Design and Default in Teacher Education. Occasional Paper Two, NDEA National Institute for Advanced Study in Teaching Disadvantaged Youth / Vernon Haubrich.

Any attempt to change teacher education must recognize the bureaucratic nature of our educational system, a de facto national system with the graduate school as the capstone of an interlocking hierarchy in which power is centered on the middle level functionaries. Role definition and specialization of purpose tend to place the teacher in the role of lower level functionary rather than autonomous professional. Principles of organizational change indicate that to produce change in such a system would require the linking of functionaries, the provision for communication between those at the top and at the bottom, the engaging in programatic activities which are centered in the situation where the functionaries are at work, and the selection of school systems and individuals who seem to have a propensity for testing out new ideas. If schools are to be related to the educational development of children and are to serve other than a gatekeeper or bureaucratic function, priority should be given to (1) programs which design a closer meshing of university and school personnel in a situational context, (2) emphasis on the education and reeducation of administrators, supervisors, and long-term professionals who are in control of the school systems, (3) program development which looks to vertical contexts in professional development, and (4) diagnosis of school difficulties, both teaching and administrative, as the beginning point of courses, with field experiences viewed as mandatory. (JS)

Microfiche. [Washington D.C.]: ERIC Clearinghouse microfiches : positive.