| This dissertation is an historical study of the social and political construction of teachers that inspired the National Teacher Corps, and the insights it suggests about the history of teacher policy. Legislated in the Higher Education Act of 1965 as part of the Great Society anti-poverty arsenal, the Corps aimed to improve the education of disadvantaged students by improving the quality of teachers in poor schools. Specifically, the Corps proposed to make bright, liberal arts graduates into teaching interns in public schools serving poor children. The interns represented a new and different kind of candidate and their presence was meant to invigorate and redefine the profession, spearhead new ways of instructing disadvantaged students, and encourage new teacher training methods. In short, the Corps proposed to rehabilitate teaching by recruiting “better” people.; Establishing this construction as the product of a powerful group of liberal reformers, policymakers and scholars, the dissertation attempts to trace how such views were framed and how they led to the particular solution of the National Teacher Corps. The study attends to the ways in which the specific concerns of the 1960s served to shape and focus reformers' views. At the same time, it acknowledges the resonance of these views over time, and probes why they have been both so compelling and persistent. The dissertation draws on the liberal reformers' construction of teachers as a foil. Their views afford a backdrop for alternative perspectives of teachers, which emerged in both the explicit opposition and notable silences that characterized responses to the Corps. Finally, this study endeavors to understand the reformers' construction not only as a particular perspective on education reform, but as a critical reflection of the class, gender, and race hierarchies that have shaped American perceptions of teachers, stratified the field of education and distributed power in American society. |
