Who Controls Teachers' Work?: Power and Accountability in America's Schools

by Richard M. Ingersoll

Schools are places of learning but they are also workplaces, and teachers are employees. As such, are teachers more akin to professionals or to factory workers in the amount of control they have over their work? And what difference does it make?

Drawing on large national surveys as well as wide-ranging interviews with high school teachers and administrators, Richard Ingersoll reveals the shortcomings in the two opposing viewpoints that dominate thought on this that schools are too decentralized and lack adequate control and accountability; and that schools are too centralized, giving teachers too little autonomy. Both views, he shows, overlook one of the most important parts of teachers' schools are not simply organizations engineered to deliver academic instruction to students, as measured by test scores; schools and teachers also play a large part in the social and behavioral development of our children. As a result, both views overlook the power of implicit social controls in schools that are virtually invisible to outsiders but keenly felt by insiders. Given these blind spots, this book demonstrates that reforms from either camp begin with inaccurate premises about how schools work and so are bound not only to fail, but to exacerbate the problems they propose to solve.

Genres: Education, Teaching

368 pages, Paperback

First published February 11, 2003

Reviews

[Rigatoni Baloney]

Chapter 5 was the best and worst describing the multitude of ways the whole bureaucratic system works at de-skilling the teaching profession. It raises the question, What would happen if we made school a privilege not a right? It is demoralizing to read how disempowered teachers are as they "struggle to succeed in an (hierarchically) organized system that has denied them power, autonomy and resources to accomplish their goals in the first place. (p.182). I ask myself, why do teachers continue to teach under these circumstances? It's like they're martyrs. I was shocked to learn that teachers supplement the education system to the tune of a billion dollars spending their own money on materials and resources used in the classroom. (Tax deductible under NCLB).

[Brian Shevory]

A great look at the politics of control and accountability (or lack thereof) in schools of all types. Ingersoll uses history and his own observations in Philadelphia schools to guide his analysis of how teachers' work and responsibilities are delegated.