What’s the “Problem of Teacher Education” in the 2020s?

Abstract

This article is a rejoinder, some 20 years later, to a JTE editorial, titled “The Problem of Teacher Education.” The previous piece suggested that in response to unprecedented attention by high-level policy makers to “fixing” the “broken” system of teacher education, teacher education was treated as what I called a “policy problem” during the late 1990s and 2000s From this perspective, the goal was to identify which of the broad aspects of teacher education that could be controlled by policymakers was most likely to have a positive impact on teacher quality, defined primarily in terms of teachers’ effectiveness at producing a strong workforce for the new economy. In this new article, the author argues that now—during the 2020s—teacher education should be constructed as an “equity problem.” This means acknowledging that, despite many important and powerful multicultural and other initiatives over the last two decades, dominant educational and social policies, practices, and frames coupled with deeply institutionalized and intransigent racism, linguicism, and homophobia continue to produce educational inequality and inequity and continue to impede the recognition and representation of minoritized groups in determining shared educational values and purposes. A short list of contemporary scholarship and preparation programs/projects that construct teacher education as an “equity problem” is included.