Rita Kramer, author Ed School Follies The people who become educators and who run our school

systems usually have degrees in education, psychology, social sciences, public administration; they are not people who have studied, know, and love literature, history, science, or philosophy. Our educators are not educated. They do not love learning. Naturally enough, they think of the past as dead because it has never been alive to them. And they will not bring it alive for their pupils. E.D. Hirsch, Jr., author The Knowledge Deficit The reason for this state of affairs tragic for millions of students as well as for the nation is that an army of American educators and reading experts are fundamentally wrong in their ideas about education and especially about reading comprehension. Their well-intentioned yet mistaken views are the significant reason (more than other constantly blamed factors, even poverty) that many of our children are not attaining reading proficiency, thus crippling their later schooling. The dominant ideas in American education are virtually unchallenged within the educational community. American education expertise (which is not the same as educational expertise in nations that perform better than we do) has a monolithic character in which dissent is stifled. But mere scientific inadequacy can be a practical irrelevance in American education. Arthur Levine, recent president of Columbia Teachers College, author of three reports in the education school project, a four year study of every degree granting education school in the nation. He wrote three reports; Educating School Leaders, Educating School Teachers and Educating Researchers. Educating School Leaders Programs are credit dispensers: Confer Masters Degrees on Students Who Demonstrate Anything But Mastery Award Doctorates in Name Only Enroll Principals and Superintendents in Study that Is Irrelevant to their Jobs The education school doctorate has no value [i.e. worthless] in performing any school administration job.

Educating School Teachers

A majority of teacher education graduates are prepared in university-based programs that suffer from low admission and graduation standards. Universities use their teacher education programs as cash cows, requiring them to generate revenue to fund more prestigious departments. This forces them to increase their enrollments and lower their admissions standards. Schools with low admissions standards also tend to have low graduation requirements. Both state quality control mechanisms and the peer review process of accreditation fail to maintain a sufficiently high floor for the nations teacher education programs because requirements focus on process, not substance.