| Teacher preparation has undergone a great deal of growth and change over the years. New York State has supported a number of alternative routes to teacher certification, some under the auspices of university-based schools of education. The growing popularity of market ideology has introduced such concepts as competition and accountability into the field of education and teacher preparation. This study explores the factors influencing teacher preparation and institutional changes as alternative programs partnered with education schools. These new partnerships suggest a need to understand how, if at all, alternative programs are influencing university-based programs.;Using in-depth interviews with 21 faculty across six education schools, this study explores how faculty understand the influences of alternative teacher preparation programs as they entered the institutional environment of education schools. The interviewees represent faculty at a cross-section of education schools in New York City. Using neoinstitutional theory (Scott, 2001; Meyer and Rowan, 2006) and the categories of rivals, partners, and profit-seekers (Scott and DiMartino, 2009), the study suggests that a partner approach to reform may be more effective than the rival approach currently promoted by market ideology. This study also introduces the concept of symbiotic organizational relationships, which can help to explain the relationship within an unequal partnership.;This study describes the development of a hybrid program and teacher as a result of the partnership between alternative and professionalized teacher preparation programs. This hybrid teacher, with characteristics of both programs, will soon give way to what I refer to as a de-professionalized teacher as alternative programs establish stand-alone graduate programs. The emergence of Relay, an independent graduate school of education, provided a backdrop to this study. |
