This volume unmasks tensions among economic, political, and educational goals in the context of becoming and being a teacher. Chapters frame becoming and being a teacher within commitments to democracy and political literacy while confronting neoliberal assumptions about American society, universal public education, and education reform. A wide variety of teachers and scholars discuss teacher preparation and teaching through evidence-based examinations of complex problems and solutions facing teachers, education policymakers, the public, and students. Teaching is embraced as a political act, and critical subjectivity is endorsed as a rejection of objectivity and traditional paradigms of teaching designed to create a compliant teacher workforce. The book honors and celebrates voice and collective voice, both of which speak to and from the inexorable fact of becoming and being a teacher as one and the same.

Contents: P. L. Thomas: Introduction – Thomas Robertine: Continuous Becoming: Fieldwork as a Mutually Transformative Experience – Ana L. Cruz: Becoming a Teacher: Fostering a Democratically Conscious Citizenry Through Critical Pedagogy – Katherine Crawford-Garrett: Teach for America, Urban Reform, and the New Taylorism in Public Education – Lisa William-White: Becoming a Teacher in an Era of Curricular Standardization and Reductionist Learning Outcomes: A Poetic Interpretation – Anthony Cody: Learning to Teach: Values in Action – Brad J. Porfilio/Lauren Hoffman: The Corporate Takeover of Teacher Education: Exposing and Challenging NCTQ’s Neoliberal Agenda – John L. Hoben: Right-Thinking People: Becoming a Teacher Educator in the Age of Austerity – John M. Elmore: Neoliberalism and Teacher Preparation: Systematic Barriers to Critical Democratic Education – Julie A. Gorlewski/David A. Gorlewski: Too Late for Public Education? Becoming a Teacher in a Neoliberal Era – Lawrence Baines: Ignorance Is Strength: Teaching in the Shadow of Big Brother – Ann G. Winfield/Alan S. Canestrari: Beware Reformers Bearing Gifts: How the Right Uses the Language of Social Justice to Reinforce Inequity – Gordon D. Bambrick: Spotlight on Failure: The Mythology of Corporate Education Reform – Amy Seely Flint/Eliza Allen/Tara Campbell/Amy Fraser/Danielle Hilaski/Linda James/Sanjuana Rodriguez/Natasha Thornton: More Than Graphs and Scripted Programs: Teachers Navigating the Educational Policy Terrain – Dana M. Stachowiak: Not Bound by Stupid Binaries: Dismantling Gender in Public Schools Through a New Consciousness and Claiming of Agency – Galen Leonhardy: So This Is America: A Narrative of Becoming and Being a Teacher – Regletto Aldrich D. Imbong: Neoliberalism and the Filipino Teacher: Shaking the System for a Genuine Democracy – Katie Stover/Crystal Glover: Mandated Scripted Curriculum: A Benefit or Barrier to Democratic Teaching and Learning? – A. Scott Henderson: Schools as Battlegrounds: The Authoritarian Jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas – Melissa Winchell/Patricia Chouinard: Troubling Traditional Notions of «Prepared»: Two Urban Teachers Ignite the Boundaries of Progressive and Critical Theories – Dawn Mitchell: Why Accountability Measures Fail: Practitioner Perspectives on the Role of Teacher Efficacy – Michael Svec: Empowerment Through Classroom Cultural Inquiries – P. L. Thomas: Conclusion. «[N]ot the Time…to Follow the Line of Least Resistance».