Criticism
Traditionalist scholars have been critical of the status quo within most schools of education. Prominent figures contributing to this school of thought include E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Diane Ravitch, Chester Finn, and Lynne Cheney. Common assertions made by these critics include that the typical school of education has a Left-wing political bias, favoring Socialist philosophies such as Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy and the "Teaching for Social Justice" movement, and are of lower academic standards and include "Mickey Mouse" courses. They also argue that many schools of education are academically, professionally, and socially inhospitable toward students whose political views do not conform to the predominant Left-leaning ideology and that the field's interest in educational equity sometimes crosses over the line between academic research and political activism.
In March 2009, Katherine Merseth, director of the teacher education program at Harvard University, described graduate schools of education as the "cash cows of universities". Another criticism is that earning an advanced degree in education, specifically a master level degree, doesn't seem to actually make someone a better teacher. In October 2009, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that “by almost any standard, many if not most of the nation’s 1,450 schools, colleges and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st-century classroom.” He characterized many education schools as "cash cows" for American universities.
Read more about this topic: School Of Education
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance. He becomes a source of blessings rather than wages. Criticism is sacrilege, doubt is heresy.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“It is ... pathetic to observe the complete lack of imagination on the part of certain employers and men and women of the upper-income levels, equally devoid of experience, equally glib with their criticism ... directed against workers, labor leaders, and other villains and personal devils who are the objects of their dart-throwing. Who doesn’t know the wealthy woman who fulminates against the “idle” workers who just won’t get out and hunt jobs?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“...I wasn’t at all prepared for the avalanche of criticism that overwhelmed me. You would have thought I had murdered someone, and perhaps I had, but only to give her successor a chance to live. It was a very sad business indeed to be made to feel that my success depended solely, or at least in large part, on a head of hair.”
—Mary Pickford (1893–1979)