EDITORIAL THE POLITICS OF TEACHER EDUCATION AND THE CURSE OF COMPLEXITY

Some policy and political analysts assume that ambiguity, conflict, and competing goals are in-herent in human societies. From this perspec-tive, politics is a “creative and valued feature of social existence ” (Stone, 1997, p. x) and the “pro-cess by which citizens with varied interests and opinions can negotiate differences and clarify places where values conflict ” (Westheimer, 2004, p. 231). Following from this conception of politics, education (and with it, teaching and teacher education) are inherently and unavoid-ably political in that they involve the negotia-tion of conflicting values about curriculum, ac-countability, the role of schools in society, the children deemed eligible for particular services, and the persons and structures that govern and regulate all of these. This view of the politics of education is quite different from the view that “being political” about education (or teacher education) is equated with being partisan about it and, thus, is a barrier to improving the processes of teacher preparation. Following from this latter concep-tion of politics, it is assumed that it is possible— and desirable—to create a system of education that is politically neutral, value free, and above or outside of disagreements about educational means and ends (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). From this perspective, public dissent and the acknowledgement of ideological differences are regarded as obstacles to policies leading to edu-cational improvement, not to mention as threats to truth and patriotism (Ross, 2004). This editorial is rooted in the premises of the first position elaborated above—that politics is an inevitable characteristic of human society and social institutions involving contested notions about public and private interests and the role of education in society. The editorial focuses on two ideas that are useful in unpack-ing the issues involved in the contemporary politics of teacher education: the rhetoric of teacher education reform and the “curse ” of complex understandings of teaching, learning, and schooling