Abstract
The current neoliberal policy regime that has dictated school reform policies such as standardized testing and performance accountability challenges the professional values of teachers. As a result, they become policy subjects who either accept or resist the neoliberal agenda. Given the high turnover of novice teachers in schools governed by neoliberal policies, this study sought to understand first-year teachers’ feelings of efficacy and career decisions. This paper applies Duncan-Andrade’s (2009) theoretical concepts of false and critical hope to the narrative experiences of three first-year teachers working in high-poverty schools. The findings indicate that teachers’ ideologies may match the false hope of equal opportunity and hard work that are embedded in the neoliberal policy regime. Additionally, first-year teachers may also develop some skepticism of the polices they are forced to implement. However, if they are unsure how to express their skepticism, they may experience hopelessness over time. This paper argues that critical hope presents an opportunity for teachers, administrators, and students to confront neoliberal policies that contradict their vision of schooling and provide a less prescriptive, more universal education. Additionally, it reveals insights into how policy regimes impact the experiences and identities of novice teachers.
Since the early 1990s, studies consistently confirm that 40 to 50 percent of teachers in the United States leave high-poverty schools for more affluent ones, or leave the profession altogether, within their first five years (Colbert and Wolff, 1992; Ingersoll, Merrill, and Stuckey, 2014; Ingersoll, 2003; Odell and Ferrano, 1992; Perda, 2013). As a result, teacher turnover in the United States disproportionately affects disadvantaged schools (Grissom, 2011; Ingersoll, 2003; Ingersoll and May, 2012), which predominantly serve low-income students of color. Moreover, dissatisfaction with organizational conditions in disadvantaged schools is predictive of teacher turnover (Daly, 2009; Ingersoll and May, 2012). However, these unfavorable working conditions “are not the social stressors we are trying to overcome, and they must not be misinterpreted as deficits in our students” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009: 192). For example, when organizational conditions were included in their model, school poverty became statistically insignificant (Ingersoll and May, 2012). Therefore, novice teachers’ experiences with these unfavorable organizational conditions may influence their job satisfaction, sense of efficacy, and career trajectories.
Specifically, teacher satisfaction with administrative support, principal leadership, collegial relationships, school culture, and the level of influence and control over their teaching are predictors of turnover in the United States (Grissom, 2011; Ingersoll, 2003; Ingersoll and May, 2012; Ingersoll, Merrill, and Stuckey, 2014; Sparks, 2016; Stockard and Lehman, 2004). Furthermore, some studies identified a more top-down, bureaucratic, rigid organizational structure in high-poverty settings (Daly, 2009; Grissom, 2011; Ingersoll and May, 2012). One reason for this magisterial approach to leadership in the United States is due to policy pressures placed upon teachers in high-poverty settings to teach what is tested (Behizadeh and Pang, 2016; McCarthey, 2008; Nichols, Glass, and Berliner, 2012), resulting in a narrow, fragmented curriculum (Au, 2007; Hillocks, 2002). Similarly, comparable reforms in England have resulted in disengagement in schooling by both teachers and students (Thompson, Hall, and Jones, 2010). These findings indicate that teachers’ and leaders’ interactions with policy may implicate their working conditions, perceptions of satisfaction and efficacy, and career decisions.
One reason for the expansion of managerial policies within disadvantaged schools is the present neoliberal policy regime, or “set of ideas, interests, and institutions that structures governmental activity” (McGuinn, 2006: 11). The turn toward neoliberalism, which now has “considerable influence in education” (Harvey, 2005: 3) began in the mid-1970s. Neoliberalism is classified by three main ideas: a focus on the individual; an “unfettered market” (Hackworth, 2007: 4) most efficient in promoting individual autonomy; and a “non-interventionist state” (Hackworth, 2007: 4) except to promote competition. Neoliberalism “proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills” (Harvey, 2005: 2) and thus, has “become hegemonic as a mode of discourse. It has pervasive effects on ways of thought to the point where it has become incorporated into the common-sense way many of us interpret, live in, and understand the world” (Harvey, 2005: 3). Specifically, in the United States, neoliberalism is responsible for disguising education as a product to be regulated and measured through standardized testing and accountability within a discourse of equity (McGuinn, 2006). For example, many novice teachers ascribe to an ideological desire to improve educational outcomes for marginalized students (Anderson, 2010; Early and Shagoury, 2010; Flores, 2007; Frankenberg, Taylor, and Merseth, 2010; Quartz and TEP research group, 2003). However, after a few years of teaching, these teachers sometimes find themselves disillusioned due to the challenges of the educational system itself (Ball and Olmedo, 2013; Flores, 2007). As a result of similar reforms in the UK, Moore and Clarke (2016) found that teachers “felt that what they were being instructed to do by official policy was at odds with their own deeply held view of what public education was fundamentally for” (Moore and Clarke, 2016: 667). Therefore, by studying the experience of novice teachers in high-poverty schools in the current policy regime, this study explores teachers’ hope for more equal learning opportunities as they endure, along with students, difficult working conditions. Additionally, the critical nature of this study seeks to problematize the working conditions created by the neoliberal policy regime while presenting the possibility for a more open concept of schooling.
This paper first discusses how teachers’ subjectivities are influenced by the neoliberal policy regime through school reforms such as standardized testing and performance accountability. Subjectivities are analyzed through the narratives of three first-year teachers in public schools serving marginalized pupils where the neoliberal agenda dictates policy. Finally, I argue that Duncan-Andrade’s (2009) concept of false hope is helpful in describing the novice teacher experience with the working conditions within the neoliberal policy regime, and that the concept of critical hope provides teachers with an opportunity to provide a more universal version of schooling.
In the theoretical framework section that follows, I will frame the policy context plaguing novice teachers in high-poverty settings in the United States and other neoliberal contexts. Next, I will describe Duncan-Andrade’s (2009) theories of false and critical hope. In the literature review, I will describe how teachers in high-poverty settings may experience hopelessness. Finally, I will discuss examples of critical hope from literature that describe how teachers are able to work against the neoliberal context in high-poverty settings. Since it has been underutilized in the literature, the use of the theoretical framework to frame the literature review is purposeful. I contend that the employment of the framework in the study of novice teachers in high-poverty settings can help bring to light how policy regimes impact the identities and experiences of teachers.
Theoretical framework
Foucault’s (1977) theoretical concept of disciplinary power helps to describe the mechanism of state control that influences teacher’s daily work. Additionally, Foucault’s (1982) understanding of how power operates through subjects describes the tension that working under disciplinary power creates between the mandated policy imposed on teachers and their own professional ideological values. This tension transforms teachers into policy subjects who have the opportunity to resist or accept the status quo of school reform, as they experience struggles “against forms of domination; against forms of exploitation; or against that which ties the individual to himself [sic] and submits him to others in this way” (Foucault, 1982: 781). Although this tension presents the opportunity for resistance or compliance, “one of them, most of the time, prevails” (Foucault, 1982: 781). In other words, “if [power] comes up against any resistance, it has no other option but to try to minimize it” (Foucault, 1982: 789). Thus, in this case, teachers become policy subjects likely to maintain the status quo through the exertion of their own professional power that is subjugated by the power of the dominant mechanism of government; the neoliberal policy regime.
As Nordin (2016: 841) states, “power to make decisions is removed from the contextually-informed teacher and given instead to central and decontextualized governing tools, while still holding the teacher accountable in the end.” Ball (2003) discussed how neoliberal policies such as performance accountability challenge teachers’ values and greatly influence their subjectivities, resulting in an internalized struggle and a weakened sense of efficacy. For example, one teacher questioned, “what happened to my creativity?” (Ball, 2003: 216) and another reflected, “I find myself thinking that the only way I can save my sanity, my health and my relationship with my future husband is to leave the profession” (Ball, 2003: 216). These quotes not only demonstrate the challenges teachers face within the current policy regime, but the damaging effects it can have on teacher retention. Ball and Olmedo’s (2013) study expands on the ways in which power operates on teachers in the neoliberal policy regime. Teachers revealed that “our understanding of ourselves is linked to the ways in which we are governed” (Ball and Olmedo, 2013: 87). This demonstrates how teacher’s subjectivities are implicated by the policy regime. Teachers also struggled with performativity as it defines their work; “one of the most fundamental challenges of my job is trying to avoid becoming incorporated into market modes of thinking” (Ball and Olmedo, 2013: 88). This pressure leads some teachers to abandon their desires to teach in a socially just and culturally relevant manner, which leaves students with a disengaging, normative curriculum. This contentious challenge to teacher beliefs and values has the potential to shape teachers’ and students’ subjectivities and can lead to disillusionment and hopelessness.
Duncan-Andrade (2009) studied hopelessness in teachers and created a typology of false hopes to describe their experience. The emphasis on hope is particularly useful in high-poverty settings, as teachers and students endure unfavorable working conditions (Grissom, 2011). For example, negative perceptions of administrative support, availability of materials/resources, classroom autonomy, faculty influence on decisions, and professional development are predictors of turnover from high-poverty to lower-poverty schools (Ingersoll and May, 2012). The hopelessness that educators face as they endure these conditions can be explained through three false hopes. “Hokey hope” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009: 182) is the idea that if students just work hard, they can achieve anything, and ignores the systemic inequities evident in high-poverty schools; “mythical hope” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009: 183) presents a false narrative of equal opportunity. High-stakes testing that holds teachers and students accountable for achievement on exams is built on these false hopes. These neoliberal policies present a false narrative that hard work and performance on an exam is a panacea for poor academic achievement and social mobility, while ignoring inequities in the schooling of marginalized pupils. “Hope deferred” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009: 184) is a product of teachers feeling overwhelmed by the challenges, which stem from systemic inequality, they and their students face in a high-poverty school. Hope deferred helps to explain complicit behavior and burnout in teachers who accept the status quo’s bureaucratic, hierarchical structure of the urban, disadvantaged school (Duncan-Andrade, 2009; Haberman, 1995).
Duncan-Andrade (2009: 185) proposes critical hope as the opposite to the three false hopes and the “enemy of hopelessness.” One of the elements of critical hope is material hope, or the understanding that “quality teaching is the most significant ‘material’ resource they [teachers] have to offer youth.” The most effective educators employ material hope by making learning relevant to students; “connecting schooling to the real material [emphasis added] conditions of urban life” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009: 187). Another element of critical hope is Socratic hope, which “requires both teachers and students to painfully examine our lives and actions within an unjust society and to share the sensibility that pain may pave the path to justice” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009: 187–188). Effective educators who employ Socratic hope see “the righteous indignation of young people as a strength rather than something deserving of punishment” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009: 188). The final element of critical hope that Duncan-Andrade (2009: 190) calls for is audacious hope, which “demands that we reconnect to the collective by struggling alongside one another, sharing in the victories and the pain.” The effective educator who employs audacious hope develops caring and authentic relationships with students and tries diligently not “to get to a place where I am prioritizing lesson plans over healing a child in pain” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009: 191). Therefore, educators who employ critical hope accept the responsibility to sacrifice neoliberal policy demands in order to acknowledge the injustices their students face. In doing so, they help students channel their pain rather than “weed out children” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009: 190) who do not conform to normative schooling practices.
Theoretically, by employing critical hope, teachers can effectively work against inequality and challenge bureaucratic neoliberal policies and feel more efficacious in high-poverty schools. Additionally, critical hope (Duncan-Andrade, 2009) presents a point of departure from the market-based policies such as standardized testing and achievement accountability to which teachers and students are subjected. However, critical hope has been underutilized as both a tool for educators, and a mode of inquiry into how they may work against neoliberal policies (Duncan-Andrade, 2018). The hesitation by teachers, especially novices, to employ critical hope may be due to the pressure they face to meet the normative schooling demands of the neoliberal policy regime. Using Duncan-Andrade’s (2009) concepts of false and critical hope will help to frame the discussion of novice teachers’ experiences in high-poverty schools as they try to realize their own visions for education amid the neoliberal regime. In the section that follows, I first explain how teachers’ experiences within the neoliberal policy regime create a tension which limits their ability to employ critical hope. Next, I will provide examples of critical hope by teachers in practice.
Disillusionment and hopelessness
Upon entering the profession in disadvantaged schools in the United States, teachers are undoubtedly challenged by an “institutional culture of career progression through managerial incentives” (Wilkins, 2011: 399–400). Thus, they are forced to either accept the status quo and implement top-down neoliberal policies aimed at improving student achievement scores on standardized tests, or risk their jobs as they attempt to employ critical hope (Anderson, Young, Blanch, and Smith, 2015; Flores, 2007; Haberman, 1995; Miller, Brown, and Hopson, 2011). This experience can sometimes result in acceptance of the false hopes that Duncan-Andrade (2009) described. For example, Miller, Brown, and Hopson (2011) found that teachers and school leaders in urban schools might become discouraged when they enter the profession with the mindset of a fixer. Similarly, Flores (2007) found that novice teachers who entered the profession in urban schools with a social justice disposition had to compromise some of their ideals to meet demands from their superiors and maintain positive relationships with colleagues. For example, one teacher “often witnessed practices or interactions that were harmful to children but did not always feel secure in his position as a new teacher to speak out” (Flores, 2007: 388). This tension between ideals and practice, coupled with insecurity in speaking out as a new teacher, may leave teachers feeling hopeless and uncomfortable (Goodley, 2018; Stern and Brown, 2016).
Novice teachers are particularly susceptible to embodying identities supported by their neoliberal environment and adopting normative schooling practices (Anderson, Young, Blanch, and Smith, 2015; Burns, 2016; Wilkins, 2011). Unfortunately, lack of administrative support and quality professional development (Fantilli and McDougall, 2009; Worthy, 2015) do not give novice teachers the chance to reflect on these identities and “reprioritize the ‘who’ and ‘what’ they want to be effective for” (Goodley, 2018: 172). The following reflection of a teacher’s early years in a high-poverty environment demonstrates the aloneness that teachers face in such an environment: Everyone says you have to wait until you get your own class, forget what you learned in college, live through hell your first year, and then things get better or you quit. It’s like a fraternity initiation. “I did it, so you have to.” Well, okay, I did it and I lived through it and I’m still here. But really, it didn’t have to be so hard. (Worthy, 2015: 391)
Towards hope
The neoliberal policy agenda plaguing high-poverty schools creates unfavorable working conditions such as lack of autonomy and administrative support (Daly, 2009; Grissom, 2011; Ingersoll and May, 2012). However, the ways teachers work within and against these challenges are examples of critical hope. For example, some teachers in European neoliberal contexts “understand how this complex bureaucratic machine operates but see it as a distraction from their ‘real’ work (teaching and learning) with children” (Pupala, Kascak, and Tesar, 2016: 660). These teachers find ways to subvert the dominant, neoliberal policy regime in an effort to feel more efficacious in challenging normative school practices. As a result, novice teachers, or those within the first five years of teaching, who demonstrated high self-efficacy and an ability to influence the school environment were more likely to stay in high-poverty urban schools in the United States (Anderson, 2010; Early and Shagoury, 2010).
In Picower’s (2011) study of first-year urban school teachers involved in a social justice university group, teachers who employed material hope were living in a state “characterized by fear, compliance, and pressure to conform” (Picower, 2011: 1112). Within this state of fear was the acknowledgment that administrators put too much emphasis on testing, which challenged their ability to teach for social justice. In order to cope with these stressors, participants used their bi-weekly sessions as a safe haven where they could support each other in “develop[ing] strategies to help them avoid complying with mandates they found problematic” (Picower, 2011: 1118). Additionally, they camouflaged their critical pedagogy into the mandated curriculum, “by substituting alternative materials and integrating themes of equity and justice” (Picower, 2011: 1123). Finally, participants also developed their students as activists and went public with their critique about the normative practices in school and advocated for more critical pedagogy.
Camangian (2010) used autoethnographies to employ Socratic hope, which allowed students to examine their position within an unjust society. For example, a student wrote; “if we spend some of that time and effort [robbing people] on doing something positive, and we seeing the same type of rewards, maybe we could pretty much stop playing ourselves and climb out the grave” (Camangian, 2010: 193). The process of writing his autoethnography allowed this student to confront the challenges he faced in his community and brought out his own sense of agency. Moreover, the process of writing and sharing the autoethnographies in class developed compassionate relationships among students who shared similar challenges within their community.
Nolan’s (2015) ethnographic study showcases a science teacher who employed audacious hope to resist prescribed curriculum and pacing, English-only mandates, school-wide deficit thinking, and traditional discipline of perceived problem students. The teacher in this study guarded the emotional climate of the room and valued students’ process and language to cultivate curiosity and risk-taking. The students determined pacing, the prescribed curriculum was used sparingly and translated into Spanish, and mindful conversation replaced detention as a disciplinary method. The teacher in this study believed “that his students need not adapt to the scripted curriculum but that the curriculum needed to work for his students” (Nolan, 2015: 320).
This review of the literature reveals that teachers’ subjectivities are influenced by the normalization of instruction through a neoliberal policy regime that places pressure on teachers to produce student achievement outcomes. Conversely, as teachers’ personal dispositions collide with these challenging policy mandates, there is possibility for resistance through the use of critical hope. Unfortunately, however, novice teachers are particularly vulnerable to accepting the false hopes under the pressure placed on them by their administrators. Thus, the application of Duncan-Andrade’s (2009) framework is particularly useful for describing the ways in which the policy regime impacts the experiences, challenges, and identities of novice teachers. By studying first-year teachers in high-poverty settings, we can “bring to light power relations, locate their position” (Foucault, 1982: 780), and identify avenues for a more critical approach to learning that aligns with teachers’ own values. In other words, I contend that by creating environments where novice teachers can employ critical hope, we can challenge normative schooling practices while improving teacher job satisfaction and turnover.
Methods
The narrative approach is used in this study as a way to explore and tell stories of the experiences of first-year teachers in low-income schools. The qualitative approach to data collection is most appropriate because of its interest in a descriptive understanding of the qualitative differences in how teachers perceive and experience their early-career experiences and how those experiences relate to hope, efficacy, and their career decisions. Specifically, the research questions that guided this inquiry were:
How do novice teachers’ experiences in high-poverty schools influence their feelings of efficacy, hope, and/or hopelessness? How do the conditions of high-poverty schools influence novice teachers’ decisions to remain in or leave low-income schools or the profession altogether?
By analyzing the data for stories and developing themes, the researcher was able to write a narrative about the participants in a way that addresses the research questions in context with the prior literature (Creswell, 2013). The data used was gathered through semi-structured interviews with three teachers within their first year of experience. Interview questions focused on how novice teachers perceive their working conditions, school reform policies, and how they feel about their career as teachers and the sustainability of such career. Participants taught in a high-poverty school, defined as serving at least 85 per cent economically disadvantaged students, held a bachelor’s degree, and had state-issued certification credentials. 2 The participants were recruited from professional contacts and were chosen because they were in their first year of teaching in a high-poverty setting. Pseudonyms (Johnson, 2014) were used for both the teachers and the schools and the summary of findings is not identifiable to a particular school or teacher because teachers from multiple schools were selected. Informed consent was granted by the participants before engaging in the interviews. The study was conducted within the ethical guidelines of the Institutional Review Board at the researcher’s university.
All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed by the researcher before using Atlas-ti software to code the transcriptions. Interviews were first analyzed using an open coding process (Saldaña, 2016). These open codes were then analyzed for themes (Saldaña, 2016). The themes derived from the first round of open coding became a priori codes for the second round of coding: leadership, challenges, support, and rewards (Saldaña, 2016). In this process, open codes with ten or fewer quotations were collapsed into the a priori codes. For example, inexperience, reluctant push-back, classroom management, SES challenges, hopelessness, and turnover were added to the a priori code “challenges.” Lastly, participant responses under each a priori code were analyzed and coded for false and critical hope as defined by Duncan-Andrade (2009).
Two strategies to increase the trustworthiness of the study were employed: triangulation, and rich, thick description. Themes among codes were based on themes in the literature review. The codes “student relationships” and “rewards” fit the literature on teacher job satisfaction, and the codes in the “challenges” code family also triangulate to the data on the factors contributing to high turnover. Finally, the narrative nature of this study includes rich, thick description that allows readers to make decisions regarding transferability (Creswell, 2013).
My own subjectivity as a public-school teacher in my fifth year of service at the time of data collection came into play in the data analysis. These experiences taught me that working in a high-poverty school is both rewarding and challenging and, thus, I have come to believe that the conditions affecting teachers in these settings impact their feelings of success and hope or hopelessness. Despite my positionality, the interpretive nature of this study honored the participants by using their descriptions of reality to construct meaning. For example, the process of writing memos throughout the coding process ensured reflexivity (Creswell, 2013). These memos included summaries of coding processes and themes I saw emerging across participant responses in each round of coding. The memos were then corroborated with code frequency tables produced by the data analysis software. This process ensured that the themes discussed in the findings were true across participant responses. In addition, these memos document that the open codes from participant responses in the first round should continue to guide the second and third rounds of coding. Specifically, the memos document the use of a priori codes from the first round as a method for maintaining the participant’s voice in the narrative, despite the focus on hope and hopelessness in the theoretical framework. The interpretive process of writing memos between rounds of coding led me to the decision to analyze participant views of reality holistically before trying to construct meaning through the use of the theoretical framework. Additionally, reflexivity was ensured throughout the research project through the presentation of findings with other researchers, who offered feedback and corroborations with existing literature.
One of the limitations to this study is that the sample size was small, and therefore cannot be generalizable to the country. Similarly, the ability to generalize the novice teacher experience is limited due to the nature of each participant’s preparation program. For example, one participant entered through a traditional preparation program, whereas the other two entered through alternative certification programs.
Participant narratives
Jennifer
Jennifer Valdez completed a traditional teacher preparation program in December 2015. Her student teaching program had a partnership with a large, urban school district which served predominantly low-income students of color. The district frequently hired graduates of the cohort when jobs became available, and as a result, Jennifer accepted a full-time, seventh-grade teaching position beginning in February 2016. Although she always wanted to be a math teacher, she was assigned to teach math and science, which she taught to students in two-hour blocks back to back. A typical day for Jennifer includes one class of 24 students, one of 19, and two “math intervention” classes with 10 students each. Jennifer’s future career decisions include a plan to get her Master’s degree after teaching for about five years. I also want to go back to school and get my Master's. I'm not positive what I want to get it in yet, um, like leadership or counseling, um, I don't think I want to be a teacher for 20 years, I think 10 is pushing it. But I thought like five was a good amount of years. [Laughs] When we had those conversations about those students, um, I told other teachers like, “Oh they work really well for me and they're fine in my class” and they're like “wow like they were the ones that were saying like they weren't gonna like the new teacher.” I also share with them my personal stories and I tell them, “I was a product of this district myself” and so I share some of my struggles when I was a child just to let them know that like, you know, I am a person too and no matter what they're going through, they can get through it, or like they can better themselves starting now.
Jennifer had not received any professional development in her career at the time of the interview. She has, however, received support from an instructional coach who has been coming into her classroom. At first, this instructional coach helped her determine where the previous teacher left off, and lately she has provided resources for preparation for the state test. She has also provided feedback on her classroom management. The first week she was here, the students were acting silly when I sent them on independent, and then the next week she was like “Oh wow, I've already seen a difference [in] how they're acting with their behavior.” So that was good feedback. And then one of the other times she came, I didn't even think she was coming anymore, but I had them actually, I gave them like a mini-assessment so when she came I had them super quiet and on task, so I was glad she saw that.
In her second week, students were given a practice test for the state exam and “everyone was pretty unhappy about the results.” Jennifer retaught the standards tied to the questions that made up the lowest 50 per cent of the test and saw some improvement on a retest. Below is a conversation that followed when I asked if she was happy to see this result: Jennifer: It did make me happy, but at the same time I went over those same questions. Well, that's what they told me to do. So a part of me, with that data, I'm like “Well, the data is skewed because I went over the same questions, so what if they just remembered the answer?”, you know what I mean? Like I don't know if they really know how to – Researcher: So was it recommended that you do it that way? Jennifer: Mhm. Researcher: And did you say anything about that? Jennifer: No because, I mean, it was my second week. I was like, “okay.”
Tracy
Tracy Christopoulos is a Teach for America (TFA) fellow
3
who is currently in her first year of service at Eastside Middle School. In her senior year as a Journalism and English major, she decided that she didn’t want to pursue the typical corporate career path that many of her peers were taking. Although she went into TFA, she never thought of it as just a two-year commitment. She stated that she loves her students, and her job, and she would continue to teach as long as she felt challenged, which she saw as inevitable. When asked to put a time on her teaching career, however, Tracy stated that it’s hard to say if she would teach for her whole work life, but that she will probably continue teaching for the next five or six years. Tracy described Eastside Middle School as “the most at-risk middle school” in the district, a “dumping ground” for students who have been kicked out of other schools, located in a “part of town that has been neglected for decades.” Her passion for working at Eastside includes a desire “to be part of the effort to sort of turn that tide.” But here, the kids and I are able to joke back and forth. I'll say something to them and I'll know that they won't get offended and I'll end up in a meeting with the parent and the principal. I like teaching here. I like being around my kids. I think they're a good bunch underneath it all. You know? I was told consistently that my education was the way forward and so that's kind of the message that I want to drive home with them. Not in terms of, this is how to escape your neighborhood, but this is how you help your community, you know. I think these kids are vastly underestimated. You know, I'll call parents all the time and I'll tell them, you know, just so you know, your kid got 100 in my class or he's doing great and they're like “Well, I know I wasn't raising a stupid kid,” and I'm like “I teach no stupid children, ma’am. I don't have one.” Um, so I just think they're a vastly marginalized population and they're definitely underserved, whether they’re incapable? Nah. I'm starting to notice, when we talk about stories we’re reading, that instead of saying, “bad,” “sad,” “angry,” yesterday they said, you know, “uncomfortable,” or “awkward,” or “ecstatic,” or they're starting to use what I like to call big-kid words, whereas when they came here in the beginning of the year, it was very much just monosyllabic, just very dry vocabulary. There's plenty of times where I'll write a referral that gets no follow-up, or I'll send a kid out of my class for acting wild, he'll get sent right back. Or, you know, they're technically not supposed to have phones and I'll try to take one and they'll say “no” and then nobody else tells them to put it away either so why would that message be reinforced? A desirable school would be one in which the administration and the staff worked together. They're supposed to be working with the teachers in terms of like let’s try and figure out your lesson plans, let’s see if we can get them aligned to the standards, let me observe your classroom and see how I can help you in terms of like classroom management and stuff like that, none of them are doing any of that. When I was handed the Teacher’s Edition, and the curriculum, and the pacing guide and the lesson plans and it was everything just handed to me and just “Here it is, follow it.” I started to question. The more I do it, the more I question it, where, like, “Is spending 20 minutes on the computer every day really helping them?” I want kids that learn to love reading and then become better at it because they like to do it. And I don't know if that's what I'm creating, or if I am creating students that learn how to read and then take a test on it, and that's all reading ever is to them.
When I asked what Tracy’s career plans were and how long she expected to work amid the challenges, she pointed again to the administration. I think the parts of my day that make me question whether I'll show up the next day are issues with the administration, or just the extra amount of bureaucratic nonsense that teaching has become. I think that if I were to leave teaching it would probably be over that more than it would be over the kids are just too bad, or they can't learn. the lack of consequences that the administration offers, the lack of involvement from the community at large, or how, I will have five phone numbers for a kid and I never get a call back from an actual parent, or, the standardized test that is not made for little low-income kids to pass it.
When asked about reform, Tracy was knowledgeable about state and local school policies. She was skeptical of the prescriptive nature of some of the professional development she received around these policies. For example, “the best teachers I had were not the ones that were doing every ten seconds the higher-order thinking questions and the gradual release of responsibility and the Bloom's taxonomy.” She also stated her frustration with standardized testing: “I think there are 72 million other ways to sort of monitor the kids progress without having them sit four or five hours at a time in a room when most of them can't sit 20 minutes on a computer.” Tracy identified culturally responsive teaching as a policy “she could get behind” and stated that she is part of a special fellowship dedicated to this within TFA.
Gregory
Gregory Daniels’ first experience in teaching was for a non-profit organization that taught leadership courses to students of all ages. He really loved that job, but was laid off due to budget cuts. As a result of this and his love for science, he decided to officially enter the teaching profession through an alternative certification program. Gregory taught his first year at Aspire, which served children in Child Protective Services (CPS) or the Juvenile Police Department (JPD). He later admitted that he did not specifically seek out this school environment, and that it even scared him at first, but “that was all unfounded.” Gregory described the challenges that serving students in CPS or JPD. Some of ’em can be emotional. Emotionally disturbed, so you gotta watch out for a few of ’em, um, some of can become um physically aggressive sometimes. Verbally aggressive. He ain't got a soul, in his family, that has any connection to him, and you gotta feel for the guy, I mean he's 17. What do you do when you're 18 years old and there's nobody there? It really makes you realize, um, you know, when I was growing up, I thought I had a few issues, but my life was heaven compared to some of these guys. So, you know, it’s a big eye opener, it really is. Some of these kids at the beginning when they first get here, they are so hostile to any type of adult, but not all of ’em, but some of ’em. By the time, you know, two or three months down the road, they're completely different, and you've built a sort of a rapport with some of ’em.
Gregory acknowledged initial shock at some of the student behavior in his classroom, but he also stated that through professional development and support he has been able to work with students to de-escalate any outbursts they may have in the classroom. He also discussed his inability to “break through” with many students who are assigned to the school by a lawyer or judge. And so, what's getting in the way for some of them is just the attitudes they have coming in about maybe their history or other experiences that they've had that you're just not able to break through. It bothers me, that's probably the thing. The biggest thing that bothers me. It is the biggest thing that bothers me. It really does. That is one of the […] that's what I take home with me, you know, I can't leave it at work, sometimes I think you know, um, yea, that's the biggest thing that bothers me, that's the biggest disappointment that no matter how hard I've tried, no matter what I do, it hasn't worked, and it makes you as a teacher feel like a failure.
Gregory said it was difficult for him to comment on school reform policies because he has nothing to compare it to. He mentioned the emphasis on passing the state exam as being the “end all be all” and much more important than when he was in school. He also acknowledged that direct instruction, many times, in preparation for the test, does not serve all students well. Some of these guys have severe ADD, ADHD, you know, so they're not gonna be sitting down, doing work. They need to be up, doing something. So, again, it works for some, not all, I really don't have anything to compare it to.
Findings
False hope: The rewards of teaching
Mythical hope (Duncan-Andrade, 2009), the false narrative of equal opportunity, was apparent in participants’ desires to be saviors of their children, which were revealed when they were asked about the rewards of teaching. For example, Tracy indicated that she wanted “to be part of the effort to sort of turn that tide” when referencing the neglected community her students came from. While she acknowledged the inequity her students faced, she believes she can “present a departure from the inequities” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009: 183) her students face. Similarly, Gregory placed great pressure on himself to “break through” with students and felt some discomfort when he was unable to. Additionally, Jennifer perpetuated the “myth of meritocracy” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009: 183) when she shared stories with her students about how she was a product of the district. Her anecdote presents a false narrative of equal opportunity to her students. Jennifer and Gregory felt rewarded when students responded favorably to them, indicating their desire for validation from students. For Jennifer, the rewards of teaching came when other teachers brought up a student who had stated she was not going to like the new teacher, but Jennifer reported that that student was doing very well in class and was respectful towards her. She felt as if she had developed a strong relationship with this student and this made her feel success, especially knowing what was going on in that particular student’s home life. Gregory felt the rewards of teaching when students told him that he was their favorite teacher. This desire to improve the lives of students represents the falsehood of mythical hope; that no individual, policy, or program can present a “departure from the inequities our children experience in the classroom” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009: 183). It also showcases how the neoliberal policy agenda can collide with “the most satisfying aspect of their work,” which “was in their relationships with pupils, and the positive impact they made on their intellectual and emotional development” (Wilkins, 2011: 398).
Hokey hope (Duncan-Andrade, 2009), the belief that if students just work hard, they can achieve anything, was also evident in participant responses regarding the rewards they faced. For example, participants felt the rewards of teaching when students complied with curricular demands, were respectful, or demonstrated achievement. Tracy described the rewards in her career in terms of student achievement. Tracy felt success when students began using more academic vocabulary to articulate their comprehension of text, and she felt especially proud of a student who had already gone back into his writing to add detail without being asked. Participants seemed to value hard work and felt efficacious when students exhibited this value, which implies a belief that with hard work, any achievement is possible. This belief ignores the systemic inequalities facing both teachers and the students they serve and perpetuates a “work-ethic rhetoric to describe ‘good’ students” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009: 183). Jennifer and Tracy’s beliefs that students “can better themselves starting now” and “make something of themselves” represents the ideology that students have an equal opportunity to achieve as long as they work hard. This ideology is “informed by privilege and rooted in the optimism of the spectator who needs not suffer” (Duncan-Andrade, 2009: 183). As noted above, mythical and hokey hope both represent the ideological falsehood that many novice teachers ascribe to when they enter the profession with the desire to improve outcomes for their students (Anderson, 2010; Early and Shagoury, 2010; Flores, 2007; Frankenberg, Taylor, and Merseth, 2010; Quartz and TEP research group, 2003). Additionally, participants saw their “personal career development goals […] as being as important as the rewards through interactions with pupils” (Wilkins, 2011: 398).
Hope deferred: Challenges as a policy subject
Although participant responses demonstrate false hopes, this reveals less about their character and more about how they are subjects of the neoliberal policy regime (Foucault, 1982). The teachers in this study are actors in a policy context that they have yet to problematize (Anderson, Young, Blanch, and Smith, 2015). In fact, when asked if they felt that school reform policies were effective in their schools, all three participants indicated that they knew very little about such efforts and that it was too early in their career to tell. Jennifer, who feels success in that she is making some academic gains with her students and building strong relationships, stated that she did not know much about school reform policies in her school or district. This indicates that she is feeling success in her own practice but not sure how that relates to the larger picture of school reform in low-income schools. In Tracy’s case she said, “I don’t know if I’ve been teaching long enough to know” if school reform policies are working. These responses reveal how they are caught in the policy context as subjects, but have very little knowledge about the disciplinary power mechanism behind it. In other words, they may be blindly “responding to measurement and performativity, and neglecting what cannot be measured” (Goodley, 2018: 171).
On the other hand, the teachers in this study experienced challenges to their ideology, values, and visions of schooling which allowed them to question the practices they were being forced to implement. Tracy commented that the scripted curriculum she is forced to follow is not effective for all her students, and reflected, “the more I do it, the more I question it…like, is spending twenty minutes on the computer every day really helping them?” She wondered if she was fostering a love for reading in her students, which is her desire, or if she was “creating students that learn how to read and then take a test on it, and that’s all reading ever is to them.” Gregory also acknowledged that the way he is teaching is not conducive to all learning styles and when I asked if this is a source of frustration, he said, “It hasn’t upset me yet” and cited that he has no other experience to compare it to, so “I don’t know what I don’t know.” In describing her reaction to an instance in which the administration asked her to re-assess students with questions they had already seen, Jennifer knew the data might be skewed, but she did not say anything because she “wouldn’t even have known how to.” The skepticism that the teachers in this study are beginning to exhibit may be the start of critical hope; however, their inability to respond to these challenges demonstrates hope deferred (Duncan-Andrade, 2009) or disillusionment (Flores, 2007; Haberman, 1995; Miller, Brown, and Hopson, 2011). The novice teachers were overwhelmed by their own situation and lack of experience, and therefore inexperienced or fearful when it came time to exhibit critical hope. Their positionality within the policy regime creates a tension that they are beginning to experience (Ball, 2003; Ball and Olmedo, 2013), but have yet to address.
One of the themes consistent with prior literature found in participant responses was their reliance on and desire for more support from their principals (Fantilli and McDougall, 2009; Worthy, 2015). This finding has implications for how school leaders can support novice teachers to develop critical hope so that they continue to feel efficacious when their ideology or values are challenged. Teachers are not the only educators subjected to policy; as participants in Ball and Olmedo’s (2013: 88) study stated, “the neoliberal or marketized environment has certainly created a new sort of principal.” As a result, novice teachers are likely to adopt identities and practices that “the professional culture (and public discourse) so strongly promotes” (Burns, 2016: 398). Furthermore, the “performative discourses and expectations” (Anderson, Young, Blanch, and Smith, 2015: 41) that rigid leadership in high-poverty settings (Daly, 2009) tends to emphasize, is “at odds with enjoyment, engagement and learning” (Anderson, Young, Blanch, and Smith, 2015: 41), which severely limits teachers’ capacity to adopt the pedagogical elements of critical hope. Additionally, the lack of skill to engage in critical hope pedagogies is a reflection of preparation programs (Duncan-Andrade, 2018), which also emphasize skills supported by the neoliberal policy regime.
Career decisions
The three participants in this study were placed in schools serving predominantly low-income students of color out of chance; Tracy was a TFA fellow, Jennifer was hired after completing a student teaching internship in the district, and Gregory chose to accept his first job offer. Additionally, Tracy and Gregory represent the quarter of all novice teachers in the United States who come from alternative certification programs. Although turnover among this group is higher, their experiences with organizational conditions are consistent with wider research on teacher job satisfaction and retention (Redding and Smith, 2016). However, Jennifer also saw her tenure as a teacher as part of a larger career path she will take, which represents a human capital explanation for attrition, where teachers view the profession as a stepping stone (Grissmer and Kirby, 1987). Since their career decisions appear to have been conceived prior to entering the profession, I am unable to conclude that their experiences of working in a high-poverty setting will have an impact on their future career decisions. For example, Jennifer wants to be a counselor, Gregory wants to enter higher education, and Tracy was unsure where she’d go after teaching, but said she could only do it for about ten years.
Despite this limitation, in order to attempt to address how their working conditions might influence their career decisions, I probed to see if the participants might consider moving to a more affluent district. Jennifer mentioned that students in more affluent schools might take her for granted more than in her current school and that she accepts the challenge that comes with even just taking a class over in the middle of the year. Tracy is excited to be a part of TFA and excited to be in a community that is trying to revitalize, but she did mention that “a desirable school would be one in which the administration worked together,” and when probed to see if she would accept a position in that type of school she said yes, as long as it was the same demographic of students that she was working with. Tracy’s responses indicated that the students she teaches may come with challenges, but the most likely challenge to encourage her to seek a position elsewhere is related to administrative support. This indicates the desire that Tracy has to work with the population that her school serves, and that the frustration with administration and “bureaucratic nonsense” could potentially drive her away from this school setting and into a different school. Similar to Jennifer’s response, Gregory stated that while more affluent schools might look more attractive, “the challenge would be lost,” which alluded to the rewards that come with working with his student population. Overall, these responses link back to their desires to feel efficacious as saviors to their students, which, as discussed earlier, is evidence of mythical and hokey hope. Regardless of their career decisions, however, their responses corroborate with prior literature that links teacher job satisfaction to working conditions and leadership rather than the demographics of the students (Brown and Wynn, 2009; Daly, 2009; Grissom, 2011; Johnson and Birkeland, 2003; Loeb, Darling-Hammond, and Luczak, 2005; Roellke and Rice 2008; Stockard and Lehman, 2004).
Conclusion
The application of Duncan-Andrade’s (2009) concepts of false and critical hope as a theoretical framework proved fruitful in problematizing the dominant neoliberal policy regime. Additionally, it highlighted the ways in which teachers’ subjectivities are challenged and influenced by the policies and discourses of the neoliberal project. Conversely, the novice experiences presented in these narratives reveal that there is still opportunity for teachers to enact critical hope, or confronting hopelessness and inequity, as a way of challenging the neoliberal agenda. The novice experiences in these narratives also revealed that teachers desire a more supportive relationship with their administrators. As novices begin to question some of the practices they are asked to implement, it is important that their professional expertise is valued. This practice may deter them from feelings of hopelessness, which may impact their efficacy and career decisions as they continue on this trajectory. However, while critical hope may provide an opportunity for teachers to feel more efficacious and challenge the neoliberal policy regime that contradict their values and professional expertise, I do not suggest it as a policy to be applied to teachers or schools. As Ylimaki et al. (2016) caution, socially just leadership theories can also be normative and prescriptive visions of schooling. They suggest, and I agree, that the future be treated as an open question. Since there is no prescriptive formula for schooling, critical hope presents one possibility for educators to loosen the tension from neoliberal policy reforms designed to force fit themselves and students into the economy, but only when they are given the professional autonomy to practice it.
Footnotes
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.