Why Education Can’t Study Itself

In a recent post, I made the point that major cost studies with working groups dominated by members of the education community are bound to lead us nowhere.  Well, "best practice" studies produced by the education establishment tend to be just as bogus.  "Best practice" is just one term stolen by the education people from the business world to repackage their unsound theories.  Another is "universal design."  This concept is one used by many of our education leaders to support full inclusion theories, inflate grades, and find more ways to spend your money.

"Brain research" is another hip buzzword.   And it’s effective with teachers and with the general public.  Why spend so much money on interactive whiteboards?  Because, educators tell us,  brain research supports it. Well wait a minute.  Stop right there.  Brain research supports it? That’s news to people within the field of neuroscience.  Even with the folks in cognitive studies, the statement doesn’t pass the straight-face test.

Teachers accept what the media specialists and administrators who like glitzy toys tell them.  And, of course, the teachers like glitzy toys too.  So some bureaucrat in the superintendent’s office with a soft position arranges "professional development" time for the teachers who are eager to get their recertification credits or avoid another useless in-service day by playing with a glitzy toy that, gosh,  "brain research" supports.

And the teachers accept the "brain research" thing  because of the pseudo-intellectual nature of their career.  Teachers are attentive enough to listen to their leaders.  And they might read an occasional ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum) book that gets handed to them.   (ASCD books are highly recommended by administrators, workshop presenters, and graduate education instructors.) Teachers are certainly good at parroting buzzwords, but that's not intellect.

Even the teachers with master’s degrees in education are capable, for the most part, of only pseudo-intellectual thoughts.  Sure, they have to take an education research class to make them "better consumers of education research."  But it’s education research. As a body of work, education research is not held to the scholarly standards of, say, psychology research.  And often it contradicts psychology research.

Education bureaucracy has been studied in recent years, and I’ve been an eager consumer of that research.  This research points to data that indicates that bureaucracy hurts student achievement. But, of course, this research doesn’t come from the education "experts."  It comes from the field of public administration.

This doesn't, of course, mean that there aren't some smart people in the field of education who have their hearts in the right place.  But they have to be careful.  As I pointed out in another post, Professor Giangreco, who has been studying the overuse of instructional paraprofessionals, has had to be careful to say his ideas are "cost-neutral."

No intelligent consumer of research should ever accept education research without careful inspection.  And I’m guessing there are some intelligent consumers of research who visit this site.

Comments

[G. Cross]

Curt, given statements like the one below, why in the world do you stay in a job surrounded by so little intellectual capacity?

"Even the teachers with master’s degrees in education are capable, for the most part, of only pseudo-intellectual thoughts."

You must hang around with a much different group of teachers than those I have known for many years.

[Greg Decker]

Having spent a good deal of time over the last few years studying neuropsychology for a law review I’m working on pertaining to intellectual property and the brain, I’d say most of the ‘brain studies’ papers and presentations I’ve seen make positive statements. That is, statements that are about what is and that are relatively scientific (testable) and focused on value-free descriptions of the research results.

It’s very unusual for a scientist to advocate for the use of some particular technology even if that same technology was demonstrated to have some desirable effect in controlled studies. The leap to making normative statements is usually left to the economist, educators, politicians, etc. Meaning, scientists rarely affirm how things should or ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, which actions are right or wrong – with the exception of climate scientists.

That being said, the educators are well within their scope of authority to claim ‘brain studies’ support their agenda. Likewise, you're well within your scope of expertise and experience, as a teacher, to declare their agenda hogwash. The onus is on you and the education researchers who are making normative statements to explain to me, the public, why the research supports their position because you can be certain the scientist behind the research made no such claims.

[Curtis Hier]

Well, George, the intellectual teachers gravitate toward each other, I think. And there are a few around where I am. Not sure about where you are. It could be the more intellectual teachers gravitate toward the Burlington area.

My point is that the system is much the problem. M.E. programs don't seem to be that rigorous. And the undergrad programs aren't either. Pre-service teachers are coming more from the bottom of the SAT-taking population than the top. The education deans and department chairs seem to think that to get more respect they just need to add required courses. That adds to the problem of mediocre teachers, because the teachers end up less prepared in content areas. (I wonder if David Wolk ever reads this blog? He seems to be one of the smart people with a heart in the right place, and he's probably aware of these issues.)

And I think that the movers and shakers in education are glad to have basically sheep willing to follow them rather than real critical thinkers. Ed. profs seem to like people that can parrot back their jargon. I'm good enough at it that I'm in their honor society.

[Curtis Hier]

True enough, Greg, but I don't know that I was making an issue of the authority of educators. I just think they tend to leap real far from what the scientists have proven. And then it's parroted by probably thousands of educators who have never read the research. One cognitive scientist that has spoken out on this is John Bruer.

[G. Cross]

Where do you get these ideas, Curt?

"Pre-service teachers are coming more from the bottom of the SAT-taking population than the top."

I assume you can point us all to the research, or at least a simple study, that documents this notion.

[Greg Decker]

Curt, my point was that despite their shortcomings the educators are the ones responsible for making the normative statements.

If we listened to a scientist about 'how' to use knowledge we wouldn't have telephones because Bell thought it ridiculous that ordinary people would ever want to use one. And, if we listened to IBM we wouldn't have PCs because they thought no more than a few dozen organizations would ever want to use a computer. No doubt some people at IBM still disapprove of how we use computers but it doesn't make them right.

The real issue is performance evaluation and accountability. If the educators are in the position of authority to make proclamations like they have about white boards, then we as parents and tax payers should have some mechanisms in place for evaluating the effectiveness of these decisions and holding the decision makers responsible. In time the quality of the decisions will improve.

Simply saying the educators are wrong achieves nothing - and I'm saying this even though I agree with you that they're probably wrong.

[Curtis Hier]

George, the ETS itself provides the data from the survey questions they pose about career aspirations to SAT-takers. More of the bottom quartile aspire to be teachers than the top.

[Curtis Hier]

Greg, I can't disagree with a single thing that you've said here. I would refer you, however, to an earlier post I made about interactive whiteboards that showed the early research was indicating that they weren't that effective. It's pretty obscure research now, but perhaps there will be more that will really expose the folly of these things.

Embarrassment alone will not make educators stop experimenting with things that don't make sense. It hasn't before. This is why I am becoming a bigger and bigger fan of competition as my teaching career progresses.

BTW, I know you didn't say it, but just in case anybody's thinking it, I'm not a luddite! I'd rather buy more computer projectors and wireless laptop mobile labs and things of that nature. Interactive whiteboards are not a good return on investment.

[G. Cross]

Career aspirations as expressed by those about to take a college placement exam (note the type of exam that it is) doesn't really tell us much. The real question is: how do those who graduate and actually get hired for a teaching job compare to those who take other jobs? Frankly, I tried to find data related to that question and was unsuccessful. May just be my poor computer skills. Whatever, I think there is a great research project here for you. Go for it.

[Greg Decker]

I agree, embarrassment wouldn't work. On the other hand, if the people implementing the ideas were held accountable for their poor judgment then things might change. There wouldn't be much of an audience for stupid ideas if there was a personal cost involved.