John Thompson, historians and teachers, assesses a discussion about the role of scholars in the current era of tumult in education.
He writes:
Education Week published essays by four scholars, Jeffrey Henig, Jay Greene, Jeannie Oakes, and Rick Hess, on the role of academic researchers in school improvement. While I respect all four contributors, and with the key points of the four commentaries, I found a part of Henig’s message http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/01/13/the-responsibility-of-edu-scholars-in-the-public.html to be unsettling, so I will get my concerns out of the way before embracing the thrust of their arguments.
Being an academic turned inner city teacher, I know the joy that can come from bringing advanced scholarship into public education. I’m not surprised by Henig’s explanation why academics would be leery of edu-politics, however, especially during this era of bitter reform wars. He writes, “Younger scholars worried that those with opposing views would wreak revenge on them.” Moreover, Henig reports:
Seasoned and secure scholars worried about being drawn into making more simplistic and extreme statements than they felt comfortable with, believing that necessary to be heard above the noisy background of claim and counterclaim. As one researcher put it to me, “Once somebody else brings a knife to the fight, you have to bring a knife to the fight, too.”
Henig correctly complains that public discourse about education has become partisan and ideological. But, I wonder what exactly does he mean when charging that the debate has become “simplistic” and “simple-minded.” And, I was downright offended by his call for “at least some reasonable voices to be heard—voices that distill and accurately reflect what research has to say.” (emphasis mine) Speaking only for our side of the reform wars, teachers and unions are not just (belatedly) bringing a metaphorical knife to the fight that was imposed on us. Our spokespersons include some of the nation’s greatest education experts and social scientists.
Although I object to the ideology of the contemporary reform movement, scholars who embrace it are very skilled in their fields (such as economic theory and data modeling) and reasonable. The ones who I have communicated with merely don’t know what they don’t know about actual schools and systems. Had they seriously contemplated the social science of the Johns Hopkins Everyone Graduates Center and the Consortium for Chicago School Research, the historical wisdom of Diane Ravitch and Larry Cuban, and the practical implementation insights of Jack Jennings and John Merrow, I can’t believe that many would have gone down the test, sort, reward, and punish path to school improvement.
In the 25 years since leaving academics for the inner city, I have repeatedly seen situations in schools and policy-making that are downright surrealistic, as well as tragic. To be blunt, scholars who do not visit with teachers and students may not have the background to determine whether an argument is simplistic or simple-minded, or whether it is an accurate identification of policies, imposed by non-educators, that are “simplistic and extreme.”
In my experience conversing with pro-reform academics dismayed by the pushback against their policies by practitioners and patrons, the issue of Common Core usually comes up. Even after we teachers had seen students denied high school diplomas because they could not pass college readiness exit exams, I would hear the claims by some who still believed that Common Core only applied to math and English. Later, policy people protested that very few 3rd graders have been denied promotion due to Common Core tests. In doing so, they ignore the obvious reality that it was the Opt Out movement and the grassroots anti-“reform” counter-attack that prevented the full implementation of Common Core high stakes tests that would have been disastrous.
So, I’d add a concrete point to Henig’s commentary. An academic who wants to help improve schools should at least see how well he fares on a Common Core GED high school equivalency math test before assuming that our positions are simplistic.
Next, Jay Greene http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/01/13/truth-telling-is-academias-privilege-and-obligation.html warns against engaging in “delicate ‘messaging’ [that] will produce a desired outcome or please a powerful patron.”
He bluntly but accurately writes:
Researchers involved in the Gates Foundation’s “Measures of Effective Teaching” study from 2009 claimed the study found that teachers are best evaluated using a formula that combines multiple measures when the research actually found no such thing.
Greene links to specific misstatements issued by the Gates Foundation, but I would make a more general point. The MET methodology would have been beneficial if the Gates Foundation had acknowledged what it was actually conducting – theoretical research. It was hopelessly inappropriate for policy research.
I still find it hard to believe that academics would bring no more than regression models to a real-world fight against the legacies of poverty and discrimination. Why would they assume that statistical models could capture the complexities of urban education?
Then, Jeannie Oakes http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/01/13/public-engagement-is-essential-to-scholarship.html and Rick Hess http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/01/13/the-responsibility-of-edu-scholars-in-the-public.html offer solid advice to scholars. Oakes cites John Dewey in urging academics to embrace “the ‘hurly burly’ of social policymaking.” She explains that, “Education policymaking must negotiate strongly held public perceptions and contested political terrain—factors usually far more influential than research findings.” Oakes then encourages public scholars to “nurture trusting and respectful relationships with policymakers and public actors. These are not one-way relationships, but reflexive.”
Rick Hess adds that there are multiple “right way(s) to think about education.” Hess affirms that, “Parents, students, community leaders, journalists, and more all have their own legitimate, valuable perspectives.” He notes, “This robust pluralism is the very foundation of the American project.”
Hess is correct that “scholars have an important role to play in that democratic cacophony, though far too few play it enthusiastically or well.” Moreover, “public debates and decisions benefit when all of our talents are brought to the table.” Academics must “connect with and learn from their fellow citizens.”
I would add that academics need to learn from each other when they engage in policy research. For the life of me, I can’t understand why so much faith was placed in regression models, and how scholars seemed to believe they could advance policy studies without thrashing out old-fashioned falsifiable hypotheses. Had quantitative and qualitative researchers joined the same table to draft hypotheses, and ask what results would be necessary to support their assumptions and put their findings into a sound narrative, we all would have benefitted. Such conversations would have identified the nuances of education issues and prompted academics to talk with other stakeholders in the ways that are proposed by the four scholars.
“I can’t understand why so much faith was placed in regression models, and how scholars seemed to believe they could advance policy studies without thrashing out old-fashioned falsifiable hypotheses.”
I think the answer to what you can’t understand will be discovered if we follow the money that pays these scholars who come up with these falsifiable hypotheses.
I suspect we will discover that the money trail leads to autocratic billionaire oligarchs, for instance, Bill Gates, the Walton family, the Koch Brothers, and/or Eli Broad in addition to hedge funds that will profit off the destruction of the community based, democratic, transparent, non-profit public schools.
Didn’t Sir Robert Walpole, in a speech in 1734, say that “All those men have their price.”
And the men/women who can’t be bought, well, they can be destroyed by those who own and control the media and/or by buying the organizations they work for and then firing anyone who still can’t be bought or controlled through fear.
So right on, Lloyd.
Really? YOU can’t understand why? No evidence required.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
“Although I object to the ideology of the contemporary reform movement, scholars who embrace it are very skilled in their fields (such as economic theory and data modeling) and reasonable.”
The problem is that being skilled in one’s own field (eg economics) doesn’t mean one is skilled in any other field (education)
And one has to wonder. Just who are the examples of those “scholars’ supposedly skilled in their own fields and “reasonable”? Eric Hanushek? Raj Chetty?
See Economics could be a Science if More Economists were Scientists (by William Black)
If “reasonable” means supporting policies that affect millions of students and teachers based on shabby research , then I guess reform “scholars” like Chetty and Hanushek qualify.
Adding to the list, an academic economist, whose pension alarmist stuff was roundly criticized by pension experts, in the most damning way I’ve ever seen leveled at academic research.
If those practicing outside of their fields, have a reason to offer, other than being ideologically driven or anxious to receive the favors of the rich and powerful, the public should hear the explanation.
SomeDAM Poet: there is an added bonus when people who are very narrowly trained and have little experience about life pontificate about anything outside of their putative area of expertise—
They use approaches and related jargon that make it difficult for others to understand, and thus be able to refute, what they assert.
Think about VAM and its related kin. The claim when selling such eduproducts is that they are transparent and easily understandable and immediately useful to teaching staff and parents and policymakers and blahblahblah. Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, RETHINKING VALUE-ADDED MODELS IN EDUCATION: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TESTS AND ASSESSMENT-BASED ACCOUNTABILITY(2014), cuts through the fog of Rheeality Distortion Fields and lays bare the reality of mathematical intimidation and obfuscation in service to worst management and pedagogical practices.
And what makes it almost laughable is that the vast majority of rheephormsters haven’t a clue what VAManiacal tools are supposed to do or aren’t supposed to do. For example, many times I see a reworked version by some rheephormista of the old “if you’re going to teach to the test, make sure it’s a test worth teaching to” argument. I am not a betting person, but I would be willing to put up money that the vast majority of those making that case haven’t a clue (among other things) how the sampling principle is used by psychometricians when designing, producing and pre-testing standardized tests.
But it is easier to sell toxic eduproducts, and buy them, and support their use (however grudgingly) when you don’t have a clue what they really are. And every informed critique can be easily dismissed with “that’s what the experts say, and you’re no expert!”
Which leads to another one of the coins of the rheephorm rheealm: studied misunderstandings, so that when “education reformers” are caught out on their exaggerations and lies they can claim (sadly, all too often truthfully!) that they didn’t have a clue.
Cluelessness. Not an bug in rheephorm but a feature.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
Henig should watch the minute-long video at “UnKochMyCampus”, which shows the explosive growth, in oligarch spending, to, IMO, further social Darwinist and anti-democracy viewpoints on college campuses. The information provided, at the site, gives definition to Henig’s,”those with opposing views wreaking revenge on scholars”. IMO, no man nor woman has the right to describe himself/herself as a U.S. university scholar, without spelling out what risks he/she has taken to stop the corrosion of university values, relative to strings-attached spending by the richest 0.2%.
If Henig and his colleagues are invested with TIAA-CREF, what have they done to stop the firm’s movement away from the motto, “serving the greater good”? If they read the opinion posts, over the past couple of years, at the TIAA Consumerism website, they will learn, among other facts, that the President of the David Koch Theater has a seat on the TIAA-CREF Overseer Board.
Diane, I don’t know how you stomach academicians who explain away, dismiss or ignore their responsibilities.
Intellectual elites are going to be hung (hyperbole) together, for their inaction or service to the new American rulers.
Linda,
I fear that Henig may have been thinking of me since I fight the fights. That’s “simplistic” and “simple-minded” to take a stand. Many in the academy think it is better to stand back than to stand up. But that’s it my way.
Diane, that’s why you are esteemed.
Our character is reflected in who are enemies are, a quote that applies here. Your critics don’t have the right to walk the same earth that you do.
would it were true!
Well, they walk the sam earth, and talk too much, but you are a gem, and we are so lucky that you are here to give us posts like this.
You are right: Diane’s critics don’t have the right to walk the same earth that she does.
That is why I’m seriously suggesting we round them all up and send them to live in the Ares 3 habitat on Mars. For anyone who doesn’t know about the Ares 3 habitat, all you have to do is read the science fiction book or see the film for “The Martian”.
http://www.space.com/30400-the-martian-how-to-stay-alive-on-mars-infographic.html
When Arne Duncan, David Coleman, and the leaders of the Bill Gates funded corporate public education demolition derby cabal arrive on Mars’ Acidalia Planitia to live out their final days, will they find the Ares 3 habitat waiting for them?
Heck, we can even use all the money from all the billionaire oligarchs who are funding the destruction of our community based, democratic, transparent, non-profit public schools to send them to Mars. After all, they won’t need their money and wealth once they arrive there.
I cannot fathom how the research from a third level Harvard study HUGELY EXPENSIVE AND INCLUSIVE could disappear without a whimper from the academic world, and said so in another post,,, and Jean haverhill explained what we all know about the dissemination of research.
But in education, where anything goes, magic elixirs come along all the time, and out the window goes real research, verified and verifiable.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
Whether it is regression theory, free market economics or any other artificial construct superimposed on education, the ideologies fail to understand the that the best learning is social and emotional as well as cognitive or academic. That is why educators talk about educating the whole child. Humans are whole beings. When one aspect of their being is neglected, it impacts the rest of them. Politicians, economists, mathematicians, computer programmers and billionaires with agendas are ill prepared to address the complexities of education. Rather than solving problems, they are creating new ones as they experiment on our young people without understanding or caring about the impact of their disruption.
“the ideologies fail to understand the that the best learning is social and emotional as well as cognitive or academic.”
I wonder if the reason for the failure of the data diddlers to understand this is that many (if not most) of them (people like Bill Gates) are basically social and emotional misfits who went in the direction they went largely to avoid dealing with people –because dealing with numbers is so much easier.
retired teacher and SomeDAM Poet: you both reminded me of something I read in THE ESSENTIAL DEMING: LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES FROM THE FATHER OF QUALITY (2013, Joyce Orsini, ed.).
From a 1991 piece in section 5, ‘Knowing How to Manage People is the Single Most Important Part of Management” (pp. 168-173) Deming begins:
[start]
Management is failing in many ways. One problem is that most managers would rather deal with rising costs or slipping sales than with the problems of their people. Knowing how to manage people is the single most important part of management—and the part that management knows least about. People can make managers very nervous. With people problems, managers often become immobilized—they cannot act—other than to turn the job over to somebody else.
[end]
He later adds:
[start]
Managers are not faced with a deluge of information; they are faced with a deluge of figures. The challenge is to know when it is appropriate to respond to certain figures and when not to. Management must understand the theory of variation: If you don’t understand variation and how it comes from the system itself, you can only react to every figure. The result is you often overcompensate, when it would have been better to just leave things alone.
[end]
To not make this overly long I leave out other remarks re [and very critical of!] stack ranking and merit pay, but I think you get the picture.
IMHO, Deming is describing—very politely—the heavyweights and “thought leaders” and enablers of self-styled “education reform.”
Thank you both for your comments.
😎
I think the whole labor movement grew out of managers that were only concerned with profit and disregarded safety or the limits of human endurance.
The one thing that is intangible is the most important quality of a teacher, the ability to ENGAGE children. It is a gift, an indefinable talent that some teachers have and others lack.
But certainly, most teachers can create engaging lessons. Teaching to a test, and making memorization central, is the antithesis.
And they don’t care about children, in fact, the puppet masters want them to be ignorant, so they will grow into ignorant citizens who can be stressed and manipulated by a clown like Trump,
The scholars are silent (except for the pseudoscholars in right-wing “think tanks”) for the same reason that the churches (except for Pope Francis) are silent: They don’t want to offend the Big Donors upon whom they all depend. Today, Big Money owns everything, including consciences.
With some noble exceptions – Diane, Stephen Krashen, Julian Heilig Vasquez, Bruce Baker, Mercedes Schneider, and others – when it comes to academic scholars covering education reform: pipers, meet payers…
Henig is at a college, where, faculty, write papers funded by the Waltons, which are co-written, with philanthropies, funded by the Waltons, and which produce what some would describe as tactical plans for an industry.
(1) No concern from the College’s faculty…. about public-perceived differences, among the work products of oligarch-funded think tanks, industry trade groups, and university research? (2) No concern….. about PR releases from the College, that identify only one-half of papers’ funders? (3) No concern….. about the business practice of “Embargo dates” on academic papers?
(4) No concern….. when transparency of funding is expected to bear sole responsibility for perception of research objectivity? (5) No concern….. when papers, funded by ideologically driven oligarchs, are written by faculty, simultaneously serving, on boards formed by similarly driven, oligarchs? Hmm.
Michael Massing of the New York Book Review, formerly of Columbia Journalism Review can look close to home for illustrations for his recent article.
Love the comments about this craziness. TRANSPARENCY? Really.
Here is another example of the problem.
I started writing about the Education Industry Association (EIA) shortly after it was formed in 1990.
EIA is the trade group and lobby for more than 225 for-profit organizations seeking the benefits of “federal-state-local advocacy, public relations support, professional development, peer-to-peer networking and more.
EIA draws its membership from: “Learning Centers and Test Prep Providers, On-line Educators, Technology Solution Developers, Charter School Management Organizations-EMOs, Private Schools, Special & Alternative Education Providers, Marketing Consultants, Early Education Providers, Professional Development Consultants, and Education Investors & Brokers.”
Among the earliest supporters was the Rosa and Milton Friedman Foundation, established to promote market-based everything, including education.
Here is part of the problem, related to the issue of scholarship and what is happening “on the ground” in public education.
First, let me introduce scholar and administrator, Dr. David W. Andrews, who has just accepted a position as President of National University, the second-largest private, nonprofit institution of higher education in California with more than two dozen campuses and one of the largest schools of education in the country (offering 23 teacher credentials). National holds teaching contracts with 643 California school districts Approximately 70% of the 26,000 teachers in San Diego County earned their credentials at National University. Programs are offered on campus and online. They are infused with Teach for America “principles” for learning.
Now consider his prior position: Until January of this year (2016), this same David W. Andrews, was Dean of Johns Hopkins University School of Education.
Dean Andrews was and remains a darling of the Education Industry Association. He received EIA’s Friend of the Education Industry Award in 2012. He was a Platinum member and was also serving on the Board of Education Industry Association.
He was also selling the reputation of his institution to members of EIA. I kid you not, the reputation of the School of Education and scholars there, for a fee.
Here is part of the (still active) pitch to members:
“Can you imagine walking into a Superintendent’s office armed with a positive outcome report by none other than the Johns Hopkins School of Education?! Do you think your competitors will have this feather in their cap? The answer is a resounding NO!
Picture your new marketing campaign that features your positive outcome with the Johns Hopkins School of Education! And most importantly, imagine what you will learn about your own product or service and the best ways to continually improve in order to produce the best educational outcomes for your students.” ….Even a small investment of a few thousand dollars, you can have the Johns Hopkins seal of approval attached to your company.” “Again, imagine having that ammunition during your next district meeting!”
Here are the five “packages” reviews and studies you can buy, each with a Johns Hopkins University School of Education seal of approval. Costs vary by the type of package you want ranging from a brief review with no comments to an experimental trial with random assignments of subjects to treatments.
Note that these for-sale reviews and/or studies are explicitly marketed as documenting “your positive outcome,” or as “ammunition” for your sales. Instead, what you have is a positive bias all but guaranteed for these so-called reviews and studies.Otherwise, there would no be no point in “offering” the scholarship of Johns Hopkins faculty ( and perhaps grad students) to EIA members.The Dean has moved on but he left a legacy.
For a “discounted rate” EIA members can still purchase a “Design Review.” The current advertisement on the EIA website says:
NEW MARKETING STRATEGY!
EIA members can now certify
their services through
Johns Hopkins University!
School of Education
The vendors who pay the fee receive a “Johns Hopkins University Certificate for Completion of a Successful Design Review.” The reviews are conducted by “a team” at Johns Hopkins School of Education (Click here to learn more)
I am tripping on other examples of a borderless terrain of corporatized scholarship, where scholars turned salespersons enjoy the reputational “aura” of their institutions and credentials.
Stanford churns out dubious reports on charter schools, aided not by peer reviews by a great PR operation.
Harvard’s Measures of Effective Teaching project funded at more $60 million from the Gates Foundation was conducted by economists. It is deeply flawed but cited as as if authoritative.
One of the MET study economists, Ron Ferguson, markets his Tripod Survey as if it gained merit from being part of the MET Project. The survey honors sage-on-the-stage teaching with homework assigned and checked.
I see compromised scholarship well beyond the typical hazards encountered by scholars who publish, received royalties, fees for speaking and for consulting. I know about this terrain. Scholars must be able and willing to draw lines in the sand so their work in forwarding the circulation and criticism of ideas does not end in selling out, a willing indulgence in profiteering…like the new President of National University.
Thanks for the interesting post, Laura. It sounds like Johns Hopkins is peddling the “Good Housekeeping Seal” of approval.
The amount of information you have, always amazes, Laura.
Thanks for posting.
Ohmygosh!
I am beyond knowing how we can fight such corruption.
Here is the link to the Johns Hopkins Ad. http://www.educationindustry.org
You said: “I still find it hard to believe that academics would bring no more than regression models to a real-world fight against the legacies of poverty and discrimination. Why would they assume that statistical models could capture the complexities of urban education?”
An easy way to sure this would be to assign them to teach at an inner city school, say in LAUSD, or even the average school in Any Town, USA, where the CC is the mandate and the principal marches to his own drummer, and is accountable to no one but the plutocrats who run the show.
I wrote:
I, too, as a teacher who witnessed surreal situations are tired of academic conversations that add not a whit to solutions. and BTW, in a previous post I discussed the absence of vetted research.
Here is what I wrote, followed by academic Jean Haverhill’s excellent reply
I am currently reading ‘FAR & WIDE: Developing & Disseminating Research Based- Programs by Robert Slavin, in a 1998 issue of “The American Educator”. I came across it while looking through my files, for the issue that was published when NYC District 2 had been part of the ‘real’ National Standards research.*
* Lauren Resnick’s Effort Based Learning became the thesis that hazard advanced for the research on THE PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING, for which I was the classroom cohort.http://ramsey.spps.org/uploads/polv3_3.pdf
The Slavin piece caught my eye, becasue I cannot help but wonder how the National Standards research disappeared, instead of being disseminated….although I do know why (Gates CC and Pearson’s tests were waiting in the wings and the storerooms).
The issue of DISSEMINATION of research echoes with me, since I will be offering a workshop at the NPE on the authentic end-product — THE PERFORMANCE STANDARDS— RESULTING FROM the incredible expensive 3rd level research— for which I was the cohort. So, I wanted to refresh my memory, about what had been published referring to it.* It was the cover article. I still cannot find it… but word about that at the end…
This research project focused on the ways in which successful teachers enable and facilitate exemplary student performance!
I was only one of tens of thousands of observed teachers, and the work of the students along with how the teacher practice made such work possible, are featured in these volumes which I will provide for all of you who keep asking me “why do you call this research the REAL standards!
But the Pew looked at all schools, low and high performing schools, and discovered that there were ingredients, criteria/principles, at work in every classroom where students produced exemplary work that demonstrated the late Ron Edmonds claim that: “wherever and whenever we choose, [we can] successfully teach all children…”
Yes, Tim,,I worked in an exemplary school, with a team that shared a philosophy, much like the one discusses in another American Educator essay: We agreed that pedagogical content knowledge– a growing approach to teacher education— demands that teachers have a strong background in their subjects and find ways to communicate knowledge to others. We found the best ways to communicate what we knew to our kids, by motivating them to do hard work.
Click to access Mirel.pdf
Slavin pointed out “the problem with exemplary schools, is that we have not known how to replicate them. So, the have provided visions of what CAN be done, but not models of HOW to achieve excellence in the thousands of schools that need improvement. In the exemplary schools don’t remain consistent over time; changes in principals, key staff, district politics funding, and even the passage of time may undermine a school that once gave minority children an education equal to the best.”
I am bringing to the NPE such models, so everyone can see the models that the PERFORMANCE STANDARDS provide, and the models that I myself can provide from that time. This research was unique and should have been disseminated.
jeanhaverhill commented on
in response to Susan Lee Schwartz:
I am currently reading “FAR & WIDE: Developing & Disseminating Research Based- Programs,” by Robert Slavin, in a 1998 issue of “The American Educator”. The Slavin piece caught my eye, because I cannot help but wonder how the National Standards research disappeared, instead of being disseminated….although I do know why; (Gates CC and Pearson’s tests […]
that’s a good historical coverage; if you have time look at the NDN national diffusion network and dissemination work and the “validation program”. Diffusion funds were available to assist from one state to another (if programs had been validated in a local school). There was also a National Practice File that only operated for a trial basis; it was separate from ERIC but the aim was to find programs with evidence/proven effectiveness and offer the descriptions and training across states. At some point there was a major turn in the road because the labs and centers were working on these issues and goals … It became so competitive and of course the corporate /business model preempted the “practice file” that was meant to share classroom programs and school practices/programs. If you have time to pursue NDN I could supply you with an extensive bibliography but it may not be in the focus of what you want to cover.
” I can’t understand why so much faith was placed in regression models, and how scholars seemed to believe they could advance policy studies without thrashing out old-fashioned falsifiable hypotheses. Had quantitative and qualitative researchers joined the same table to draft hypotheses, and ask what results would be necessary to support their assumptions and put their findings into a sound narrative, we all would have benefited.”
Why have researchers not joined the discussion?
Where are the educational and behavioral researchers who teach or even use http://criticalthinking.org or base their education observations on biological sciences like ethology and Tinbergen’s four questions to accurately observe, quantify, qualify and falsify education goals and objectives, values and social influences?
Where are education’s equivalents of Richard Lewontin, Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson and others?
Observe they don’t exist here in this conversation because historically religion, faith and belief were at the core of our education system and social values. And is still there, challenging science with faith in regression and sacrificing learners through testing…in a red-herring contest to the bottom of the education barrel.
And we in education who were religious and taught to believe, and have faith in ed. psych. and testing – and didn’t base our studies on science and biology – are simply not qualified to prescribe much of anything as cures in education today, sorry to say.
Observably, religion relies on the same faith and belief…and many in education simply can’t let go of the god delusion that is plaguing education and move toward, as E. O Wilson calls it “Consilience.” Observe the numbers of religious organization running schools who don’t want members to know anything about assessments that challenge their positions on biased faith, belief and education values.
Look at US compulsory education laws, they were all implemented by religions.
Educators should observe our faith and belief in faith and belief and ed. psych. and its many dubious measurements have failed us. Without a valid assessment, education, at all levels, will fail again and again.
So smart. What good questions. I tis this kind of conversation that makes this blog so special.
Education has always been a bandwagon in circles. I once helped my daughter find research on block scheduling when she was in high school. I had access to ERIC and we looked at the “research.” Around a hundred articles with research showed the astounding results. Not a one questioned it. One article was on how to overcome parents’ objections. This comment is NOT about block scheduling. A little more critical thinking and less money would benefit education research.
I find it alarming that Rick Hess is insinuated into a list of university scholars, if he is, actually, associated with the right wing think tank, AEI.
There’s a reason that the billionaire reformers are glomming onto universities. College scholars are perceived to be objective and independent of thought. When people employed by universities accept money from politically active plutocrats, they devalue and degrade their employer.