education assess pre-service teachers’ “dispositions,” and suggested the core values of a good teacher; among them was a belief in “social justice.” Indeed, until NCATE quietly dropped “social justice” from its materials last summer, it was given top billing along with such unassailable qualities as caring, fairness, honesty, and responsibility.

Developing Dispositions For Ambitious Teaching, David Carroll

Journal of Educational Controversy

Critics of teacher education in recent years have argued that attempts to assess dispositions for teaching amount to a process of political indoctrination, claiming that teacher candidates are often expected to endorse ideas like “white privilege” and “social justice” as a kind of political litmus test for entering the teaching profession. In some circumstances, teacher education programs have avoided this kind of controversy by limiting their attention to dispositions such as honesty, integrity, and professional interactions. Charges and counter charges about the potential political implications of dispositions, and lack of clarity about other dimensions of dispositions, have obscured fundamental associations …

In The Spirit Of Self-Assessment: Critical Engagement And Moral Agency In Pre-Service Teacher Education, Sheron Fraser-Burgess

Journal of Educational Controversy

As multicultural education has evolved over the last five decades, it has markedly shaped the lexicon of the discourse about culture and education. Notable periods of sea change include the conceptualizing of “multiculturalism” as primarily multicultural education; and the moving away from multicultural education as solely ethnic studies (e.g. Hispanic, Black/African American, etc.) to “multicultural” meaning a diversity of cultural groups. In this manner of use, “diversity” is defined as race or ethnicity, class, gender, and sexual orientation. Presently, the educational field generally conceives of multicultural education as pedagogical, curricular and policy “transformation” (Banks and Banks, 2003, p. 25) through …

Living Savage Inequalities: Room 405’S Fight For Equity In Schooling, Brian Schultz

Journal of Educational Controversy

Elementary students from a Chicago housing project rise to the occasion and fight for an equal educational opportunity after being faced with shamefully, inadequate conditions at their neighborhood school. Challenged with the prospect of co-creating a curriculum based on their priority concerns, the young people developed an integrated effort to solve this dire problem. Their emergent curriculum not only highlights their fortitude, it is demonstrative of problems faced daily at their school and with school funding in general. Their hard work, hopeful struggle, subsequent attention and recognition, clearly elucidates the ‘savage inequalities’ lived by this group of inner-city African American …

Teachers’ Ethics: Education International And The Forging Of Professional Unity, Athena Vongalis-Macrow

Journal of Educational Controversy

The paper maintains that the current era, marked by a new global economy transforming economic and social development, has created the need for a reorganisation of teachers’ representation. This paper discusses a key development in teacher organisation, namely the emergence of Education International as a global hub for teacher unionism from across the world. This unique organisation, formulated in response to the emergence of global economies and supra-national figures, represents teachers’ response to globalised institutions and has instigated projects, such as the Professional Code of Ethics, which aim to create a sense of professional identity and unity amongst teachers. The …

The Myths That Blind: The Role Of Beliefs In School Change, Kerri Ullucci

Journal of Educational Controversy

Schools in the US continue to fail our most marginalized children. We know children of color, poor children and English language learners often receive the smallest pieces of the educational pie. One does not have to look far to see that reality. Forty-five percent of Latino children did not graduate in 2002 (Olson, 2006). Children of color continue to lag behind in college attendance (Hallinan, 2001), NAEP test scores (Madeus & Clarke, 2001) and access to demanding courses (Darling-Hammond, 2000). Regardless of the breadth of these issues, when we talk about the achievement gap, we tend to focus on the …

Teaching (For) Dispositions? Old Debates, New Orthodoxies: Hanging Onto A ‘Knowledge Approach’, Paul Tarc

Journal of Educational Controversy

Education has always been complicit in the shaping and promoting of dispositions. Teachers do teach (for) dispositions as they consciously and unconsciously respond to their students in the classroom. In their actions, teachers continuously informally assess students’ bodies, actions, comportment, expressed ideologies, and rhetoric. Under pervasive pressures for measurement and accountability, it is understandable that now even dispositions might be added to the mix of measurable entities for evaluation or certification. Moreover, in a context of diminishing state responsibility for social welfare, greater demands are placed on education—to make a difference—for example, to intervene in social injustices such …

Can Race-Neutral Remedies Achieve Racial Desegregation? Introduction To The Aclu Amicus Brief Submitted To The U.S. Supreme Court, Roberto Sánchez

Journal of Educational Controversy

The American Civil Liberties Union supports the Seattle School District’s policy to consider race as one of several tie-breaking factors in assigning students to high schools. We believe the district has a compelling interest in preventing the racial segregation of its schools, and it has narrowly focused its policy to achieve this goal, in accordance with United States Supreme Court decisions. We believe that desegregation furthers equality of opportunity, and that racial diversity strengthens the educational experience for all students in public schools.

School Desegregation, Linguistic Segregation And Access To English For Latino Students, Beatriz Arias

Journal of Educational Controversy

Latino/Hispano students have advocated for equal educational opportunity through desegregation efforts across the nation; yet their segregation, unlike that of Blacks, has been steadily on the increase. This article proposes that educational reforms designed for Latino students must address the denial of equal educational opportunity as experienced by Latinos, and that the discussion of equal educational opportunity for Latinos must go beyond a dualistic approach which views school desegregation remedies within a Black/White paradigm. I maintain that access to English is an integral component of the learning opportunity denied many Latino students. Few desegregation remedies have been tailored to their …

Discrimination Veiled As Diversity: The Use Of Social Science To Undermine The Law, Sonya D. Jones, Erin N. Ramsey

Journal of Educational Controversy

Fifty years after racially-based segregation was outlawed in Brown v. Board of Education, segregation continues to occur not as a result of legal mandates, but as a result of socioeconomic and racial composition of neighborhoods in which a school may be contained. Chief Justice Earl Warren, writing for a unanimous Court, declared “[t]o separate [minorities] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” Even though the Supreme Court …

About The Authors

Journal of Educational Controversy

No abstract provided.

Brief Amicus Curiae Of The American Civil Liberties Union, The Aclu Of Kentucky, And The Aclu Of Washington In Support Of Respondents

Journal of Educational Controversy

No abstract provided.

Housing, Race And Schooling In Seattle: Context For The Supreme Court Decision, Douglas Judge

Journal of Educational Controversy

As the United States Supreme Court currently considers the use of race in high school admittance policies in Seattle, WA (Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District) and Louisville, KY (Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education), the issues of racial segregation and unequal school achievement have received renewed national attention. In an effort to understand the context surrounding this important decision, new eyes have turned to Seattle and Louisville to assess the state of school desegregation efforts more than fifty years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision. In Seattle, …

An Analysis Of Ncate's Decision To Drop "Social Justice", Bonnie Johnson, Dale D. Johnson

Journal of Educational Controversy

Maybe it wouldn't bother us if we hadn't picked up tiny rotten teeth from our classroom floors in a toothfairyless neighborhood. Maybe it wouldn't seem as offensive if we hadn't watched our pupils gobble down free breakfasts and lunches—for some, their only meals five days a week. Perhaps we could overlook it if we didn't know about our students’ losses—a brother killed in a drive-by shooting, a grandmother’s grisly death dealt by a crack dealer, house fires that destroyed everything. Maybe it wouldn't incense us if our elementary pupils had had more up-to-date reference materials than 1952 dictionaries and a …

Setting The Record Straight, Arthur E. Wise

Journal of Educational Controversy

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education sets performance-based standards for the preparation of P-12 teachers and other professional school personnel. The standards require that candidates demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions necessary to help all students learn in our increasingly diverse schools. Essentially NCATE requires that accredited institutions ensure that candidates have content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, and the ability to apply these types of knowledge in school settings.

Educational Malpractice In Our Schools: Shortchanging African American And Other Disenfranchised Students, Thelma Jackson

Journal of Educational Controversy

Without a doubt, the world is changing at an incredible rate. America’s immigration rate is twice that of a century ago and has resulted in dramatic demographic shifts. The difference in the mean income between the wealthiest and the poorest continues to grow. Home schooling and charter schools are increasingly being chosen as alternatives for students, and cries for accountability in schools are deafening. Advances in technology and science are mind-boggling; the burgeoning Internet has placed a tremendous amount of knowledge literally at our fingertips. Huge companies are merging with others, creating mergers that will undoubtedly have far-reaching implications for …

As Our Students Watched, David Engle

Journal of Educational Controversy

In April, 2002, a three judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court handed down a ruling that overturned the Seattle School District’s use of a school choice tiebreaker process based on race when assigning students to its high schools. This tiebreaker process was in place to support the school district’s commitment to the racial integration of its high schools. The Seattle School District put this process in place as part of its response to earlier mandates (e.g. Brown vs. Board of Education) for the desegregation of public schools. This remedy was intended to support a commitment to creating …

Our Communities Are In Crisis, Bruce Bivins

Journal of Educational Controversy

Busing, controlled choice, and racial tiebreaking have proven to be band-aid initiatives that do not address the much deeper and decades’ long issues of segregated housing practices, imbalanced property tax allocations, and deep-pocketed booster clubs that have disproportionately funded some of our schools. In the early 1970’s, the Seattle School District initiated a mandatory busing policy for the purpose of integrating students district wide. In the late 80’s, the District augmented mandatory busing by instituting a controlled student choice program that allowed parents to select schools within a limited grouping of options. By the late 90’s, Seattle halted its practice …

Dark Times Indeed: Ncate, Social Justice, And The Marginalization Of Multicultural Foundations, Dan W. Butin

Journal of Educational Controversy

This article uses the recent and seemingly local NCATE decision to drop the terminology of “social justice” from its examples of dispositions in teacher education to make a larger and more global argument: that the multicultural foundations field (educational foundations, educational studies, and multicultural education) has become fundamentally marginalized in its ability to impact educational policymaking. This article first traces the political context of NCATE’s decision to drop the disposition of social justice. It then provides three distinct empirical data sets at three ever-more finely grained units of analysis—a national-level analysis of influence, a state-level analysis of coursework requirements, and …

A Simple And Prudent Proposal For Ending The Black Student Achievement Gap In Public Schools, Judith Owens

Journal of Educational Controversy

Jonathan Kozol wants public schools in America to be accountable to students. He advocates an end to the corporate model of education currently being practiced in school districts across the country and asks that we no longer allow schools to frame their students’ realities by transmitting the values and beliefs of the powerful elite (Kozol, 2005). After four decades of critically examining and witnessing about the structure and operations of our modern-day educational system that descended from the decision rendered in Brown v. Board of Education 10 years prior, he asks that our nation begin to pay up on its …