Nancy Bailey deconstructs Joseph Epstein’s much-reviled critique of Dr. Jill Biden’s right to be called “Dr. Biden.” She believes that its true message was an attack on teachers, the teaching profession, education schools, and public schools.
She writes, in part:
Belittling University Education Schools
Dr. Biden’s criticism indirectly attacks the University of Delaware and their education school, a public university. Tucker Carlson said, Dr. Jill has an education degree from some school in Delaware, and you’re supposed to find that highly impressive.
Colleges of Education could always improve, but for years nonprofits like Relay Graduate School of Education, and more, have been jockeying to replace them.
By disparaging teachers’ main producers, our public universities, and these schools are in danger of closing; they promote a privatization agenda cast by corporate America.
Five Weeks of Training v. A Doctorate
These accusations against Dr. Biden are a push to get rid of teachers, a profession dominated by females, or reduce the profession to Teach For America types, a revolving door of volunteers, who, while well-meaning, rarely commit to teaching as a professional career.
TFA involves a five-seven week coaching session, used by those who want to privatize public education. TFA Corps members move into educational leadership positions while never gaining the knowledge necessary to understand children and how they learn.
Parents Want Good Teachers
Cheapening the teaching profession drives down wages and demeans teaching, making it look like little training is required, certainly not a doctorate!
The reality is that the world revolves around teachers and how they teach, which is getting the spotlight, especially now during this pandemic.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Tucker Carlson licks Rupert Murdoch’s boots at some ultra right wing propaganda outlet (forgive the redumbdancy) and you’re supposed to find that highly impressive.
The GOP and Tucker Carlson are FULL of sh**.
Their attack of Dr. Biden sure shows who they truly are … STUPID, MEAN, and HATEFUL.
This is an absurd interpretation of the article. First, the article was primarily political, attacking Jill Biden because she’s Joe’s wife.
But the criticism of the education degree is accurate. It doesn’t make you a better teacher and, most teachers say, is mostly about political indoctrination these days. And education research is widely thought of to be of poor quality.
TFA graduates compare favorably with graduates of regular teaching colleges, which underscores the essential fraudulence of the latter. They clearly do not teach how children learn in any useful way.
I have a doctorate from UCLA and did not want to stay in “the ivory tower” as a professor after 15 years of teaching high school English. I got it and did a naturalized study for my dissertation that took 3 years to write. I got my doctorate in Curriculum at the time Madeline Hunter was at UCLA. My doctorate did make me a better teacher and writer at a high cost of my time and money, and people, mostly in the K-12 system disparaged it. I’m retired now and a community volunteer and get more respect from my community as a person and a degreed person. I thank Jill Biden for standing up for herself and others with earned doctorates from outstanding schools, and for continuing to teach. She’s accepted the criticism with grace.
Yes: I know how much my master’s degree made me a better teacher, and I am grateful for classes with some great professors with doctorates in education who helped me get there
My masters was in geology, but the coursework I took in education to get my certification to teach was invaluable. I would not be the teacher I am if it weren’t for what I learned in those classes.
Knowing what to teach isn’t the same as knowing how to teach. If it looks easy to you that is probably because you were blessed with excellent teachers, with lots of experience and steeped in pedagogy.
IOW, they made it look easy.
You say TFA graduates compare favorably to ed school graduates…could you share the research to which you’re referring?
Dr. Jill Biden responded to the ignorant, mysogynistic, education bashing critique with a succinct, classy retort.
“Together, we will build a world where the accomplishments of our daughters will be celebrated, rather than diminished,” Biden said in a tweet to her more than 2.5 million followers.
I just thought it was weirdly snobby. Why wouldn’t it be important to study community college students? Tens of millions of people attend community colleges. Not fancy enough to study?
And the sneering that she attended a state school! What incredible, clueless snobs they are at the Wall Street Journal.
Notice who attended hoity toityy expensive colleges and STILL they don’t know much … case in point THAT DUMP and his children.
“Dr. Jill has an education degree from some school in Delaware, and you’re supposed to find that highly impressive.”
Wow. And these are the people who call other people “elitists”?
I think it’s great she studied community college students. Talk about an underserved population. More people should study them. More politicians should attend one.
Maybe Jill Biden doesn’t consider herself “political” so wouldn’t do this, but if she were strategic she should have gone on tv and asked “why do conservatives sneer at the public universities and community colleges tens of millions of ordinary people attend?”
There are WAY more voters who attended those schools than there are voters who attended Harvard.
Are we sure these elite schools are so wonderful anyway? We seem to get a lot of dopes like Donald Trump who attend them. Not sure they should be bragging with the quality of the people they’re churning out. When Jared Kushner is the Best and Brightest something has gone terribly awry.
Tucker Carlson!? Another one of these far right wing jerks who proliferate across the media. He always introduced that crypto-Nazi, Sebastian Gorka as Dr., Dr. Sebastian Gorka. Somebody compiled a video clip of Tucker saying Dr. Sebastian Gorka, over and over again.
This is from the National Review of all places, 10-1-19: quote, You will be unshocked to learn that Gorka is not a doctor of medicine, or even fish oil. His doctorate is courtesy of the not-over-lauded Corvinus University in Budapest, where Gorka’s thesis adviser had no expertise in terrorism or national security but did have expertise in being friendly with Prime Minister Viktor Orban, for whom Gorka once served as adviser and whose policies he backed through a think tank in Hungary in the early 2000s. Georgetown professor Daniel Nexon, writing in Foreign Policy, read Gorka’s dissertation so you don’t have to. He said it betrays a “ridiculous understanding of Islam,” includes “nothing resembling a methodology” and is “just plain weird.” Nexon concludes, “If his dissertation is any guide, then Gorka is, in fact, bluster all the way down. His thesis is part smoke and mirrors, part testament to self-importance, and not at all serious scholarship.” Gorka has apparently published only one article in a peer-reviewed journal, and even in that case he had two co-authors. “Gorka’s thesis is about as legitimate as if he had been awarded it by Trump University,” University of North Carolina professor Andrew Reynolds told Rolling Stone. end quote
Media Matters documents Tucker’s smarmy hypocrisy regarding the usage of the Dr. honorific:https: //www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/dr-jill-biden-and-tucker-carlsons-selective-outrage-about-calling-somebody-doctor
He has no problem using the Dr. title for others who are not medical doctors but for some “reason” it’s a problem with Jill Biden. If she were the wife of Mike Pence, there would be no problem whatsoever. Tucker is so full of baloney that it’s embarrassing to all the baloney throwers of America.