Most teachers are taught more about multiculturalism than math, concluded a research team led by Jay P. Greene and Catherine Shock. From City Journal:
To determine just how unbalanced teacher preparation is at ed schools, we counted the number of course titles and descriptions that contained the words “multiculturalism,” “diversity,” “inclusion,” and variants thereof, and then compared those with the number that used variants of the word “math.” We then computed a “multiculturalism-to-math ratio” — a rough indicator of the relative importance of social goals to academic skills in ed schools. A ratio of greater than 1 indicates a greater emphasis on multiculturalism; a ratio of less than 1 means that math courses predominate. Our survey covered the nation’s top 50 education programs as ranked by U.S. News and World Report, as well as programs at flagship state universities that weren’t among the top 50 — a total of 71 education schools.
The average ed school, we found, has a multiculturalism-to-math ratio of 1.82, meaning that it offers 82 percent more courses featuring social goals than featuring math. At Harvard and Stanford, the ratio is about 2: almost twice as many courses are social as mathematical. At the University of Minnesota, the ratio is higher than 12. And at UCLA, a whopping 47 course titles and descriptions contain the word “multiculturalism” or “diversity,” while only three contain the word “math,” giving it a ratio of almost 16.
Two-thirds of the teacher-ed programs have more multicultural/diversity classes than classes on how to teach math.
Would you want the education school or the math department teaching math? Do social studies teachers not “cry out for more math classes because they’re hard,” or because they won’t be teaching math? Which courses are actually required in each program?
That “study” was no such thing.
When you consider that, through all of human history up until the 1970s or so, no prospective teacher ever took any class about “multiculturalism”, you have to figure that a new sort of dark ages have descended on the teaching profession.
Sure, teachers in the past learned about the life and history of other cultures, but that’s not “multiculturalism”, not by a mile. Jesse Jackson won (remember “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go!”?).
I would agree that counting words in titles of courses is indeed a “rough indicator of the relative importance of social goals to academic skills”, as the authors of the article say. But I would argue that it is so rough as to be useless for anything beyond idle speculation. Is this what “research teams” come up with?
Instead of counting words how about exploring ideas? How about exploring the idea that “ed school” has an ideology for its foundational basis? That ideology can be called “progressivism”, though some would reject that as a suitable or accurate label. My argument is that what we might call “ed school thinking” is much better characterized as an ideology than anything connected to science, art, analysis, research, knowledge, or understanding. I have developed this idea in my article “A Personal Indictment Of Ed School”, which is on my website, brianrude.com. Here’s a link: http://www.brianrude.com/indict-ed.htm
This study is not reliable at all. Subject specific courses were taught by specific departments at the university I attended in the 90’s. In other words, math courses were taught by the math department. While I do agree that way too much emphasis is placed on social change as opposed to methodology, I do not believe that this study was “fair and balanced.”
Jay P. Greene has been called the Wal-Mart scholar, because the Waltons bought him a position. His so called “studies” are in fact nothing of the sort. If it were a REAL study it would have been peer reviewed in a professional journal, not published in some conservative magazine.
He also points out declining US math scores in internationl comparisons, but fails to mention those scores, and our international standing, have declined since NCLB was implemented.
His Manhatten Institute bio brags of being cited in Ohio court decisions in regards to vouchers, but fails to mention that 58% of Ohio’s charters are in academic watch or emergency, vs. 10% of the regular public schools.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/greene.htm
He has ZERO teaching experience in public schools.
In short, he’s a paid mouthpiece for the Business Roundtable.
If the authors had had more math courses themselves, they wouldn’t have presented such a ridiculous “study.” When doing something as imprecise as counting and comparing course titles, it’s foolish to report a number (1.82) to three significant digits.
In any case, it would make more sense to count enrollment rather than courses. If there are five “multicultural” courses, each with an enrollment of ten, and one math course with an enrollment of 120, then clearly more students are studying math than multicultural stuff.
If they are worried about the math preparation of future teachers, they ought to determine what the departments require of their graduates. They pan the University of Minnesota, but if I’m reading its program requirements for a bachelors in Elementary Education, education students are required to take at least four math courses there.
I don’t have a high opinion of ed schools or their graduates, but this “study” is just a disguised op-ed based on no real research.
On a related note, there are plenty of people out there who want to dilute math curricula by turning math from a hard science into a social science. Here are a couple of old posts on that topic:
http://rightontheleftcoast.blogspot.com/2005/07/math-for-social-justice-part-ii.html
http://rightontheleftcoast.blogspot.com/2005/06/ethnomathematics.html
The study criteria seem weak to me, as a number of commenters have pointed out.
But let’s take a step back and ask a more fundamental question, how many math credits are required of Ed-School graduates? Take a good hard long look.
I am specifically referring to early childhood or elementary education majors. At my alma mater, University of Maryland College Park, Early Education majors are REQUIRED to take 9 credits of math themselves with an optional three or four credits in a science or math for their non-professional development courses. Then they take a three credit course called The Young Child as a Mathemetician–and I have no idea of that course content.
An Elementary Educaiton Major must take the same 9-12 credits as a “core requirement,” a stats class, and a Math Methods class, a total of six credits. There is also a 18 credit “area of empshasis” which could include a math focus.
Now admittedly elementary school teachers don’t have to have a math degree to teach addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and perhaps basic pre-algebra. But since math is such an important part of education, you would think that a little more emphasis would be placed on Ed school math content.
By the way, an Elementary Education major at maryland must take a full 15 credits in pre-professional or professional level courses in reading or language arts. That is required regardless of the “area of emphasis” classes.
so here is a thought, if math and reading are considered so fundamental, why does a leading univeristy not have a little more balance between math preparation and reading preparation for its ed-school graduates.
Where’s the actual report?
Hey, my head is still spinning over the fact that the university where I serve in an (unpaid) “clinical” faculty position was called out by name in the article as an example of a program that values math over diversity.
Having worked within the College of Education the past six years–spending much more time in close communication with the Dean, Associate Deans, department heads, and program directors than with traditional faculty–I am amazed that one could draw such a conclusion. The previous Dean was amazingly clear in his constant sermonizing that “social justice” was the most important role of public education. The programs were crafted under his leadership to reflect this philosophy. Plenty of the grads eat it up and carry it with them into the schools. Their grasp on teaching math–and other academic content–is less impressive.
The course I taught on campus a few years ago was supposed to be a foundations course on schools within society. It was really a cultural sensitivity class. That was a rough year for me.
I’m currently applying to ed schools, and one of the things that’s very striking when you look at the elite schools is how clearly they signal that your statement of purpose better be “I want to teach underprivileged children”. Based on their webpage, the premiere ed schools want to do nothing but turn out teachers for low income students. Woe betide the poor schlub who just wants to be a teacher.
Now, there aren’t a lot of Stanford and Berkeley graduates teaching in our low income schools (or indeed, suburban schools). One might think that these schools are manifest failures, except, of course, that both schools and applicants are lying.
These schools are turning out policy wonks who need to “do their two” before working for a thinktank.
The irony is, I actually am going to get a credential because I want to teach underprivileged children. Clearly, I’m doomed to rejection.
“ … one of the things that’s very striking when you look at the elite schools is how clearly they signal that your statement of purpose better be ‘I want to teach underprivileged children’.”
Actually, this is a very poorly disguised intelligence test.
They probably believe that if you can’t figure this out on your own, you won’t be able to figure out what the teachers in your classes want to hear either, and will thus flunk.
Pretty clever, eh?
-Mark Roulo
Hey, I passed!
But I’m not sure about that second part. If I do get accepted, my friends have already starting a pool on my ejection date.
> Jay P. Greene has been called the Wal-Mart scholar, because the Waltons bought him a position.
I’m sure he has. Probably during his tenure enjoying the dubious benefits conferred by the “socialization” rampant in public elementary schools.
> His so called “studies” are in fact nothing of the sort.
I read the article three times just to make sure he wasn’t representing this as scholarly work and lo! he wasn’t. This may be what high-falutin’ education reformers do on cocktail napkins but it isn’t claimed to be scholarship so attacking it as poor scholarship is dishonest.
> If it were a REAL study it would have been peer reviewed in a professional journal, not published in some conservative magazine.
Exactly so, not that that would have deterred you from slinging scats.
> He also points out declining US math scores in internationl comparisons, but fails to mention those scores, and our international standing, have declined since NCLB was implemented.
Cite? I believe the number of sunspots has also increased since the enactment of NCLB. Want to imply a cause/effect relationship there as well?
> His Manhatten Institute bio brags of being cited in Ohio court decisions in regards to vouchers, but fails to mention that 58% of Ohio’s charters are in academic watch or emergency, vs. 10% of the regular public schools.
No it doesn’t. Not a word about Ohio. It does mention Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, a case which went before the U.S. Supreme Court in which Dr. Greene was cited four times but it seems like kind of a stretch to link any responsibility to him for the lousy job of charter law enactment committed by the Ohio legislature.
> He has ZERO teaching experience in public schools.
Yawn. “endowed chair and head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas”. I think that puts the “appeal to authority” by a dishonest ideologue - or is that redundant? - from East Cowflop, Texas in perspective.
> In short, he’s a paid mouthpiece for the Business Roundtable.
“In short” being the saving grace of the post.
Allen, you’re my hero.
Allen wrote:
““endowed chair and head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas”. ”
Thanks for verifying that he is in fact, the Wal-Mart scholar.
Allen wrote:
“East Cowflop, Texas “
Wow, is that the best insult you can think of to hurl my way?
BTW, here are the latest PISA results showing US rates dropping.
Of course there’s been a boatload of articles about it but since they don’t help promote the Business Roundtable Agenda Allen has tried to pretend they were difficult to find.
http://international-education.suite101.com/article.cfm/us_students_left_behind
http://joannejacobs.com/2007/12/14/leave-nclb-behind/
http://joannejacobs.com/2007/12/04/mediocre-in-science-slow-in-math/