Saturday, October 22, 2011

Grade Inflation for Education Majors and Low Standards for Teachers

Interesting report: Grade Inflation for Education Majors and Low Standards for Teachers.

The report starts:

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Students who take education classes at universities receive significantly higher grades than students who take classes in every other academic discipline. The higher grades cannot be explained by observable differences in student quality between education majors and other students, nor can they be explained by the fact that education classes are typically smaller than classes in other academic departments. The remaining reasonable explanation is that the higher grades in education classes are the result of low grading standards. These low grading standards likely will negatively affect the accumulation of skills for prospective teachers during university training. More generally, they contribute to a larger culture of low standards for educators.
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The report explores two consequences of this trend:

1) We Are Training Teachers Who Know Less
2) Education Departments Are Contributing to the Culture of Low Standards for Educators

If you have any friends who feel that public school teachers are the only ones qualified to teach you might have them read the report.

Hat tip: Transterrestrial Musings.

2 comments:

kat said...

I got my masters in Education and I totally agree with your assessment of this report. I was appalled by the low standards required to pass each class and the poor teaching by the instructors. The whole program was just a diploma mill (I graduated from Old Dominion University in Virginia). My undergraduate degree requirements were much more demanding than any of the education classes.

Henry Cate said...

Rita Kramer writes about this Ed School Follies: The Miseducation of America's Teachers.

I think more parents would homeschool if they knew just how little the teachers really knew.