Kids are Doomed....

I'm just speechless... This is unbelievable. Someone has to demand accountablility at the schools, including ed schools. I hope this starts a blogstorm as big as Rathergate. (hat tip, Instapundit)

Critics of the assessment policy warned that aspiring teachers are being judged on how closely their political views are aligned with their instructor's. Ultimately, they said, teacher candidates could be ousted from the School of Education if they are found to have the wrong dispositions.

And the article gives ample evidence that this is actually what is happening.

Comments

[CarolynJ]

That is appalling, but it's the same thing that's been going on in history and poli sci departments all over the country since I was in grad school.

It just never made it to the news, but everyone knows about it. Political litmus tests: you just don't graduate if you don't pass.

[Amelia in Texas]

It's sad and disgusting, but not surprising.

I graduated from a teacher prep program in 1999. Even though I went to a university that is considered to be conservative (Texas A&M), I learned real quick that in my teaching classes it was smartest to keep my mouth shut about what I really thought about a lot of issues. Having already encountered teachers in junior high and high school where the wisest course of action was NOT to use critical thinking, but to pretend to agree with the teacher's position and parrot her views back at her when tested, I knew how to play the game.

There was one professor in particular who taught a multiculturalism class - nearly everybody in that class was scared of the woman. Scared of saying something that would offend her, I mean. She had an intimidating presence, there's no doubt about that. Having grown up with a mother who I swear sometimes I have thought could intimidate God, this professor wasn't scary to me, but I did keep my mouth pretty well zipped because I wasn't sure how it would affect my grade to question any of the views the professor was stating as if they were fact.

As far as I was concerned, it was just a matter of getting a grasp on the teacher's world view and then making sure my work didn't contradict that world view. I kept what I really thought to myself. While that may be dishonest, it was quite clear to me from the first day that the purpose of the course, in that prof's mind, was not to foster analysis, deep thought, or any of those other great ideals of education, but to impress upon us the "right" way of thinking about race and other cultures - especially where it concerns blacks.

Given my choice, I'd have preferred a real class to the fix-your-thinking seminar I took, but she was the only prof teaching that course and that didn't look likely to change any time soon. So I played the education game: regurgitate what you're told, pretend like you mean it, and get out of the class with the necessary grades and credits.

She didn't actually change my thinking though. Yet it wasn't a total waste - what I took away from that class was the knowledge of what sorts of things I might find myself ostracized by my fellow educators for admitting to thinking. That's always useful information.