Ed Schools

As an introduction to why I have studied education in great detail over the last 5 plus years, I will say it is basically because I am concerned for America’s future and especially the future of my children and grandchildren. While education is only one of many threats to their future, I believe that education is the one that if not addressed in a meaningful way will trump everything else we may do. I remarked to a friend recently that my study of education has been similar to the study of an onion. When you get done studying one layer you realize there is another one just below it that smells much the same way as the one you just finished examining.

In this, the first blog on the education onion theme, I want to share with you some data and comments from sources I came across in my research that relate to the way the education schools train teachers and education leaders. David Klein in his A Brief History of American K-12 Mathematics Education in the 20th Century, describes a basic trade-off between pedagogy (method) and subject knowledge. “There should be no more conflict between content and pedagogy than between one’s right foot and left foot. They should work in tandem toward the same end, and avoid tripping each other. Content is the answer to the question, what to teach and pedagogy answers the question of how to teach.” He goes on to point out, however, that since the early 1900s when the Progressive movement took over education, the attitude among educators is that pedagogy is really the only important thing. Klein summarizes by saying, “With roots going back to Jean Jacques Rousseau and with the guidance of John Dewey, progressive education has dominated American schools since the early years of the 20th century.” This progressive style has been especially dominant in our schools of education.

Adding more perspective is E.D. Hirsch Jr. in The Knowledge Deficit. “The failure of romantic [naturalism, progressivism, constructivism, etc] ideas to improve educational achievement is an inevitable result of their scientific inadequacy and inaccuracy. [These progressive beliefs] Naturalism and Formalism are the two principles that constitute a kind of theology that is drilled into prospective teachers like a catechism. Reading is not, as romantics hold, either a natural acquisition or a formal skill. But mere scientific inadequacy can be a practical irrelevance in American education. Professors, including those who teach our teachers, do not easily give up their long-asserted ideas, even under the pressure of unfavorable scientific evidence.” He comments on our inability to improve educational performance in spite of throwing huge sums of money at the problem, “The reason for this state of affairs – tragic for millions of students as well as for the nation – is that an army of American educators and reading experts are fundamentally wrong in their ideas about education and especially about reading comprehension. Their well-intentioned yet mistaken views are the significant reason (more than other constantly blamed factors, even poverty) that many of our children are not attaining reading proficiency, thus crippling their later schooling.”

It has been my observation that whenever the public has forced movement in educational practices away from the deeply entrenched progressive beliefs continuously present over the last century, the education school faculties lay low for a while and then bring back the same old stuff but relabeled “new and improved.” Thus, they operate in what I call a spring-loaded way. There is a powerful spring connecting them to their scientifically inadequate beliefs that once public pressure is relaxed causes them to move back to their old ways. I have heard more than one education professor proclaim when faced with the scientific inadequacy of their belief, “Well, if it isn’t true, it ought to be.” It reminds you of the old saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. And this is a very old dog.

To provide a bit of context I will include a couple of excerpts from two national studies done on the state of our education performance. The first is the A Nation at Risk report from 1983. “… the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. . . . If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.“ In 2007 another report was published called, Tough Choices or Tough Times. “While our international counterparts are increasingly getting more education, their young people are getting a better education as well. American students and young adults place anywhere from the middle to the bottom of the pack in all three continuing comparative studies of achievement in mathematics, science, and general literacy in the advanced industrial nations.” Not a pretty picture considering the huge amount of spending done to improve things. One of the most distressing things related in the two reports is that in the 1983 report, America’s best and brightest were among the best in the world. In the 2007 report America’s best are at the bottom of the pack when compared to the best in other developed countries.

While there have been many studies on the impact of the education schools on our poor performance, my favorites are the series done by Arthur Levine. His findings coincide very well with what I learned in interviewing educators in six states so that I could get a sense of how consistent the problems were. The states are Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, and Connecticut. I found amazing consistency in all areas. Levine’s reports are available on the web at www. edschools.org. If you are using results turned in as the metric you have to conclude that the education schools are doing a poor job in preparing teachers and leaders. Yet, the accreditation and other agencies with oversight responsibility look the other way. Following are some excerpts from his reports which were based on his study of every degree granting ed school in the nation. By the way, when Levine wrote these critiques he was President of Columbia Teachers College.

Educating School Leaders

The need for outstanding leaders has never been greater. School leadership is the most crucial catalyst for school improvement.

Programs compete for students by lowering admission standards, watering down course work, offering faster and less demanding degrees.

Programs are “credit dispensers”: Confer Masters Degrees on students who demonstrate anything but mastery, award Doctorates in name only, enroll Principals and Superintendents in study that Is Irrelevant to their Jobs.

Educating School Teachers

A majority of teacher education graduates are prepared in university-based programs that suffer from low admission and graduation standards.

Teacher education in the United States is principally a mix of weak and mediocre programs.

The reports are in excess of 100 pages each in 8.5 by 11 inch format. I recommend you read them.

So what can we conclude? The education schools layer of the onion are not providing value. They are basically diploma mills extracting huge amounts of money from the public. Levine said about the education doctorate that it was of “no value” for any school administration job. Of course, “no value” is another way of saying worthless. Is it any wonder that our schools aren’t performing better? The leaders haven’t been taught how to lead and the teachers haven’t been taught how to teach. Could it be much worse? We need to ask straightforward questions, such as, if they aren’t providing any value why are they still in business? Can we afford to let untold millions of American kids be unable to compete in the new increasingly competitive global environment because their education is weak?