TEACHER EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT POLICIES: CRITICAL

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS FROM A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

MONICA E. PINI and JORGE M. GOROSTIAGA

Abstract – The purpose of this study is to explore teacher education policies in differentcountries of Latin America and North America through the comparison of policydocuments. The training of teachers, a key component of education, faces educationalchallenges as a result of various reform policies in different countries. Critical discourseanalysis offers the possibility of illuminating certain aspects of educational policies inspecific historic moments. A comparative perspective allows researchers to exploresimilarities and differences between political statements from a number of governmentsand agencies, in order to characterize general elements and particularities of teachereducation policies in the context of late capitalism. The corpus of this study consists of aselection of recent educational policy documents at national and international levels.This study continues a line of previous studies which apply critical discourse analysis tothe research of educational policies.

Resume – POLITIQUES D’EDUCATION DES ENSEIGNANTS. ANALYSECRITIQUE DU DISCOURS A PARTIR D’UNE PERSPECTIVE COMPARATIVE– le but de cette etude est d’explorer les politiques d’education des enseignants dansdifferents pays d’Amerique latine et d’Amerique du nord en comparant des documentspolitiques. La formation des enseignants, une composante cle de l’education, fait faceaux defis educatifs resultant de diverses politiques de reforme mises en œuvre dansdifferents pays. L’analyse critique du discours offre la possibilite d’eclairer certainsaspects des politiques educatives a des moments historiques precis. Une perspectivecomparative permet aux chercheurs d’explorer les similitudes et les differences subsistantentre les enonces politiques d’un certain nombre de gouvernements et d’agences, afin decaracteriser les elements generaux et les particularites des politiques d’education desenseignants dans le contexte du capitalisme tardif. Le corpus de cette etude se composed’un choix des documents recents de la politique d’education au niveau national etinternational. Cette etude est dans la droite ligne d’etudes precedentes appliquantl’analyse critique du discours a la recherche de politiques educatives.

Zusammenfassung – WEGE DER LEHRERBILDUNG. EINE KRITISCHE DISK-URSANALYSE AUS VERGLEICHENDER PERSPEKTIVE – Diese Studie erforschtWege der Lehrerbildung in verschiedenen Landern Lateinamerikas und Nordamerikas,indem sie verschiedene Grundsatzpapiere vergleicht. Aufgrund verschiedener Reform-praktiken in den unterschiedlichen Landern unterliegt die Lehrerausbildung alsSchlusselkomponente der Bildungspolitik großeren Herausforderungen. Die kritischeDiskursanalyse ermoglicht eine Inaugenscheinnahme bestimmter bildungspolitischerAspekte in besonderen historischen Bedeutungszusammenhangen. Aus vergleichenderPerspektive werden Ahnlichkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen den Grundrichtlinieneiniger Regierungen und Bildungstrager untersucht, um so allgemeine und besondereElemente der Lehrerbildung im spatkapitalistischen Kontext zu charakterisieren. Als

International Review of Education (2008) 54:427–443 � Springer 2008DOI 10.1007/s11159-008-9094-z

Grundlage dienen der Studie neuere bildungspolitische Dokumente auf nationaler undinternationaler Ebene. Diese Studie bildet die Fortsetzung eineReihe fruherer Studien zurBildungspolitik mit der Methode der kritischen Diskursanalyse.

Resumen – POLITICAS DE FORMACION Y DESARROLLO DOCENTE. ANA-LISIS CRITICO DEL DISCURSO DESDE UNA PRESPECTIVA COMPARADA –El proposito de este estudio consiste en explorar las polıticas de formacion docente endiferentes paıses de America Latina y en Estados Unidos mediante la comparacion dedocumentos de polıtica educativa. La formacion de docentes, un componente clave de laeducacion, enfrenta retos educativos resultantes de varias polıticas de reforma endiferentes paıses. El analisis crıtico del discurso ofrece la posibilidad de iluminardeterminados aspectos de las polıticas educativas en momentos historicos especıficos.La perspectiva comparada permite a los investigadores explorar similitudes y diferenciasentre propuestas polıticas de gobiernos y agencias, a efectos de caracterizar elementosgenerales y particularidades de las polıticas educativas para los docentes en el contextodel capitalismo tardıo. El corpus de este estudio consiste en una seleccion de documentossobre polıtica educativa reciente, a nivel nacional e internacional. El estudio continuauna serie de estudios anteriores que aplican el analisis de discurso a la investigacion depolıticas educativas.

Schools in a changing policy environment

The demand for education to address the needs and configuration of presentsocieties, and the variety and pace of changes related to knowledge are fea-tures common to different countries and regions. Internationally, we havewitnessed decades of educational reforms that are assumed to be the answerto the so called ‘‘school crisis.’’ Overall, this ‘‘crisis’’ is a consequence and areflection of uncertainties and conflicts that go far beyond schools.

428 Monica E. Pini and Jorge M. Gorostiaga

Many of the policies for school reform have been dictated by neoliberal–neoconservative agendas promoted by internacional agencies (especially theWorld Bank and the Internationally Monetary Fund). During the 1990s,several countries of Latin America developed policies such as the decentral-ization of the school system, promotion of school autonomy and manageri-alism, and the establishment of national evaluation systems. These policiesconverged with the insufficient funding of schools and the elimination ofState regulations that preserved the equality of educational opportunities.

With the new century and in the context of a post-neoliberal scenario inwhich the state plays a more active role, Argentina and other Latin Ameri-can countries, have shown some important changes in the political context.Nevertheless, there are still continuities and deep social consequences thatare hard to remove.

As part of a wider study, the purpose of this paper is to explore teacher edu-cation and development policies in Latin and North America through thecomparison of policy documents. Teachers are key agents in educational pro-cesses, but they hardly ever have any participation in reforms. Teachers aretoday in the eye of the storm because they are in part blamed for students’ defi-cits. The issue of teacher training and professional development is among thepriorities of political decisions in education, including policies that define whatkind of institutions should educate teachers and under what professionaland labor conditions. Since the theme transcends national limits, this workexplores and compares different perspectives and specific proposals in recentdocuments from different agencies and countries.

The idea of studying relevant educational policy documents from Northand Latin America, is based on our interest in exploring continuities anddiscontinuities in policy trends among countries. Typically, policy trendsemerge in the USA and other developed countries and define economic andeducational policies in Latin America and other peripheral regions (see Ball1998; Steiner-Khamsi et al. 2006).

This study continues a line of previous research that applies criticaldiscourse analysis to policy think tanks and other sources of educationalpolicies (Pini 2004, 2005; Pini and Vales 2005), and to mapping educationalpolicy debates as inter-textual fields (Gorostiaga and Paulston 2004). Inprevious studies we had registered the ideological consistency between thestrategies of marketization and privatization of education in the USA andthose that were being promoted in Latin America (Pini 2005). This trend in theUS seems to have shifted its focus to public-private partnerships andoutsourcing of services (Burch 2005). However, Educational ManagementOrganizations and Charter Schools are still popular, in part, because of thepower of some corporations that look at education as a fertile field to colonize.

Despite the fact that the political climate and the economic model havechanged since the 1990s, democracies in Latin America continue beingconstrained by inequity and the lack of legitimacy of politicians. The domi-nant groups remain the same, but the era of the ‘‘just one discourse’’ has

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seemingly ended (Munck 2003). In this study, we aim at contributing to thepublic debate on the role of education in building a more just society byproviding an analysis that increases understanding of teacher education poli-cies. As Cochran-Smith (2005, p. 182) points out, ‘‘the rhetoric of reform isnot a simple matter of semantics. It is a vital part of understanding thepolitics of teacher education.’’

Methodology

This is a qualitative study based on critical discourse analysis (Fairclough1989, 1995; Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999) within the broader context ofcurrent hegemonic ideologies. Fairclough (1989) uses the term discourse ‘‘torefer to the whole process of social interaction of which a text is just a part.This process includes in addition to the text, the process of production ofwhich a text is a product, and the process of interpretation, for which thetext is a resource’’ (p. 24). Both, the process of production and interpreta-tion are socially determined. Thus the analysis of the text is only one part ofcritical discourse analysis, since it also includes the social conditions of pro-duction and interpretation of the text.

Critical analysis of documents located in their context of production of-fers the possibility of illuminating certain aspects of educational policies inspecific historical moments. In addition, a comparative perspective allowsresearchers to explore similarities and differences among political statementsfrom a variety of governments and agencies, in order to characterize generalelements and particularities of teacher education policies in the context oflate capitalism.

The corpus of this study involves a selection of recent documents of edu-cational policies at national and international level (we detail them below).The criteria for selection were pertinence and relevance for teacher educationpolicies. We have taken into account the presence of common aspects whichallow for comparison, as well as differentiation of elements in the context,type of discourse, and topics.

The sample of documents includes different kinds of texts. Even thoughthe Argentine Law is the only official and mandatory text included in theanalysis, the other two documents are relevant because they were elaboratedby agencies very close to governments, that have an important role in build-ing agendas of educational policies. Another aspect to highlight is that tea-cher education and development is not the exclusive focus of any of thedocuments, although in all three documents teachers are defined as a keyactor for improving education. The following table summarizes relevantinformation for each document included in the analysis (Table 1):

The National Education Law from Argentina was enacted in December2006 (Republica Argentina 2007). Its sanction was result of a political decisionfrom the Argentinean National Government to show signs of meaningful

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change with reference to the 1990s educational reform. A previous initiative inthe same direction was the sanction of the Law of Education Funding in 2005.

The second text, from the UNESCO office in Santiago, Chile, is a documentprepared for its discussion at the II Intergovernment Meeting of the RegionalProject of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean, organized inBuenos Aires in March 2007. It was produced in collaboration with the Inter-national Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) and with the EconomicCommission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

The document from USA was elaborated by the Skills Commission for theNational Center on Education and the Economy. The new commission1 on theskills of the American workforce released this report in 2007 after 2 years ofresearch in the USA and other countries. The commission’s work and researchreceived the support and funding of several private foundations.2

The context

The context of production is one important element for the interpretations oftexts. In the USA, the prevailing perspectives on education have been builtfor many years around the ‘‘crisis’’ of public education. These perspectivesblame public schools for the declining of USA international competitivity,rarely taking into account how social inequality impacts student learning.

At the same time, the system has grown and created more opportunities forsocial groups that traditionally had no access to school. This expansion hasincreased heterogeneity and generated resistance from conservative groups tothe democratization of education. Based on this ‘‘crisis,’’ since the early 1990sthe main strategy of conservative groups has been to turn the administrationsof public schools to private corporations. Nowadays, after the collapse ofthe Soviet Union, China and India seem to be ‘‘the new menace,’’ since their

Table 1. Selection of documents

Title Geographicfocus

Year Author

1. Ley de Educacion NacionalNo. 26.206 (NationalEducation Law)

Argentina 2006 Ministry of Education,Science and Technology,Argentina

2. Educacion de Calidad para todos:un asunto de derechos humanos(Education of Quality forEverybody: a HumanRights Issue)

LatinAmerica

2007 UNESCO, OficinaRegional de Educacionpara America Latina y elCaribe, Santiago, Chile

3. Tough Choices orTough Times

USA 2007 National Center onEducation and theEconomy, USA

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highly qualified workers could replace American technicians receivingmuch lower salaries. Again, responsibility for this situation is falling onto theeducational system.

During the last decades, one of the main concerns regarding teachereducation policies in the US has been the shortage of teacher applicants(Collinson and Ono 2001). At the same time, numerous American reportshave affirmed that one of the reasons for public school failure is the poorquality of teachers and curricula (Apple 2000). According to Apple, thesocial pressure that this judgment implies has consequences for the wayteachers’ ‘‘complicated labor process’’ develops (p. 115). Pre-structured cur-riculum determines the first consequence, the ‘‘separation of conception fromexecution,’’ when teachers have to follow fixed class plans. The second isclosely related to the first, the ‘‘deskilling’’ that occurs when any workerloses control over his/her work (p. 116). Professional skills atrophy due tolack of use. Apple (2000) calls this ‘‘degradation’’ of labor, which representsthe increasing power of conservative ideologies and pressure to reduce teach-ing to the requirements of the tests. In Latin America, teachers have experi-enced similar pressures with the establishment of evaluation systems andperformance measurement (Gajardo 1999).

The context of economic reforms including privatizations of publicservices, unemployment, reduction of domestic consumption, and regressiveincome distribution, became critical in Argentina at the end of the nineties.As a consequence of the last economic recession period (1998–2002), theArgentinean population had experienced a continuous growth in levels ofpoverty. The end of 2001 accelerated this process with the collapse of theArgentinean peso which had parity with the dollar.3

On the other hand, even though educational reforms established theextension of compulsory basic school,4 and the increased enrollment at thislevel, the educational gap between poor and non-poor became deeper, at allage groups.5

In Latin America, and particularly in Argentina, international agenciespromoted since the end of the 1980s recipes to reform educational systemswith similar orientations than those proposed for the economy: decentraliza-tion, evaluation systems, back to the basic education and development ofwork skills, efficiency as the main criterion for managing funds, and differentways of privatization. The regulation of teachers’ work was through salaryincentives and different mandatory training programs (Gajardo 1999).

Related to teachers’ professional development, the Red Federal deCapacitacion Docente (Federal Network of Teacher Training), created bythe Argentine Ministry of Education in 1995, was the device through whichthe State tried to develop a policy on knowledge, abilities and practices ofteachers. As a consequence, a more heterogeneous scenario of institutionsand actors involved in teacher’s training was configured in our country, inwhich the National State has tried to have a leading role (Ministerio deEducacion 2001).

432 Monica E. Pini and Jorge M. Gorostiaga

Currently, there is an important switch taking place, at least in whatrelates to the political climate and to the economic model of the 1990s. Aschanges take place in the fields of human rights and citizenship, differentconceptions of economics, politics, and education can be developed if societyappropriates and follows the struggle for meanings in the public spaces.However, the social consequences of neoliberal policies are still profound,and democracies remain constricted by different forms of inequality.

The texts

The National Education Law legislates on all the topics related to the organi-zation, government and components of educational system, except universities.The law is organized in 12 titles. Title IV includes two chapters about teachersand their formation. Chapter 1 on ‘‘teachers’ rights and obligations’’ andChapter 2, ‘‘teacher education.’’ In general, the Law stresses the need for edu-cation to contribute to building a more just society, and to overcome inequali-ties and different forms of discrimination.

The UNESCO document has five parts related to: education as a right,equal access and quality, teachers, funding, and policy recommendations. Itis noteworthy in its critique of neoliberal economic policies previously imple-mented by Latin American countries, the recognition of the social exclusionthat groups of Native and African descendance as well as women have suf-fered, as well as the stress on the dramatic inequalities and the percentagesof people living in poverty that characterize the region.

The Skills Commission’s text starts by arguing the necessity to change theschool system, and it develops ten steps to follow in order to accomplisheducational change. The steps mainly refer to: teacher recruiting, trainingand compensation; creating a set of Board examinations; improving effi-ciency in the use of resources; developing curriculum and evaluation systems;providing universal early childhood education; giving ‘‘strong support to thestudents who need it the most’’ (p. 17); and providing new literacy skills foradult workforce.

As our goal is to focus on teacher education policies, we analyze andcompare the documents’ sections that place special attention on the defini-tions of education and teacher education, and the sections that propose poli-cies of teacher education that involve market conceptions of education.

Education: public good or market device?

The National Education Law establishes that ‘‘education is a public goodand a personal and social right, guarantied by the State’’ (art. 2�). TheUNESCO document defines education as a ‘‘human right and public good,’’as a ‘‘proposal of quality education longlife for everybody’’ (p. 7). The Skills

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Commission’s text explicitly states that improving education means develop-ing high international standards, as the condition to successfully compete inthe world market: ‘‘It [the United States] would have to adopt internation-ally benchmarked standards for educating its students and its workers,because only countries with highly skilled workforces could successfullycompete in that market.’’ (p. 1).

The two first definitions in the previous paragraph only differ on the qual-ification of ‘‘right,’’ personal and social right in the first definition, andhuman right in the second. Document 3 does not elaborate conceptual defi-nitions. Instead, it pragmatically addresses the issue of the purpose of educa-tion, and how it could be achieved. The document reflects the main values ofmarket ideology assuming that individual and national competitiveness andhigh performances are the main objectives of education. This stanceexpresses an instrumental conception for which investment in education isonly valid if it yields high returns.

Both the Skills Commission document and the Argentine Law acknowl-edge the national relevance of education, but in the first one it appearslinked to competitiveness, efficiency, and the primacy of market definingeducational contents, since ‘‘a swiftly rising number of American workers atevery skill level are in direct competition with workers in every corner of theglobe’’ (p. 5), and in the second is related to social rights, public goods, andthe State.

The Skills Commission text adopts an economic and technocratic perspec-tive, which is illustrated, among other elements, by the vision of ‘‘fixing’’ dis-advantaged students through the provision of eyeglasses, hearing aids ortherapy for dyslexia (p. 18), and diminishing the influence of social struc-tures inside and outside the school that maintain or reinforce inequality. Onthe other hand, the document proposes two measures that could have apositive impact in terms of equity: establishing a system of state fundinginstead of local funding of schools, and providing universal early childhoodeducation.

The meaning of teacher education

The Argentine Law defines teacher education as a key factor for improvingthe quality of education (art. 73), since its goal is to prepare professionalswho are able to teach, generate and transfer knowledge and values that areneeded for the integral formation of each person, for national developmentand for building a more equal society. Teacher education will promote theconstruction of a teacher identity based on professional autonomy, in thecontext of contemporary culture and society, team work, commitment withequality, and trust on students’ learning capabilities (art. 71). Before thebroad statement of professional expectations, the previous enumeration ofteachers’ rights (art. 67) – free and in service professional development and

434 Monica E. Pini and Jorge M. Gorostiaga

worthy work conditions and salary, among others – appears as very perti-nent, since without the right conditions better results are not possible.6

The UNESCO text specifies that the quality of teachers and the learningenvironment they generate is one of the most important factors that explainsstudents’ learning results. The implication is that the policies oriented toimproving educational quality could only be feasible if the efforts concen-trate in transforming, not only teachers but also the culture of schools.Besides, it is emphasized that no reform would be successful without teach-ers’ participation (p. 10). The document remarks the importance of teachers’quality for learning and for safeguarding the right to education. Differentforms of participation are also included among teachers’ rights in the Argen-tine law.

The American text affirms that:

it is simply not possible for our students to graduate from our schools by the mil-lions with very strong mathematical reasoning skills, a sound conceptual grasp ofscience, strong writing skills, world-beating capacity for creativity and innovation,and everything else we talk about in this report unless their teachers have theknowledge and skills we want our children to have (p. 12).

The quality of teacher education is determined by students’ results, accord-ing to standards and general examinations. The wider debate about this lin-eal connection between teaching-learning- and tests’ scores is not taken intoaccount in the document. Nevertheless, the authors recognize other factorswhich can influence results. They are especially worried about the problemthat most teachers are recruited from the less able of the high school stu-dents who go to college (p. 12). The Commission relates this situation to thewider opportunities for women and minorities in American workforce.

Teacher education policies

The objectives established by the Argentine law for teacher education poli-cies (art. 73) are aligned with the aim mentioned above oriented to prepareprofessionals who are able to teach, generate and transfer knowledge andvalues that are needed for the integral formation of each person, fornational development and for building a more equal society. The objectivesseem to respond to the law’s definition of education and of teacher training.

These objectives are: to upgrade and revalue teacher education; to developthe required capacities and knowledge for teaching work; to provide incen-tives for educational research and innovation linked to teaching tasks; tooffer a variety of in-service training programs and mechanisms that favorprofessional development; to promote further studies in university institu-tions; to plan and develop the pre-service and in-service teacher educationsystem; to implement accreditation processes for education institutions andprograms which license for teaching; to coordinate and articulate academic

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and institutional cooperation actions between teacher training institutes, uni-versities and other educational research institutions (art. 73).

Some of these general objectives could represent a qualitative leap if theywere implemented in a collaborative manner with teachers and students, andeducational institutions. In contrast to these very general guidelines, we findin the same Law more concrete regulations that establish a two-cycle struc-ture for teacher education, the extension from 3 to 4 years of training forprimary and initial education teachers, and the requirement of face-to-faceencounters in distance education (a rare case in teacher education) (art. 75).

In addition, the Law indicates that the National Ministry of Educationand the Federal Council of Education should build agreements upon teachertraining policies, guidelines and actions (art.74). This is a very importantdecision for a federal country. At the same time, the Law creates theNational Institute of Teacher Education which is responsible for implement-ing many of these policies and actions (art. 76). The Institute, which startedto operate in May 2007, has very broad functions and counts with an advi-sory board that includes representatives of different sectors.

While the Argentine Law mentions other factors related to teacher educa-tion, the UNESCO document addresses this policy through an approachthat integrates the three basic issues that are considered to affect teachingpractices:

Achieving a good professional performance demands addressing in an integralmanner a group of elements that are fundamental for the development and thestrengthening of teachers’ cognitive, pedagogic, ethic and social capacities. Threeof them require priority attention from national governments: an articulated sys-tem of permanent education and professional development; a transparent andmotivating system of professional career and teacher evaluation; and an appropri-ate system of labor conditions and welfare (p. 10).

Moreover, this text stresses the importance of recruiting qualified candidates,making reference to studies that show the increase in the number of studentscoming from impoverished social sectors, but it frames this issue within aexplicitly political logic:

In order to attract well qualified candidates, retain the best professionals andguarantee their permanent development, it is not enough to implement partial oroccasional actions; what is required is state public policies, integral and systemic,and with an inter-sectoral perspective. For the viability of these policies it is essen-tial that they are formulated with social and political consensus that guaranteelong term solutions, encourage a culture of joint responsibility, and translate intoconcrete agendas and commitments (p. 12).

As we have already pointed out, the issue of candidates’ qualifications has aprominent place in the Skills Commission document: ‘‘recruiting, training,and deploying a teaching force … recruited from the top third of the highschool students going to college’’ (p. 12) is one the three priorities in which

436 Monica E. Pini and Jorge M. Gorostiaga

the savings resulting from a more efficient use of available resources wouldbe used.7 As in the other documents, the topic of teacher education is linkedto other issues such as: changing the compensation system toward increasingsalaries of beginning teachers and introducing incentives, in some cases tiedto teacher productivity in terms of student achievements. In addition, wefind some distinctive elements in the US document: (a) a rigorous evaluationof teaching performance; and (b) opportunities for teachers to form theirown organizations for the operation of schools (p. 14). We further elaborateon these issues below.

With regard to specific policies on teacher education, the documentproposes a radical shift from the current situation in which teacher educa-tion takes place in universities. In this proposal, each state would create aTeacher Development Agency in charge of recruiting, training, and certifyingteachers. These Agencies would contract out among different public and pri-vate agents: ‘‘the state would launch national recruiting campaigns, allocateslots for training the needed number of teachers, and write performancecontracts with schools of education, but also teachers collaboratives, schooldistricts, and others interested in teacher training’’ (p. 14).

Professionalism and evaluation

All three documents define teachers as potential professionals in differentways. While the Argentinian law promotes a ‘‘teaching identity based on pro-fessional autonomy’’ (art. 71), the US document calls for a better salary forteachers ‘‘willing to work the same hours per year as other professionals typi-cally do.’’ (p. 13). Nevertheless, it is the text by UNESCO which makes thestrongest and detailed call for advancing toward professionalization, includ-ing under this conception the development of rational competencies, peda-gogic techniques, responsibility and commitment toward student learning,which would allow teachers to exercise their ‘‘citizen right in decisions abouteducation, the school and their own practices’’ (UNESCO 2007, p. 51).

In discussing the issue of professionalism, we need to consider thatprofessions typically develop strategies for minimizing the intrusion of non-professionals into definitions and routines of work (Esland 1980). Therefore,the professionalization of teaching may imply restricting the participation ofother actors like community members in educational policy and practice (seeGinsburg and Gorostiaga 2003).

On the other hand, during the last decades there has been a visiblegrowth of control over teachers (Apple 2001) in different countries, whichmay be seen as undermining the conception of teachers as professionals.Even though we need to acknowledge that historically teachers were con-ceived as agents who were part of a bureaucracy and lacking any autonomy(Tenti Fanfani 2006), the change from ‘‘licensed autonomy’’ to ‘‘regulatedautonomy’’ occurred since ‘‘teachers’ work is more highly standardized,

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rationalized, and ‘policed’ .... Under the growing conditions of regulatedautonomy, teachers’ actions are now subject to much great scrutiny in termsof process and outcomes’’ (Apple 2001, p. 51), a phenomenon also present inLatin America where it has led to the expansion and intensification of tasksin precarious and deteriorating working conditions (Andrade Oliveira 2006).

Furthermore, the three documents consider the establishment of evalua-tion systems that include assessing teacher’s performance. The ArgentinianLaw does not specify much about this, while the UNESCO document stres-ses the need for making teachers accountable for student performance, link-ing the evaluation of teachers to their professional development and theircareer ladders (p. 56).

According to the proposal of the Skills Commission document, every tea-cher would have to pass a ‘‘rigorous teaching performance assessment.’’ Inthe United States, educational evaluation at all levels (from classrooms tocentral offices) is based on standards. These standards imply uniform resultsto be reached that are established by each state and, in most cases, evaluatedthrough tests implemented by big private companies. This form of evalua-tion, which quantifies complex processes, has been criticized as an applica-tion of economicist models that reduce knowledge to its measurable aspectsand limits learning processes to the contents that can be assessed throughthese procedures (Anderson 1998; Apple 2000). Although it is recognizedthat examinations and assessments need to be improved in order to measurequalities like creativity, innovation and self-discipline, the text stressesthat ‘‘it all starts with the standards and assessments’’ (National Center onEducation and the Economy 2007, p. 15).

Marketization

The proposal made by the Skills Commission for the formation of teachers’organizations to manage schools looks like a euphemism of charter schools.In the document, Step 5 explains that in the new governance and organiza-tional scheme for creating high performance schools and districts, publicschools ‘‘would be operated by independent contractors, many of themlimited-liability corporations owned and run by teachers’’ (p. 16). As previ-ous research (Pini 2000, 2004) explains, during the past 10 years there havebeen many attempts to impose the charter school’s model, in the USA. Thistrend has opened public education to market by allowing private companies,including big corporations, to manage schools and districts.

The reasons behind the arguments in favor to increase autonomy for bet-ter performance, and to provide freedom of school choice among parents,are:

• There is a large amount of money moving around the educational systemthat attracts business people.

438 Monica E. Pini and Jorge M. Gorostiaga

• Teachers find difficult to manage complex administrative procedures andcontrols so they end up contracting private companies for these tasks.

• An ‘‘educational industry’’ specialized in schools has developed followingthe logic of any other industry.

This model is the one proposed by the Skills Commission document forteaching education, allowing state Agencies to openly contract in the market,following a logic of profit that is opposed to the logic of education as a rightand as a public good.8

The Argentine Law and the UNESCO document seem to espouse theperspective of education as a public good, but there are aspects of the reali-ties of education and teaching in Latin America that may question to whatextent those general guidelines are translated into practices. We need to beaware of the increasing participation of private companies, through differentorganizations and negotiation mechanisms, in the decisions about educa-tional policy. There is a silent advance of companies and corporations pro-moting different kinds of educational projects, sometimes in association withuniversities and other private institutions.9 This advancement includes pro-grams and actions for teacher education and training implemented by bigcompanies and their foundations, both local (Noble Foundation; ArgentineBanks Association) and multinational (Microsoft Argentina; Coca Cola;Santillana; Fundacion Telefonica, etc.).

Final comments

The comparison shows similarities among the discursive features of theNational Education Law (Argentina) and the UNESCO document, related tothe definition of education and the meaning of teacher education. The policydiscourses in these two texts are very different from the USA document, be-cause they emphasize education as a social right, but in the light of educa-tional and social realities in Latin America, their implementation is notguaranteed. In the case of Argentina, the text of the law is too generic and theInstitute that has been created concentrates too many functions for a federalcountry. At the same time, the power of big companies and the huge socialinequalities have not disappeared, in spite of changes in the economic model.

The findings that emerge from the comparative analysis of educational pol-icy documents are significant. Even though each context is different, the ideo-logical influence of the USA policy context and financial agencies has beentraditionally important for the development of policies in Latin America.

Regarding teacher education policies, a first look shows very differentapproaches. However, the general character of the Argentinean Law state-ments, as well as the current social and educational scenarios for LatinAmerica, demand a constant struggle for achieving policies that respond tothe right to a quality education for all.

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During the last decades, in almost every Latin American country, includ-ing Argentina, evaluation systems have promoted the ‘‘regulated autonomy’’of teachers’ work. They have not produced better students’ learning, butmore pressure and worse labor conditions for teachers. For both the Ameri-can and the Latin American cases, the recommendations and policies thatthe three documents express do not seem to foster the development of teach-ers as intellectuals nor to acknowledge their political role.

Corporations in the US have profited from education through theprovision of auxiliary services, textbooks, tests, training, evaluation, andeven instructional programs (Molnar 1996; Spring 1997; Boyles 2000).Meanwhile, the neoliberal agenda has found a fertile field for market-oriented practices in education in Latin America. In addition to changes inthe role of the state, corporations have developed expansion policies increas-ing their capacity to influence regulations for their own benefit. This is thecase of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and with the naturalizationof the idea of education as a private good. As Ball (1998) has pointed out,‘‘education is not simply modeled on the methods and values of capital, it isitself drawn into the commodity form’’ (p. 126).

Education as a public good can be claimed and lived as a right, while as aprivate good it is just a right for those who can pay for it. Education as a pub-lic good is potentially inclusive, it brings social benefits, and helps to build asociety of active citizens who are capable of participating in political life.Instead, education as a private good, generates individual advantages, contrib-utes to the formation of elites, and casts citizens as passive consumers.

While the State does not guarantee good teacher education for every tea-cher nor adequate regulations for those who prepare teachers, corporationsexpand their power and provide a good image to the public while savingtaxes at the same time. In unequal societies such as those in Latin America,the laws themselves are not enough to ensure the universal right of educa-tion. The power of big corporations is strong and the huge social inequitiescontinue, in spite of changes in the economic model moving away fromneoliberalism.

Neoliberal educational reforms in Latin America produced a restructur-ation of teachers’ status and work lives (Andrade Oliveira and Feldfeber2006). The expansion of access to school was accomplished off the backs ofteachers, eroding their already battered professional and social role. Coun-ter-hegemonic initiatives are needed to defend and improve public institu-tions. These initiatives should seek a redefinition of the social goals of thoseinstitutions, criticizing and challenging growing instrumentalization from theprivate sector and promoting an authentic participation of teachers and stu-dents (Anderson 1998). New discourses are needed to critique the growinginfluence of marketization in Latin American education systems. This alsorequires new social networks of communication (e.g. think tanks, bloggs,etc.) and solidarity among those working for a more just and democraticsociety.

440 Monica E. Pini and Jorge M. Gorostiaga

Notes

1. The first commission released a report in 1990, called America’s Choice: high skillsor low wages!

2. Annie E. Casey Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, William & FloraHewlett Foundation, and Lumina Foundation for Education.

3. According to SIEMPRO (2003), by the last 4 years, more than 27% of the Argentin-ean population became poor by income. Between 1998 and 2001, 8.6% became poor,and between 2001 and 2002 another 18.6% of the population descended under thepoverty line. The loss of home equity, higher prices, and increasing inequity ofincome are the main factors that have contributed to the growth of poverty.

4. It includes K-9.5. Children, adolescents, and adults.6. Art. 2 inc. i of the Law of Education Funding establishes as one of its priorities

improving work conditions and teachers’ salaries, as well as professional careerand teacher education.

7. The other two would be: building a high-quality early childhood education systemand giving disadvantaged students the resources they need to reach internationaleducation standards.

8. This is not to say that schools organized by teachers, parents and/or communitymembers may not have, in some cases, a progressive character. Whitty and Power(2002) argue that ‘‘The Kura Kaupapa Maori in New Zealand and some of the‘alternative’ US charter schools provide examples where self-determination bycommunities and professionals has brought about innovative and potentiallyempowering educational environments’’ (pp. xiii–xiv).

9. ‘‘Universidad y empresas: el nuevo romance’’, Cların Economico, 16/5/04.

References

Documents

National Center on Education and the Economy. 2007. Tough Choices or Tough Times[Electronic Version]. Washington DC: National Center on Education and the Economy.

Republica Argentina, Ministerio de Educacion, Ciencia y Tecnologıa. 2007. Ley deEducacion Nacional No. 26.206/06. Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Educacion, Ciencia yTecnologıa.

UNESCO, Oficina Regional de Educacion para America Latina y el Caribe. 2007.Educacion de Calidad para todos: un asunto de derechos humanos [Electronic version].Santiago, Chile: UNESCO.

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The authors

Monica E. Pini is Professor at the School of Graduate Studies at the UniversidadNacional de San Martın, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. There, she is the Director of the

Center of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education, Culture and Society and also of theMaster in Education, Languages and Media. She earned a Master in Public Adminis-tration from the Universidad de Buenos Aires and a Ph.D. in Educational Thought and

Sociocultural Studies from the University of New Mexico.Contact address: Escuela de Posgrado, Universidad Nacional de San Martın,

Belgrano 3563, San Martın, CP 1650, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina. E-mail:

mpini@unsam.edu.ar

Jorge M. Gorostiaga holds a PhD in Social and Comparative Analysis in Education(University of Pittsburgh). He is an Associate Professor of Education Reform and theAssistant Dean for Academic Affairs at the School of Graduate Studies of Universidad

Nacional de San Martın (Argentina). His research focuses on different aspects of edu-cational reform in Latin America. He is the co-editor (with Mark Ginsburg) of Limi-tations and Possibilities of Dialogue among Researchers, Policy-makers and Practitioners:

International Perspectives on the Field of Education (New York: Routledge Falmer,2003).

Contact address: Escuela de Posgrado, Universidad Nacional de San Martın,

Belgrano 3563, San Martın, CP 1650, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina. E-mail:ceiecs@unsam.edu.ar

443Teacher Education and Development Policies