Blaming Teachers : : Professionalization Policies and the Failure of Reform in American History / / Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2020 English
• VerfasserIn: Pawlewicz, Diana D'Amico,
• Place / Publishing House: New Brunswick, NJ : : Rutgers University Press, , [2020]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: New Directions in the History of Education
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (252 p.) :; 8 b&w images, 1 table

Historically, Americans of all stripes have concurred that teachers were essential to the success of the public schools and nation. However, they have also concurred that public school teachers were to blame for the failures of the schools and identified professionalization as a panacea. In Blaming Teachers, Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz reveals that historical professionalization reforms subverted public school teachers' professional legitimacy. Superficially, professionalism connotes authority, expertise, and status. Professionalization for teachers never unfolded this way; rather, it was a policy process fueled by blame where others identified teachers' shortcomings. Policymakers, school leaders, and others understood professionalization measures for teachers as efficient ways to bolster the growing bureaucratic order of the public schools through regulation and standardization. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century with the rise of municipal public school systems and reaching into the 1980s, Blaming Teachers traces the history of professionalization policies and the discourses of blame that sustained them.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1 "A Chaotic State" -- 2 To "Raise Teachers' Profession to a Dignity Worthy of Its Mission" -- 3 Teacher Education and the "National Welfare" -- 4 "The Enlistment of Better People" -- 5 "A Brave New Breed" -- Epilogue -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author