Who Needs Education Schools? [Six-page NYT article questions value of education colleges]

The NYT ^ | July 31, 2005 | ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

[summer]

Teaching for Teachers

Who Needs Education Schools



...For decades, education schools have gravitated from the practical side of teaching, seduced by large ideas like "building a caring learning community and culture" and "advocating for social justice," to borrow from the literature of the Hunter College School of Education, part of the City University of New York. ... But critics say that ill prepares teachers to function effectively in the classroom.

Attrition statistics tell the dismal story: 14 percent of teachers leave the classroom in the first year, nearly half by the fifth year.

Today, education schools face pressure to improve from all directions. A flurry of new studies challenges their ideological bias and low admissions standards. Critics now question their very existence, with competition from fast-track routes to certification threatening their long-held monopoly on training teachers. ...

In fact, No Child Left Behind, with its emphasis on standards and hard data, has placed national policy in direct conflict with the prevailing approach of many colleges, where the John Dewey tradition of progressive education holds sway, marked by a deep antipathy toward testing....

For at least a decade, students who intend to major in education have had among the lowest SAT scores of all college-bound seniors - in 2004, they ranked 19th of 22 intended majors, two points in combined verbal and math scores below those who planned to major in agriculture. Even "undecided" ranked higher. And according to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, those who leave the profession during their first few years have higher scores than those who stay. An institute report also shows that the weaker the undergraduate college, the more likely its students will end up teaching as a career....

[summer]

This is currently the #2 most emailed article on the NYT, and some of it reads like many FR threads on education I've read over the years! I was quite surprised to see it in the NYT.

[summer]

In another education article in the NYT, it seems like now -- 8 years later -- the NYT has finally caught up with FL's Virtual School, a public school online in FL for grades 6-12:

NYT:

Public Schools Begin to Offer Gym Classes Online
By SAM DILLON
Published: August 2, 2005

...One of the first schools to offer physical education online, in 1997, was Florida Virtual School. It is now the nation's largest public online school, with 21,000 students taking at least one course. Personal fitness, the online version of the state's physical education requirement, was the school's most popular course last year, attracting 4,500 students. (Second-most popular was economics, with 2,400 students.)

Some students, including a blind teenager in Miami and a student in Melbourne, Fla., who was recovering from a kidney transplant, signed up because their health problems prevented their taking regular gym classes, said Jo Wagner, one of Florida Virtual's lead instructors. But Ms. Wagner said most students took the course to free their schedules for foreign languages and other electives at their traditional schools....

[Servant of the 9]

For at least a decade, students who intend to major in education have had among the lowest SAT scores of all college-bound seniors - in 2004, they ranked 19th of 22 intended majors, two points in combined verbal and math scores below those who planned to major in agriculture. Even "undecided" ranked higher.

Wonder what the 3 majors were that ranked lower?

So9

[summer]

PS FL's Virtual School is HERE.

[Bahbah]

Wonder what the 3 majors were that ranked lower?

Me, too. I am wracking my brain. How about social work?

[summer]

I don't know. But, I really think the Republicans, especially strong GOP leaders like FL Gov Jeb Bush, deserve an enormous amount of credit for pushing education to improve and trying really hard to understand the problems facing teachers, students and parents. There was never that kind of energy and devotion to education from Dem leaders. And, I think education will really start to improve as more and more of these old time Dems retire from school administration and teaching, making way for a smarter generation of teachers. Right now many of these new teachers can't do much but leave, depending on how many obstacles they are willing to put up with.

[CFC__VRWC]

Wonder what the 3 majors were that ranked lower?

My money's on journalism, sociology and political science, all majors thoroughly infested top to bottom with extreme leftists. I'm almost 100 percent certain about journalism - journalism and education colleges are the intellectual sewers of the universities.

[Servant of the 9]

Everything any highschool graduate needs to learn to be an effective teacher can be taught in one summer's short course. After all, they have already had 12 years of on the job training.

The rest of a 'teaching' curriculum is nothing more than busywork.

SO9

[summer]

Uh, great teaching is a little more complicated than that. :)

[CFC__VRWC]

And, I think education will really start to improve as more and more of these old time Dems retire from school administration and teaching, making way for a smarter generation of teachers.

One thing I heard some time ago; find out what your kids' teacher majored in in college. If your kid's math teacher, say, had majored in mathematics or physics, then he/she was probably a good teacher. OTOH, if the teacher majored in math education, your kid was probably in trouble.

Of course, the teachers unions have been pushing hard to make sure that only education majors get classroom jobs, the better to pass on the leftist indoctrination the teachers have been stuffed with to a newer generation.

[Havok]

Jeeze, I guess there is some truth to the old saying "Those who can't do, teach".

Hope I don't insult anyone.
Sometimes I thought it to be true. I wonder how my liberal college professors rank? They were probably not only low in the SATs but IQ's too.

[joylyn]

Academics today have no respect for scholarship. They spend their careers deconstructing the classics to demonstrate that they're just a vehicle for gender and class prejudices, and in no way superior to popular culture. Therefore, the people who run the schools of education don't respect scholarship either -- or practice it. Therefore, many teachers, administrators and parents also have no use for it. Is it any wonder that the kids get the message that learning doesn't matter?

[TASMANIANRED]

Just guessing here but how about
1)Womens studies
2)Black studies
3)Peace studies. or substitute Journalism for one of them.

These are legitimate fields of major at some facilities.

[cinives]

Nah - feminist studies, African-American Studies, and Air Guitar

[LWalk18]

"Those who can't do, teach".

Why would a person gifted in say, science, become a teacher when they can go to medical school and become a doctor making $100,000+? Teaching will attract those who can't do anything else unless they put in 1) merit pay, so that smart, good teachers can be rewarded, and 2) make it easier those former professional looking for a second career to teach.

[TASMANIANRED]

The reason the state of education is so abysmal in the US is precisely because of Schools of Education and degrees in same.

It used to be that teachers had their degrees in the fields they taught.

If you taught Algebra you had a degree in Mathematics.
Same for Science, History or English.

Now you have to have a generic "Degree in Education" and they only study their field superficially.

Might be good enough for grade school but it is not good enough for middle school and above.

[rwfromkansas]

I am currently trying to decide if I want to continue with education. Regardless, I am glad I took education classes....though I am glad my college demands you have a "real" major and the education courses are just tacked on to the real major.

I like the thought of teaching, but I can't seem to escape journalism, but the pay there is lower than teaching in most cases. Maybe I will go public relations...I can actually make a decent living at that and still write. :)

I appreciate Freeper teachers like you, however. Not all teachers are liberals, though many are of course.

[TASMANIANRED]

I have 2 teachers in the family.

NEA will prevent people entering education from other professions because they don't have the "teaching certificate"
from a school of education.

Doesn't matter if you have a MA in Physics and have worked at NASA for 20 years.

The NEA has to go as the controlling body in Schools. The only way it can be busted up is by having alternative choices to public education.

[rwfromkansas]

See, I am glad that my school's setup is that you major in your content area...in my case, history. I have a "concentration" in education, but I have to take every single history course (even more) than those who are just history majors without taking any education courses.

Plus, I am working on a political science minor, so I will have to stick around beyond 4 years if I do decide to stick with teaching.

[summer]

Re your post #17 - Thanks for your nice comments to me, rwfromkansas.

I think it's fine if someone who was thinking of teaching first goes into another, different profession. You may decide, down the road, you want to teach. And, I found that students, from all backgrounds, really respect someone who is a teacher but has additional experience in another field. That is very inspiring to a lot of students you may later teach. Good luck. :)