US Teacher’s Colleges: More Social Justice, Multiculturalism, Less Math

[William Korach]

05 October 2011

By Bill Korach Powerful evidence points to a tendency of American teacher’s colleges to expand the curriculum to “inclusion, social justice, diversity, multiculturalism” and other politically correct topics at the expense of math and other core subjects. Translated this means more “blame America first” diatribes, Islamic propaganda, and a firm opposition to America’s tradition of 

to America’s tradition of Judeo-Christian morality.  Math and science courses where United States students lag the developed nations are cut back. For this reason, the United States ranks 25th out of 34 developed countries in math. The assessment was undertaken by the Paris based Organization for Economic Cooperation and development. Guess who ranks # 1 in math? Shanghai China!

The schools of education in the U.S. are failing to produce first class teachers, or even 3rd class teachers. Richard Vedder, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, says in a recent article he wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education:

• colleges of education don’t really challenge their students.
• mindless education courses have crowded out study of subject matter.
• there is something of an anti-knowledge culture in many education schools; learning facts is actually disparaged.
• the education colleges have been great promoters of the highly dubious notion that self-esteem is critically important.
• schools of education have worked closely with teacher unions to convince legislators to keep archaic practices regarding teacher certification that prevent otherwise qualified persons from getting education degrees.

A few years ago, Education Reform Professor Jay Greene actually quantified one of the problems. Writing in City Journal, he and a research assistant explored the number of multicultural classes offered in our teachers’ colleges. They counted the number of course titles and descriptions that...Read the full story in The Report Card

[William Korach]

All who are concerned about anti- American textbooks and school failure to teach the Constitution should attend the Eye on US Education conference in Lakeland, FL next Saturday at 1:00 PM. Just click on the link for more information.

[margaret yacovone]

all i am hearing is crap.  what r we going to do about this?  sit on our hands until it is too late?  amanda obfuscates truth like a seasoned politician.  she is already a casualty of our "education" system.  amanda, i said casualty, not causality.  she is blatantly on the dumbing down of america train.  why waste your energy arguing with commies?  we, as americans, have got to step up and save our children.  not let them be educated like the "Hitler Youth".  thats' what ole adolf did, he started with the kids,  the most vulnerable of all.  just a reminder, they will grow up in the shadow of the "amandas" of the world.  they r the next generation.  god, help us.

[William Korach]

Of course parents bear primary responsibility for their children's education, but schools are no longer parents partners, they are often adversaries. The educational bureaucracy often does not share the same values as the parents. The story in The Report Card about teaching schools provides some background on this subject.

[Steve Tikas]

Armando you are completely right in saying that the kids education begins and ends at home. 

 

While that is true the harm that our schools do to even the best of intentioned parents should not be blown off.  While our children are there we, as parents, do not have the option of controlling what goes into and out of our children's brain.  Some of those things are not in line with the things I would choose to teach my children. 

 

I know you might say I should put my children in private school, and I should be able to maybe next year for at least my younger son, but unfortunately that is not financially viable right now and for some that is not ever an option.  Even without finances children should be able to go somewhere that actually teaches them reading, writing, and arithmetic, not how to be a good citizen of the world and other things that are taught.  Worse then what is taught is what is not taught. 

 

I make sure that my children know the important things and they are prepared for the world in more then just an academic way but like I said it would just be nice if we could count on our schools to reinforce, not tear down, some of the things we as parents try and instill in our children at home.

[DURWIN WALTER DAVIS]

To end this trend into perpetuity, revoke tenure.  Since GE is the "shining example" of business machination, use their rule for rewarding the excellors and eliminate the mundane in the workforce.  The rule was, the bottom ten per centile of each department were eliminated each year.  This was to allow human resources to review and accept only the best applicants and new recruits, from college or other competitors (in house head-hunting).  This business model needs to be applied to teachers.  There is no argument that can be made to refute this system.  This would neutralize the saying we all know so well, "those that can, do...those that can't, teach".  I was very fortunate in that my science and math teachers in high school were all exceptions to this rule.  They were all graduates of the school.

[Armando Delgado]

Today, most children are more interested in playing video games, watching television, or playing sports than in studying. Our younger generation is deficient in intellectual curiosity. and that is not the fault of the teachers or the schools but of the parents. Education begins and ends at home, period.

It is convenient to blame the teachers and the school system for our social, academic, and moral failures, but it is the failure of the family unit in our society that is at fault. Like Pogo said, "We've seen the enemy, and it is us." Let's take a good look in the mirror. 

[William Korach]

Amanda;

There is a certain amount of common sense here. Teacher's colleges are spending much more time on politically  correct subjects and less on the old core curriculum of math and English. In this environment, math teaching suffers.

Bill

[amanda choate]

Bill there is no problem with our disagreeing, if everyone agreed on everything, well that would be awful.

Three problems with Professor Greene's article.

1. It is not in a peer reviewed publication.

2. He does not establish a correlation between his findings and students scores.

3. He does not establish a causality that can be inferred from other testing.

Those are the basics of research.

[William Korach]

Dear Amanda;

I hate to disagree with you again, but you need to read the full story. I am not just offering my opinion. Go to the link and then read the study by Prof. Jay Greene. In his study, he found that Teacher's colleges spend 82% more time teaching multiculturalism, and diversity then they do math. The teaching school graduates then bring this weakness in math into the classroom.

[amanda choate]

Bill, you may be right, but in reading your full article you offer absolutely no correlations or causality. If you are going to write a story on how contemptible our math and science is, then perhaps you should use more than  opinions to prove your notion.