The New York Times recently reported on a “New Effort Aims to Test Theories of Education,” which adds to the growing list of groups and organizations who are astounded at the lack of decent research on what works in education.
Others who have pointed to the deplorable lack of decent research on education include Arthur Levine, past president of Columbia Teachers College, who has written extensively about the very poor quality of research informing the training of teachers and the equally weak training that most people engaged in education research have been getting.
Even the US Department of Education understands the seriousness of the situation, and this governmental agency formed the What Works Clearinghouse six years ago to assemble reports on various curriculum programs and other items that meet minimal tests of scientific rigor.
Sadly, most policy-making educators in Kentucky don’t seem to be paying attention. Kentucky’s educators still opt for curriculum programs that haven’t a single, quality report in the What Works Clearinghouse that shows they work. However, you can go into the clearinghouse and see for yourself if your school’s current math or reading program has any decent research behind it. If you are having problems finding information on the programs your school uses, give us a shout. We’d like to know who is and isn’t using credible teaching programs in Kentucky.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Scientific Education Research in Short Supply
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2 comments:
Anybody who has taken an education theories class know that there is only ONE way to spend money that 100% of the time increases learning in the classroom. - lowering the teacher/pupil ratio.
That being said. The current generation of teachers coming out of colleges were taught under KERA which devalued learning for learning sake. These teachers only know how to teach to the test and then party for the rest of the school year after the cats test. Also, with people like Felner who treat education budgets like a personal financial smorgasboard; no goes into teaching for the joy of it like in generations past.
RE: Anonymous 8:15 AM
Actually, the teacher/pupil ratio assertion is challenged by some researchers. I haven't seen any scientific split-sample studies on this topic, so -- like just about everything else in education -- this, too, is largely just a contentious theory, not a proved fact.
Anonymous 8:15 is definitely on target about KERA era education schools devaluing real learning of academic content. Kentucky's education schools are dominated by adherents to the "Progressive Theory" of education, which teaches that developing certain social values is much more important than passing on academic knowledge in subjects like math and reading. In fact, Progressives don't think much of real research, either.
For a great paper on this subject, check out this link: http://www.johnlocke.org/acrobat/pope_articles/cunninghameducationschools.pdf. Just change the words "North Carolina" to "Kentucky" and the author of that paper indicates it will be a pretty accurate description of things in the Bluegrass State, too.
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