tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post114398801067679790..comments2024-01-04T05:57:26.735-06:00Comments on Education Policy Blog: Hosted by the Forum on the Future of Public Education: Education and Teacher Education for DemocracyCraig A. Cunninghamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18160288758906798678noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-1144114090095707752006-04-03T20:28:00.000-05:002006-04-03T20:28:00.000-05:00I'm of about seven and a half minds on the social-...I'm of about seven and a half minds on the social-justice possibilities of teacher education. On the one hand, I've written elsewhere online (I forget where) that the whole of the human-participants apparatus of American research requires consideration of justice (in the third part of the Belmont Report from the 1970s that's the basis for IRB activities), so it's not true that established universities always eschew notions of justice. On the other hand, I'm not sure that's the same as pushing for a specific approach towards redistributive or procedural justice. On the third hand (I'm certainly not Truman's ideal one-handed economist), I agree with Lisa Delpit that there's nothing inconsistent with focusing on concrete skills and also seeking to undermine existing inequalities. On the fourth hand, I'm not sure teacher education is the best place for that, given the overwhelming undergraduate location for teacher education and the limited time that affords us for anything. On the fifth hand, you gotta start somewhere. On the sixth hand, there are a whole host of reasons why teaching tends to be a conservative occupation in many ways, and teacher education can't inoculate teachers against all of them. On the seventh hand, teachers <EM>do</EM> overwhelmingly identify themselves as agents of social change (despite other conservative tendencies), and that affords some opportunities. On the eighth hand, the fact that some conservatives (and liberals) may be attacking teacher education for ideological bias against individual students doesn't mean that those concerns are thus entirely wrong. On the ninth hand, there should be appropriate space for specific institutional missions (including for teacher education), and those missions already stretch across public-private boundaries (e.g., West Point, which is a public institution with a quite specific mission). <BR/><BR/>And I think I'll have to stop here, because I'm not sure what I'll do with a tenth hand. Time to return to reading student papers on a lawsuit in the imaginary Anchovy Township, I think.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-1144085906287068362006-04-03T12:38:00.000-05:002006-04-03T12:38:00.000-05:00For a more general discussion of the (lack of) rel...For a more general discussion of the (lack of) relationship between education and economic growth, see:<BR/><BR/>Education - it's not for the economy, stupid!<BR/>http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA640.htm<BR/><BR/>"Developing" nations who have sought to increase economic growth through widespread education have often created enormous internal discontent as the educated are unable to find jobs to fit their skills. <BR/><BR/>David Berliner and Jean Anyon have both recently argued that improved education comes as a result of decreases in poverty and not the other way around. Thus, significant educational improvement in central cities, especially, seems likely only in the context of social action for larger social change. <BR/><BR/>See David Berliner, "Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform" at Teachers College Record and<BR/>Jean Anyon's new book, Radical Possibilities.Aaron Schutzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10667097977144954236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-1144076733262744692006-04-03T10:05:00.000-05:002006-04-03T10:05:00.000-05:00Also see http://web.archive.org/web/20041011100403...Also see <A HREF="http://web.archive.org/web/20041011100403/http://www.thepublicinterest.com/archives/2003fall/article2.html" REL="nofollow">http://web.archive.org/web/20041011100403/http://www.thepublicinterest.com/archives/2003fall/article2.html</A>Craig A. Cunninghamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18160288758906798678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-1144076487189148952006-04-03T10:01:00.000-05:002006-04-03T10:01:00.000-05:00I furled my brow when I read Jim Horn's sentence t...I furled my brow when I read Jim Horn's sentence that ends "an economic future that includes the studied oversupply of engineers, scientists, and technicians." I guess I had bought the commonly-spouted view that the U.S. faces a shortage of talented scientists and engineers--a shortage that could hurt our economic competitiveness. Well, turns out that Jim is right: there is no shortage of scientists. A good place to begin to understand this is <A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38006-2004May18.html" REL="nofollow">this editorial from the Washington Post</A>.Craig A. Cunninghamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18160288758906798678noreply@blogger.com