Abstract
This article is a commentary developed by three early childhood teacher educators who are concerned about the negative consequences of contemporary policy trends in the United States. The commentary critically examines the influence of quality improvement in early childhood as it relates to environmental rating systems and the use of teacher performance assessments, more specifically, the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale and the Teacher Performance Assessment. The article concludes with a potential vision for early childhood scholars and practitioners—building solidarity to function as an emerging, powerful, ethical community of early childhood curriculum workers that thrives without consensus.
Introduction
This article presents two significant issues related to the narrowing of early childhood education through political and corporate mechanisms. First, the imposition of Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS), and evaluations, namely, the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R), on the field and, correspondingly, the consequences of such reform on the field’s so-called professionalization In addition, we discuss the standardization of teacher education through assessment systems constructed to measure an individual’s “effectiveness” as a teacher or caregiver, with specific attention to the Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA). These systems of assessment can also be used to rate the effectiveness of a teacher training program by using scores on tests to determine progress made with regard to academic learning or to define such a program’s integrity.
The framing of this article comes from our engagement in teacher education programs in the United States. We realize that what we discuss here may not reflect what is happening across trans-national contexts; however, we argue that colleagues in different countries may be impacted by similar globalizing and neoliberal forces driving education reform. We also recognize the power of traveling discourses, and deem it necessary to engage in critical and reciprocal dialogue(s) with people in the field at various levels, including scholars, researchers, practitioners, family members, and children, to help us learn from and with one another, and to promote activist scholarship and critical pedagogies. In effect, we aspire to find solidarity as an emerging, powerful, ethical community of early childhood practitioners and scholars that thrives without consensus.
Entering into a dead zone
American cultural critic and one of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy Henry Giroux (2010), asserts, at a time when memory is being erased and the political relevance of education is dismissed in the language of measurement and quantification, it is all the more important to remember the legacy and work of Paulo Freire. Developing a consciousness of freedom, empowering the imagination and struggling for social justice and democracy are all tenets of the critical pedagogical movement theorized by Freire. Unfortunately, our public education has become tied to conformity, memorization, and high-stakes testing resulting in our public schools becoming “intellectual dead zones.”
Teacher education students are subjected to a process of learning that traditionally discourages imaginative thought and, instead, relies on what Freire has termed the “banking concept of education,” which serves the interest of oppression. It attempts to control thinking and action, leads women and men to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power (Freire, 2000: 77). Many teacher education programs are denying students growth opportunities proposed by Freire and the critical pedagogy movement, such as developing a consciousness of freedom, empowering the imagination, and struggling for democracy and justice. Perpetuating a standard way to educate and care for children has resulted in those in teacher education displaying a new form of colonialism that has been created and sustained through a variety of political and corporate mechanisms. When talking about a new type of imperialism that surrounds the constitution of public policies, Rhadika Viruru (2006: 51) writes about “the kind of colonialism that has less to do with the conquest of lands and property and more to do with constructing human beings with limited life trajectories and paths.”
An overview of the existing research literature on early childhood education and care shows the heavy influence of science as a way of “knowing” the child. Developmental psychology permeates the literature, with concepts such as best practices, developmentally appropriate practice, notions of the whole child, what a child care provider should look like, how child care providers can expect children to develop, and what constitutes quality child care. Cannella and Bailey (1999: 6) illustrate how far we have taken this truth-oriented focus on children by describing this truth as including “everything from ‘discovering’ developmental characteristics of children, to ‘examining’ the effects of diverse forms of child care on children, to ‘determining’ appropriate teaching/learning techniques.” A knowledge base has been created with these “truths” as its foundation. This knowledge base is then applied to children questioning the dominant beliefs concerning how they are viewed within a society and ways they are “best” educated (Cannella and Bailey, 1999).
The universal beliefs surrounding younger human beings have created a regime of truth, establishing rules that classify and regulate the “right” way to understand and care for them. Early childhood educators base their daily practices on developmental truths, which they use to normalize, label, and group young children. Early childhood institutions enforce this power by establishing a set of authorized truths about how educators should think, act, and feel toward young children. These regimes of truth have framed early childhood education within a context of developmentalism, in which young children are constantly being monitored in order to identify developmental variances from the norm (MacNaughton, 2005). For example, many publicly funded Pre-Kindergarten programs in the United States are adopting tools such as Teaching Strategies Gold (TSG) to promote assessment strategies in early years classrooms. Teachers are asked to use observation and documentation as a primary mode of data collection and then use evidence they have collected to make informed decisions about children’s growth and learning across an array of developmental trajectories. Teachers’ interpretations of children’s growth are conveyed through rubrics that compartmentalize their learning into various domains and position children on trajectories that reflect universalized and/or normalized notions of childhood. As technologies that increase quality enter preschool programs, children are pushed out of the center, and data produced from tools such as TSG are substitutes for conveying how learning evolves throughout an early childhood experience.
For decades, re-conceptualizers of early childhood education have challenged the reductionist logic that has simplified and decontextualized endeavors to teach and care for young children (Swadener and Kessler, 1991). Embracing the complexities inherent in childhood, cultural diversity, and educational practices has been a point of solidarity among re-conceptualists (Bloch et al., 2014). This appreciation of complexity has fostered scholarly conversations inclusive of multiple views of children. Following re-conceptualist scholars’ lead of inviting diverse disciplinary, cultural, and epistemological perspectives into dialogue, we perceive a need to extend such an invitation to preservice and practicing teachers.
As we critically deconstruct the hegemonies of standardization that structure early childhood classrooms and teacher education, we simultaneously strive to reconstruct alternative ways of being early childhood educators. Critical early childhood scholars have provided a useful conceptual vision. Pragmatically, we are advancing a vision for operationalizing critical and complex theorizing within the empirical realities of early childhood classrooms. Recognizing that, as teacher educators, we encounter the same hegemonies as our colleagues in the field, we feel compelled to walk the talk of our theorizing. Facing systems of accountability, much like those encountered by our colleagues in the field, we recognize that rhetoric claiming to ensure and improve quality is often in reality a mechanism of control. Therefore, we envision early childhood teacher educators engaging in an ongoing and multifaceted inquiry process alongside our students to disrupt and circumvent the dominant management discourse. We imagine scholars and practitioners finding solidarity as an emerging, powerful, ethical community of early childhood curriculum workers that thrives without consensus.
Quality rating and improvement and its impact on teacher education
The conceptualization of quality in early childhood education is one of the political mechanisms influencing the hegemonic tapestry of programs and educators in the early childhood education field. Literature connected to quality in early childhood education and care is relatively new and can be traced back to the early 1980s. Although quality is a relatively recent construct in the field of early childhood education, the notion itself emerged six decades ago in the 1920s. Quality first appeared in the business industry and was primarily associated with customer satisfaction and conformity to defined standards or norms (Moss, 2005). The shift of the discourse on quality is described as “increasingly central to economic and political life; a movement which began in the business world and the production of private goods and services” (Dahlberg et al., 1999: 89). In relation to the early childhood field, quality is linked to the notion of conforming to specific requirements. In early childhood education and care, a “quality” service is one that has been evaluated as demonstrating high conformity to specified norms whether they are defined in terms of structure, process, or outcomes. Systems are in place to measure these norms and the operationalization of indicators.
It has been argued that the concept of quality, both in theory and practice, is part of a regime of truth surrounding early childhood education and care (Moss, 2005). Quality is a growing phenomenon that has sparked great interest due to its increasing influence on informing legislation and public policy. When discussing quality in the field, dialogue is often limited to concepts surrounding its operationalization, measurability, and insurability. Additionally, the notion of quality is a culprit in initiating and perpetuating neoliberal practices that serve to oppress and marginalize certain human beings. The increase in the reliance on “quality” as an indicator of human success in life marks a trend that is deeply enmeshed in the United States, but with a global reach.
Beginning in 1998, individual states have developed QRIS systems designed to rate early childhood education programs’ adherence to quality standards. QRIS are operationalized through quality standards, support for programs and practitioners, financial incentives, quality assurance, and monitoring and consumer education. As of fall 2016, 39 states had adopted at least one quality rating system (The Build Initiative/Child Trends, 2016). The federal Race to the Top–Early Learning Challenge grant program includes QRIS participation, and has spurred growth in these systems since its inception in 2011. Although these systems have served to promote improved early childhood education programs as well as develop professionalism among educators, the ways in which QRIS limits diverse understandings is problematic.
The various QRIS state reports and their corresponding websites portray quality in early childhood education and care as a definable, measurable, and desirable concept. “Quality” has been constructed based upon Western ideologies of children and families that are embedded in developmental psychology, the idea of progress, and the tactics of regulation and surveillance as a means of ensuring conformity. This conception of quality is in alignment with national systems of accreditation and the dominant judgment reflected through child “experts,” such as the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).
The prescriptive, definitive way in which quality is defined and measured through QRIS has left out diverse knowledges and perspectives. Eliminating the possibility of multiple ways of knowing is done through many avenues, including the requirement of an approved-only curriculum in child care centers. The goals of the QRIS systems focus on school readiness, developmentally appropriate practice, and child-centered care, which also serve to limit how quality might be defined in early childhood education and care. Another blatant omission in the current discourse surrounding quality is the perspective of those outside the expert or governmental realms, including directors, parents, teachers, and the children themselves. Ironically, it is those who are silenced that bear the brunt of the regulations and ramifications of the QRIS systems.
Including the input of diverse stakeholders in the process of defining quality is a vital step toward recognizing and being responsive to localized meanings of quality in early childhood settings. Standardized evaluations of quality employ a distal perspective that methodologically factors out the interests and desires of children and families as well as the early childhood professionals facilitating their experiences. Informed by common learning objectives for students or uniform standards of performance for teachers, prescriptive appraisals of quality lead to prescriptive educational experiences. Consequently, linear trajectories allegedly marking a pathway for readying young children to perform well in standardized tests they will be required to take in early elementary school narrowly structure which of the practices early learning experiences are organized around are deemed to be quality ones (Brown, 2009; Spodek and Saracho, 2013). Adair (2014), Brown (2007), and Fuller (2007) have raised concerns that such prescriptive rigidity restricts the types of early learning opportunities afforded to young children. Next, we will take a closer look at two quality measures commonly utilized to evaluate early childhood classrooms.
ECERS-R and QRIS
The most dominant tool for measuring quality and its associated indicators is the ECERS-R, which assesses services for children between the ages of two and a half and five. This scale, alongside the Infant/Toddler Environmental Rating Scale (ITERS-R), the Family Day Care Rating Scale, and the School-Age Care Environmental Rating Scale were originally developed in the United States, but are currently used worldwide as a definitive global measure of quality in the education and care of children. Currently, 48% of state QRIS utilize the ECERS as the tool for observing program quality. A majority of the early childhood education and care literature examines quality as a quantifiable construct that can be measured through the use of the ECERS-R (Cassidy et al., 2005; Hofer, 2010; Sakai et al., 2003; Warash et al., 2008). Using a measurement tool that was originally developed in the United States as an indicator of global quality aids in the creation of hegemony and the belief that there is a universal definition of quality and how it can be applied and cultivated across cultures and contexts. There is some research that raises concern about how the ECERS-R might or might not be culturally relevant (Lee and Walsh, 2005; Pan et al., 2010; Pence, 2008; Riley et al., 2005; Sheridan and Schuster, 2001), but even the research that questions the cultural sensitivity of the ECERS-R does so in a way that still makes use of the tool as a definitive measure.
Quality can essentially be defined and described by the ECERS-R. Many articles describe how the Western reach of quality, including beliefs put forward by the United States’ most revered authority on early childhood education, the NAEYC, has influenced quality rating systems and systems of accreditation around the globe. Lee and Walsh’s (2005) qualitative study examined the cultural context, underlying ideology, and dominant discourses of American childcare and development and how these are linked to the concept of quality. The authors argue that although many policy makers, scholars, and evaluators reduce the dynamics of quality into manageable and measurable indices, we need to recognize that quality is actually a value-laden and context-bound concept. Quality is held in a privileged position and has become influential in informing public policy. Tied to globalization is neoliberalism, which Olssen (1996: 340) has suggested be defined as “governing without governing.” This can be seen in the ways states claim to refrain from regulating individuals, but use less overt tactics of measurement and surveillance to narrow peoples’ movements and trajectories. Part of the neoliberal market includes the shifting of the control of public services to the private sector. This shift is illustrated in the way quality is now tied to private accreditation and the privileging of “expert”-created definitions of measurement and its associated tools. Moss (2005: 408) describes how specific discourses tied to early childhood education serve to govern the child through the construction of a “certain kind of educated subject that is fitted to the needs of the labor market in today’s dominant form of capitalism, ‘flexible’ (or neoliberal) capitalism.” Quality has been constructed as a consumer idea and is being “sold” to parents as an investment in their child’s future.
Throughout QRIS state reports and websites, teachers are portrayed as empty vessels, in need of training and continuous professional development. They are perceived as trainable, and through such proper training will be able to provide quality early childhood education and care. This ongoing training inculcates the belief that the more formal education he/she has, the better equipped a teacher is. Despite multiple sites for training and professional development, teachers are ultimately viewed as never really knowing everything they need to know; this leaves them on a continuous quest to attain expert knowledge. Teachers are also viewed as the “gate-keepers” for assessing children and keeping them on track. This role makes teachers bear the responsibility of creating the dichotomy between normal and abnormal children.
QRIS were created to bridge the gap between licensing and accreditation standards, all of which are intrinsically tied to quality. The close tie between quality rating systems and accreditation is troubling because it privileges organizations with the financial ability to go through an accreditation process while oppressing those who do not. Several of the QRIS systems symbolically show quality as being attained through a “step” or “level” process. This creates a hierarchy that, ultimately, gives those in the higher ranks more credibility. QRIS have been used to construct a body of knowledge surrounding children and their care. This body of knowledge privileges those who buy into the dominant belief system surrounding quality and harms those who do not, and it is being force-fed to society through these QRIS systems. This constructed knowledge is tied to money and further marginalizes people not in the dominant culture.
Because of this universal conception of quality, limitations are being placed on children and educators alike. The QRIS systems are limiting teaching possibilities in multiple ways, including the privileging of certain types of education, training, or credentials. Teachers are being limited in their opportunities for acquiring multiple knowledges by being subjected to training calendars that focus on and support the dominant discourse. Ultimately, this limits teachers’ knowledge to that of the dominant discourse and leaves little room for diversity. Using the ECERS-R as a gauge for quality early childhood education and care limits the type of care providers can offer to the families they serve. If providers deviate from the ECERS-R indicators, they are not viewed as providing quality care.
This critical analysis of instruments commonly used to measure quality in early childhood settings dually impacts the experiences of children and teachers. We have argued that a reductionist logic underlies the construction of a regime of truth that problematically limits common understandings of what constitutes quality early learning experiences. Uncritically taking linear developmental trajectories for granted as universal truths diminishes the purposes of early learning as preparation for children’s future learning objectives. As such, discourses of readiness are increasingly defining young children’s educational experiences, leading to an increased focus on the acquisition of academic knowledge and skills with less emphasis on social and emotional wellbeing (Brown, 2007; Graue, 2008; Spodeck and Saracho, 2013). Likewise, standardized quality metrics are putting pressure on early childhood teacher educators to produce sound practitioners, who are “ready” for the classroom. In the next section, we will critically examine edTPA to unravel how logical reductionism is also informing a dominant discourse on the professional identities of early childhood educators.
Standardization and its impact on teacher education
In recent years, education policies in the United States have been enacted in an attempt to reform teacher preparation and to increase focus on teacher quality (Parkes and Powell, 2015) In addition, the emphasis on kindergarten readiness and movements to provide publicly funded schooling for children aged 14 more broadly has reinforced efforts to professionalize the field of early education. Despite this, adults working with children under the age of five are rarely considered to be professionals and, consequently, are not compensated or valued for their work. The field continues to struggle with teacher retention and constructing or maintaining “quality” care and education. Yet, at the same time, the engines to promote teacher quality are taking control and the ideals of “best practices” are codified through various assessment or evaluation systems. Similar to the effects of ECERS there is a privileging of certain teaching practices over others. More to the point, these mechanisms or “prescriptive technologies” (Dahlberg et al., 1999) are more commonly used to measure and improve teacher “effectiveness” in early childhood care and education The extent of this reform is, ultimately, (re)shaping children’s engagement in learning, creating experiences in schools that are emblematic of corporate-based reform.
Since the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, there has been a notable shift away from play-based and emergent curriculum designs to more scripted programs that align with standards or constructs of school readiness (Nicolopoulou, 2010). Hatch (2002) referred to such change as an “accountability shovedown” and argues that the push for outcomes-based learning has diminished the value of teaching to the whole child. The emphasis on language and literacy learning and mathematics privileges the acquisition of discrete skills and knowledge over play, playful learning, emergent curriculum, or child-guided pedagogies. The accountability shovedown positions educators between a rock and a hard place, as efforts to maintain the integrity of play and play-based learning are subverted by pressures to meet standards and expectations set by assessment tools and performance-based measures. It is becoming increasingly common for teachers to use more direct teaching approaches to increase children’s engagement with early literacy and language instruction, as well as domains such as mathematics or science—those aligned with the Common Core State Standards. As such, effective teaching is largely defined by teachers’ abilities to examine children’s acquisition of discrete skills and knowledge and, more and more, early childhood practitioners are being encouraged to use rubrics or evaluation criteria to determine the extent to which children demonstrate proficiency in any given learning domain. Whereas definitions of effectiveness are ambiguous, and largely depend on the context of a person’s experiences in the classroom (e.g. program type, age group, mission, or philosophy of an early learning setting), forces such as quality improvement reinforce narrow conceptions of good teaching based on various frameworks, including the ECERS, the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, or the Danielson Framework.
Barnett (2003) published a report that argues teachers’ educational qualifications have a significant influence on teacher quality and children’s learning. Since that time, measures used to determine a teacher’s effectiveness have proliferated in teacher education, alongside alignment with QRIS, and in response to policy initiatives such as Race to the Top. Prior to entering a classroom, early childhood teachers are required to demonstrate their “readiness” to teach young children and show promise of becoming quality educators. This comes in the form of completing college courses, earning advanced degrees focused on child development or early care and education, and then obtaining certification or licensure. There are various entities at both national and local levels that set the expectations and requirements for teacher education programs. One such organization is the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, which facilitates the implementation of the Teacher Performance Assessment, also referred to as the edTPA. The edTPA is an instrument used to determine whether preservice teachers (or teachers seeking certification or credentialing) can demonstrate effective practice. The edTPA is currently used in 766 Educator Programs across 40 states (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, n.d.). Whereas the aim of this assessment at a micro-level is to help teachers closely examine their teaching and interactions with children, in the broader and riskier sense, scores from the edTPA can be used to measure the effectiveness of a teacher training program. New federal regulations for teacher education in the United States give states permission to use test scores to measure academic growth and professional learning (Strauss, 2016).
By defining what teaching effectiveness and teacher quality are and measuring them uniformly, children, parents, teachers, administrators, and early childhood education and care programs are being limited in their possibilities. The edTPA bolsters this trend based on its structure and its inherent focus on language and literacy learning. Teacher candidates identify a central focus and set primary objectives, and then document instruction and learning during preplanned units or “learning segments.” Additionally, the edTPA requires that teacher candidates establish key vocabulary for a learning segment and individuals must track the ways children use the specific language as they participate in learning experiences. The edTPA is scored using a series of rubrics, wherein teacher candidates are scored based on levels 1–5, with 1 being the lowest rating and 5 the highest. Progressions are defined by variations teachers can make in their planning, instruction, or assessment to enhance their own teaching or “deepen” children’s learning. This in itself leads to questions about the extent to which scoring is determined by nuanced understandings of children’s school and life experiences, if at all, or whether the assessment enables the perpetuation of a universalized or “one best way” of educating younger people. How does the assessment inhibit or support notions of promising or appropriate practices as context specific or locally defined constructs in early learning settings?
The edTPA is intended to promote reflective practice, and to provide teacher candidates with a platform from which to articulate their pedagogical decision-making to justify their views on effective teaching, particularly as it relates to a group of children or an entire class. Teacher candidates are required to upload both various artifacts to showcase aspects of their planning and assessment, and video footage of themselves teaching and interacting with children, in addition to providing “evidence of children’s learning” (these artifacts can be work samples, photo documentation, or audio recordings). In earlier versions of the edTPA handbook, it was recommended that the edTPA be carried out with children three years of age or older, thus disregarding the important contributions educarers who work with infants and toddlers make on a daily basis. This might also suggest that these individuals are less professional than their peers working with older children. The edTPA also carries a risk of teacher candidates losing their more authentic selves or professional identities, opting to perform what they perceive to be a right way of teaching and working with young children. Chiu (2014) asserts the edTPA “depersonalizes the craft of teaching,” and limits opportunity for teachers to engage in work around multicultural education, inclusionary practices, or critical pedagogies. She argues that teacher candidates must “fit a certain mold,” defined by the edTPA assessment protocol. Michael Luna (2016) asserts the edTPA also forces people of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds to shift their voices and perspectives to align with the external standards set by the edTPA.
Upon completion of the edTPA portfolio, teacher candidates submit their work to external reviewers hired by Pearson Education, Inc. The intention of this is to reduce bias and subjectivity in scoring a portfolio; however, there is rising criticism in that people are concerned about the lack of localized understandings of children within the context of their schools and/or communities. Greenblatt and O’Hara (2015) point out there is a significant lack of transparency in scoring, with individuals lacking information about who the scorers are and how they were selected to review portfolios. The authors also raise concerns about the consistency of scoring across socio-cultural contexts. Once more, the commodification of early childhood education and care is evident. Through the outsourcing and corporatization of teacher evaluation, we see how neoliberal practices are connected to it as well. As a consequence, groups of people who deviate from the dominant discourse are further oppressed and marginalized.
Moving beyond quality improvement and standardization
How do we approach decolonizing teacher education or work toward reconceptualizing teaching and learning as people enter the field? One way to combat the narrowing of the curriculum is to revisit the shared understandings that comprise what it means to construct (and ideally co-construct with children) inclusive classroom settings. Early childhood teacher educators have long been challenging dominant discourses circulating around children and childhood (Bloch et al., 2014; Canella, 1997; Lubeck, 1998; Soto, 2000; Swadener and Kessler, 1991). Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education scholars, concerned with the imposition of Eurocentric, middle-class views on children/childhoods and schooling, have advocated for culturally responsive schooling or educational practices that privilege the range of diversities that present themselves in everyday life, and across socio-cultural contexts. More recent lay publications or textbooks highlight the work of the reconceptualist community by sharing perspectives on indigenous knowledges, critical race theories, postmodern philosophies, and posthumanist thinking, among other approache Seguara-Mara.
Multicultural and anti-bias education is gaining prominence in various early childhood organizations including the NAEYC. Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edward’s seminal book on anti-bias education (ABE), originally published in 2010, is a practical guide for teachers and other professionals in the field (Derman-Sparks and Edwards, 2010). Likewise, publications such as Rethinking Early Childhood Education (Pelo, 2008) foreground teachers’ perspectives on addressing social justice issues in classrooms. The inclusion of ABE in the dominant discourse of early childhood teacher education is promising; however, anti-bias work is too often displaced in coursework because of expectations with regard to aligning teaching and learning with empirically based or scientifically based strategies for early education (as previously discussed). Therefore, like Lenz Taguchi (2006), we encourage an “ethic of resistance” for those pre- and in-service teachers that allows them to deconstruct these regimes of truth surrounding quality rating improvement and standardization systems and reconstruct their own practices in meaningful and respectful ways. As Garlen et al. (2017) remind us, and citing Seguara-Mara (2008): As teachers, we are cultural workers, whether we are aware of it or not. If teachers don’t question the culture and values being promoted in the classroom, they socialize their students to accept the uneven power relations of our society.
Demonstrating the strategic implementation of multicultural and ABE in pre- and in-service teacher education programs is a powerful way to resist the dominant discourse of quality. Early childhood teacher educators can encourage others to review their course syllabuses and look at who is represented in the course readings (e.g. Is it mainly men? Or is it primarily white, European men? How many women are represented? How many people of diverse cultural or ethnic backgrounds are represented?) To what extent are early childhood teacher educators engaging preservice (and in-service) teachers in critical pedagogies, postmodern philosophies, feminist perspectives, etc.
Additionally, it is important to ground critical reflection in the realities of typical programs or classrooms to gain in-depth understandings of how policies aligned with school reform, the expansion of publicly funded Pre-Kindergarten programs, or QRIS impact on the daily life experiences of teachers, children, and their families in classrooms. If you are a teacher educator, examine the ways you are interacting with other colleagues and sites in your programs, including other school leaders (principals and directors), cooperating teachers and personnel within programs, placement sites, and/or classrooms. How often are you going into the field to observe teacher candidates going through your program? What practices do you see being used to support children’s growth and learning? To what extent do these practices take into consideration and reflect children’s and families’ “funds of knowledge” (Moll et al., 1992)? Moreover, we encourage teacher educators to work alongside colleagues in the field, considering the ways in which the accountability systems in teacher education programs parallel the mechanisms of surveillance encountered by early childhood teachers in the field.
The concrete examples mentioned above illustrate specific strategies for contesting the dominant discourse promulgated by the imposition of quality measures. These specific examples point toward the more general issue of understanding teacher performance and program evaluations as a complex curriculum problem. Accordingly, we perceive inquiries into how quality measures influence pedagogical practice as inseparable from considerations of what knowledge is valued and taught in early childhood and teacher education settings. At the heart of our concerns is that the appraisal of quality in early childhood education is not only heavy handed, but also falsely represented as ethically and politically neutral (MacNaughton, 2005). In the most general terms, this alleged value neutrality separates technical pedagogical decisions from value judgments. A neutral stance takes the implicit values of a dominant discourse for granted, instead of carefully considering the complex moral dimensions of teaching that always underlie the practice (Buzzelli and Johnston, 2002). The concrete actions mentioned above point toward conscientiously rethinking the structures of discourse, power, and culture that are employed in evaluating early childhood education, especially as they impact on the value-laden enterprise of studying and practicing early childhood education.
The basis of moving forward in a manner that appreciates early childhood education as a complex and value-laden enterprise is epistemological humility. Consequently, the production of agreed-upon solutions is not as important as maintaining the possibilities for raising a wide variety of questions, generated from a diverse range of stakeholders. Can early childhood teacher educators face the curriculum challenge of encouraging multiple forms of reflective inquiry (Henderson, 2001)? According to Kennedy (2017), the practical implementation of professional development efforts hinges upon teacher educators’ willingness to rely upon teachers’ independent judgments. Several decades ago, curriculum theorist Decker Walker (1971) argued that educators naturally make technical decisions and value judgments based upon their curriculum platform that is comprised of the beliefs, images, and values they bring to their work (Walker, 1971). For early childhood scholars and practitioners, the challenge is to cultivate the emergence of empowered professional leaders operating with a deep sense of ethical commitment, against the grain of a dominant discourse that rewards the technocratic compliance of bureaucratic functionaries.
The contemporary circumstances of early childhood education call for scholars and practitioners to engage in sophisticated forms of inquiry and problem solving (Henderson et al., 2018). Accordingly, the reductionist logic that underlies the regime of truth detailed in this article shapes a technical–rational view of both the curriculum in early childhood and teacher education programs. A technical–rational approach to the early childhood curriculum develops a linear developmental trajectory that reduces the purposes of early learning simply to preparation for future developmental goals. As such, narrow trajectories of developmental “readiness” to teach and learn are increasingly defining young children’s and their teachers’ experiences at school. It is time to reconsider early childhood teacher education as an opportunity for curriculum leadership that includes both criticality and practicalities alongside humility, but with assertivenes
Reconceptualizers of the curriculum have long challenged technical–rational views of curriculum development. William Pinar (2012), for example, theorizes the curriculum as an extraordinarily complicated conversation, a stance supportive of the diverse epistemologies embraced by reconceptualizers of early childhood. In an essay that many consider to have ignited the reconceptualization of North American curriculum studies, Joseph Schwab (1971) advanced an understanding of the curriculum that is open to theoretical and disciplinary diversity, while also attending to the practical artistry of contextualized educational deliberations. We support a similar vision of epistemological humility and democratic collegiality in early childhood settings. By creating spaces for more egalitarian interactions among early childhood teacher educators, preservice teachers, and practicing teachers, we imagine a new means of resisting the dominant accountability culture that is reinforced by mandated quality measures. Starting with the culture of classrooms within schools of education, early childhood teacher educators can draw upon intrinsic motivations of authentic interests and activate “power with,” as opposed to “power over,” classroom teachers. By suspending institutional authority and explicitly questioning how regulatory forces transmitted by QRIS, ECERS-R, and edTPA infringe upon the intellectual freedoms and vocational callings that should be driving professionalism, teacher education classrooms can become more egalitarian. What is more, a teacher educator’s egalitarian classroom provides an important exemplar for prospective and practicing teachers of young children. Such an exemplar models the possibility of honoring voices routinely suppressed within the dominant discourse of quality assurance.
Can elevating early childhood professionals’ voices in our classroom establish new images of capable professionalism that extend beyond technical expertise? Will egalitarian teacher educators drive an emerging, powerful, ethical community of early childhood curriculum workers that focuses upon a broadening of horizons, instead of a façade of consensus? Can we collaboratively co-create an early childhood curriculum that both embodies a complicated conversation among diverse participants that is always evolving and practical decisions that structure classroom life? Can early childhood educators thrive as a group without the consensus views of children, what the knowledge base is, and approaches to pedagogy? Most importantly, will such a curriculum elevate the voices of young children? In closing, we encourage others to continue seeking answers to the question, “Where else do opportunities present themselves for teacher educators and teacher candidates alike to advocate for culturally responsive, respectful, and responsible policies, programming, and practices?”
Finally, it is imperative to remember children are ultimately impacted by the shifting landscapes of early education and care and children’s social agency is diminishing in schools because of the emphasis on quality improvement and school readiness. Deficit views on younger people are driving efforts to increase academic and social gains. Heydon and Iannacci (2008: 155) argue that a “cult of efficiency” has consumed systems of education and this has privileged the “accumulation of capital before anything else.” How can this reverse trend be reversed? Can elevating children’s rights support their participation and involvement in decision-making about their school and life experiences? Educators can be reminded that children are social actors and citizens in their own right and should be respected as such. Additionally, all children should be viewed as “at promise” (Swadener and Lubeck, 1995) and scholars and teachers alike can continue their work deconstructing discourses of “risk” and establish partnerships and alliances to transform schools and communities.
Footnotes
Authors' note
Daniel Castner is now affiliated to Indiana University Bloomington, USA.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.