Education has been powerfully affected by the rise of a neoliberal political, economic and cultural agenda The Australian experience since the 1980s is outlined Educators need to understand neoliberalism, and also to think about the nature of education itself, as a social process of nurturing capacities for practice Education itself cannot be commodified; but access to education can be Markets require a rationing of education, and the creation of hierarchies and mechanisms of competition Hence, the redefinition of schools and universities as firms, and the striking revival of competitive testing, as well as the expansion of public funding of private schools Teachers are placed under performative pressures that tend to narrow the curriculum in schools, and make the sector's workforce more insecure Even the knowledge base of education is impacted, with technicization of professional knowledge and a growth of cultural fakery around education Bases for alternatives exist, but have not yet found instit

The neoliberal cascade and education: an essay on the market agenda and its consequences

Ideas about what makes a good teacher are important in thinking about educational reform, and have come into focus recently. These ideas are contested and open to change. The first part of this paper traces models of the good teacher in Australia from the colonial-era good servant, through an ideal of the autonomous scholar-teacher, to contemporary lists of teacher competencies. The second part looks more closely at the incoherent but insistent way the good teacher is now defined under neoliberal governance by teacher registration authorities. The third part of the paper makes proposals for a new understanding of good teachers: based on understanding the labour process and occupational dynamics of teaching, the intellectual structure of Education studies, and the overall logic of education itself.

/pdf/good-teachers-on-dangerous-ground-towards-a-new-view-of-5esqrg182n.pdf

Good teachers on dangerous ground: towards a new view of teacher quality and professionalism

Equity, Democracy, and Neoliberal Assaults on Teacher Education.

https://ccte.org/wp-content/pdfs-conferences/ccte-conf-2012-fall-zeichner-neo-liberal.pdf

Competition, economic rationalization, increased surveillance, and attacks on diversity: Neo-liberalism and the transformation of teacher education in the U.S.

Neoliberalism is generally understood as a system of ideas circulated by a network of right-wing intellectuals, or as an economic system mutation resulting from crises of profitability in capitalism. Both interpretations prioritize the global North. We propose an approach to neoliberalism that prioritizes the experience of the global South, and sees neoliberalism gaining its main political strength as a development strategy displacing those hegemonic before the 1970s. From Southern perspectives, a distinct set of issues about neoliberalism becomes central: the formative role of the state, including the military; the expansion of world commodity trade, including minerals; agriculture, informality, and the transformation of rural society. Thinkers from the global South who have foregrounded these issues need close attention from the North and exemplify a new architecture of knowledge in critical social science.

Where in the world does neoliberalism come from

Neo-Liberalism, Teachers, and Teaching: Understanding the Assault: The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and Teacher Unions Mary Compton & Lois Weiner 'Remaking the World': Neo-Liberalism and the Transformation of Education and Teacher's Labor Susan Robertson Neo-Liberalism's Global Footprint: Education Reform under Strangulation John Nyambe Teaching for the Factory: Neo-Liberalism in Mexican Education Rodolfo Rincones, Elaine Hampton, & Cesar Silva Neo-Liberal Education in Denmark Jette Steensen Higher and Tertiary Education in the West Indies: Ensnared by GATS Margueritte Cummins Williams The Education World is Not Flat: Neo-Liberalism's Global Project and Teacher Unions' Transnational Resistance Larry Kuehn The Need for Unions to Defend Public Education: Teachers and their Unions: Why Social Class 'Counts' Kathleen A. Murphey Campaign Against the Opening of City Academies in England Ian Murch An Inner-City Public School Teacher's Story from China Yihuai Cai What Teachers Want from their Unions: What We Know from Research Nina Bascia Challenging Neo-Liberalism: Education Unions in Australia Rob Durbridge Teaching, a Profession under Attack: Contradictions and Tensions in the Place of Teachers in Educational Reform: Reflections upon the Role of Teachers in Recent Educational Reforms in the United States and Namibia Ken Zeichner Universalization of Elementary Education in India: A Dream Deferred is a Dream Denied Basanti Chakraoborty Educational Restructuring, Democratic Education, and Teachers Alvaro Moreira Hypolito Neo-Liberalism, Inequality, and Teacher Unions: Sodexho in the Chicago Public Schools Kyle Westbrook Homophobia in St. Lucian Schools: A Perspective from a Select Group of Teachers Urban Dolor Work on Aboriginal Education in a Social Justice Union: Reflections from the Inside Chris Stewart South African Teachers and Social Movements: Old and New Shermain Mannah & Jon Lewis Schooling and Class in Germany: An Interview with Eberhard Brandt and Susanne Gondermann Mary Compton Education or Mind Infection? Nurit Peled-Elhanan Going on the Offensive: Interview with Thulas Nxesi, President of the Education International Mary Compton The Context of Teachers' Democratic Movements in Mexico Rodolfo Rincones In Mexico, to Defend Education as a Social Right, We Must Fight for Union Democracy Maria de la Luz Arriaga Lemus A History of the Search for Teacher Unity in South Africa Harold Samuel British Teacher Unions and the Blair Government-Anatomy of an Abusive Relationship Mary Compton Building the International Movement We Need: Why a Consistent Defense of Democracy is Essential Lois Weiner

The global assault on teaching, teachers, and their unions : stories for resistance

The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and their Unions

Teachers in every part of the world are in the forefront of the struggle to ensure that children receive an education—whether in U.S. cities, the mountains of Chavez’s Venezuela, in civil war-torn Nepal, in Europe’s towns and countryside, or in the refugee camps of Sudan. In prosperous nations, identified by global justice activists as the global north, teachers’ wages, their voice in policy, and the quality of their working conditions have been reduced. In the south, societies that lack power and wealth in the new global economy, teachers are working for a pittance, sometimes unpaid, too often poorly trained or with no training at all. In many parts of Africa they teach children in classes of over 100, sometimes under trees or squatting in churches. Textbooks are nonexistent, libraries and computers a distant dream, and basic materials in short supply. When wars occur, declared or not, schools are taken over and the children evicted, as has been done in Congo and by the Israeli army in the Palestinian West Bank. In Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean islands, schools were wiped out by the tsunami, and while luxury resorts are being built, school construction lags. In impoverished city neighborhoods in the “developed” world, from Paris and London to Berlin and New York, teachers are struggling against reduced school funding, racism, and social and economic dislocation to try to ensure that all children receive quality schooling.

Mary Compton

Papers

The global assault on teaching, teachers, and their unions : stories for resistance

The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and their Unions

The global Assault on Teachers, Teaching, and Teacher Unions

Teachers’ Unions and Social Justice

Teachers’ Work and Teachers’ Unions in the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM)