We're also failing at basic research, apparently.

Comments on Greene, Jay P. and Shock, Catherine. (2008). Adding up to failure. City Journal. Vol. 18. No 1. Found at: http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_1_snd-ed_schools.html. Accessed January 15, 2008.

Greene and Shock's basic premise is that colleges of education place too much emphasis on multiculturalism and diversity and too little on teaching the basics of education, namely math. They reach this conclusion by conducting an "analysis" of the course catalogs of the top 50 education programs and comparing the number of course titles and descriptions that feature the term multiculturalism or some variant thereof with the number of titles and descriptions that contain the word math.

There are many problems here, most of which are obvious, I think. But I will point them out anyway, because the fact that "research" like this gets published, even in a local, non-academic setting, is troublesome.

1. Uneven distribution of descriptors. Greene and Shock look at lots of synonyms of multiculturalism, but fail to consider any variations of math. Many colleges of education offer courses in educational research, which often requires statistical analysis. Others flat out offer statistics courses. Methods courses for preservice teachers also often feature instruction on how to best teach math, but math may not appear in the title. If all the elementary education students take classes in "Instructional fundamentals for the elementary student" that includes math instruction, even if math does not appear in the title of the course.

2. Colleges of Education don't offer every required course. Here's a novel idea. Say we want our students to learn basic mathematical concepts so that they can teach them to 5th graders. Maybe we shold make them take some math courses to make sure this happens. Wow! Who are we going to get to teach these courses? Wait! I've got it. We have a whole department of mathematics here at the university. I bet they are pretty good at teaching about math. I even bet that there are some folks out there who are majoring in math that want to teach math to high school students, so they take their education courses from an ed school and their math courses from the math department. Division of labor -- it's not just a fancy concept in sociology.

3. Maybe multiculturalism is important. Every teacher will be required to deal with a diverse bunch of students. Not every teacher will teach math. Given the univeristy's division of labor above, doesn't in make sense that colleges of ed have courses that help their students figure out how to deal with the diversity of students they will undoubtedly encounter in their classroom? It may be just a matter of priorities; the authors of the article seem to have different ones.