Abolish The Education Degree

That’s been my position for years, and Andrew Ferguson agrees, in this piece on the miserable state of math education in the US:

Mr. Levine’s research shows that even the students themselves know how weak their programs are. Sixty-two percent of ed-school alumni say their training didn’t prepare them to “cope with the realities of today’s classrooms.” Surveys show that school principals agree.

What’s to be done? A constructive fellow, Mr. Levine spends considerable time showing what works in the nation’s exemplary education schools. There are some. The examples are so compelling they just might shame other universities into following their lead, removing a major obstacle to educational improvement in America.

Education schools, for example, shouldn’t treat “education” as a major in itself. Good education schools, Mr. Levine finds, require their students to master a given subject