Grade Inflation for Education Majors and Low Standards for Teachers - When Everyone Makes the Grade (h/t reader via Insty via Inside Higher Ed).
One quote from the conclusion:
Low grading standards in university education departments are part of a larger culture of low standards for educators, and they precede the low evaluation standards by which teachers are judged in K-12 schools. The culture of low standards for educators is problematic because it creates a disconnect between teachers' perceptions of acceptable performance and the perceptions of everyone else.
It's difficult for me to form a strong opinion on the grading topic because I have no idea what Education Majors learn or study. Maybe it's so easy and simple that anybody can master it readily, and all deserve As. Maybe they have full-semester courses in making Lesson Plans, and full-semester courses in Social Justice. Beats me.
However, it does not escape me that no profs in higher ed have ever taken a teaching course (outside of those profs in the Education Dept.). Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, not one of my kids was ever taught by anybody with an education degree.
(A reader asked the question. Yes, very expensive private schools. Private education is the only way to not be taught by people with ed degrees, if such things matter to you. Most of my kids' teachers had done a lot in life before they decided to follow their hearts and teach. Their Latin teacher was a professional actor on the side, their math teacher a retired Wall Streeter, their English teacher a retired Sports Illustrated writer, etc.)
I think it would be constructive to abolish the entire notion of the Education Major. Let people who feel called to K-12 teaching study something like everybody else does and, if they want to take some courses on the side on primary school education or Special Ed or whatever, OK. It seems to me that most teachers ultimately learn their trade by being assistant teachers - by apprenticeship and supervision, not in education departments.
Teaching is not hard work, if you know your topic. I've done it. It's fun (but some kids can't learn and some don't want to. Many are not interested in anything academic.). In fact, every parent becomes an amateur teacher. Much more primary education is ultimately home schooling than schools might want to admit. (In my state of CT, the "quality" of the schools across towns correlates exactly with the levels of average education and income of the adults in the town - regardless of teacher pay etc - suggesting to me that it is, in part, education-minded parents who make their schools look good.)
