NEIU Digital Commons

A Second-Class Workforce: How Neoliberal Policies and Reforms Undermined the Educational Profession

SU 216

Years of professional neglect, scrutiny, and inequitable pay have forced educators across the country to fight for improved policies and reforms. A public, in some circles, that views educators undeserving of their salaries due to the unpreparedness of the American youth to succeed in the economy and the continued societal problems emanating from the profession. Neoliberalism, as a school policy plan, was designed to retool and establish improved schooling opportunities, especially for children of color located in poor residential environments. Instead, what it created was a more divided, tiered school arrangement that expelled black-and-brown teachers from education while closing down the schools they worked in primarily situated in urban America (Lipman, 1998; Watkins, 2011; Apple, 2018). The methodology for this research diagnosed and assessed key aspects of contemporary literature along with applying an auto-ethnographic lens to evaluate school reform challenges. The critical race theoretical approach was adopted to indicate how neoliberalism affects new teachers entering the profession along with teachers and children of color existing within school structures. Despite the paper identifying the various milestones achieved in the newly constructed schools, it is also clear that charter-and-contract school designs pay teachers less for their work, reduces the employment attrition rate, and consummates an over testing industry that regulates and controls how teachers instruct and are evaluated. More troubling, fewer people were interested in pursuing this profession as a career (Walker, 2019; Ravitch, 2016). To fix this challenge, educators are in the streets, the school board rooms, and on Capitol Hill to demand their profession receive the types of reforms necessary to sustain its existence. Such activism ensures education will continue to make great strides.