I read this article in the Northwestern yesterday (but I can't find the link, so here is a different story from inside higher ed), about a new study that claims that institutions such as our are doing a bad job training new teachers. He argues that statistics demonstrate that Masters granting institutions like UWO do a much worse job training teachers than PhD-granting schools.
I don't know what the data say about UWO, but if we look at the criticisms that the author levels, we have many of them. Low admissions standards, low graduation standards, high student-faculty ration and low spending per student are a few that we meet.
Does this critique hold water for us? Does it hold for Wisconsin in general? I am not in the school of ed, so I don't know what they might say about this study.
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Ex-prof Sandra Gade sure seems to think so. She claims UWO education graduates are so "brainwashed" about evolution, that she has demanded that the local school board to not hire them. I can only assume that some "open-minded" graduates from Oral Roberts University or a Creationist diploma mill would suit her just fine ...
Like you, I don't know much about the curriculum in our education school. I think there is a general *perception* about teacher education in this country that it focuses too much on philosophy and principles and techniques and not enough on *content*.
I would like to know whether our institution, as one of the weak ones described in the report, does worse in all of these categories.
Sandra Gade is energetic, but just a ridiculous Oshkosh sideshow. The problems in k-12 training, I think, are deeper than that.
Have you ever met a young teacher who said, "Boy, I am sure glad I took all those education theory classes!" I never have. They most ly seem to laugh them off as part of the process to getting a job. (Plus, they boost up their grade point!)
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