School of Education - Criticism

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.