How to Reform Schools of Education

To argue that schools of education have gone bonkers is akin to penning an op-ed that the Titanic sank. The fact is given. Does anyone dispute it?

The most-assigned books and essays for prospective teachers are a heady mixture of race essentialism, gender theory, and outright Marxist kookery. Trainees learn much of critical-consciousness raising, Marxist praxis, and gender as a performative act but little of classroom management, curricular sequencing, or instructional practice. Unsurprisingly, research into the impact of these programs finds that teachers who attend them are no more effective than alternatively trained or even untrained career transitioners.

Since at least the 1960s, schools of education have housed some of our most radical thinkers. Since at least the 1960s, schools of education have housed some of our most radical thinkers. Many leaders of the terroristic Weather Underground found refuge in them, for example. And, since then, along with a handful of law schools, education schools have introduced into public consciousness many of conservatives’ bugaboos, from critical race theory to microaggressions and white fragility.

The scholarship that such schools produce often reads like the sweaty rantings of a schizophrenic. The scholarship—a gracious thing to call it—that such schools produce often reads like the sweaty rantings of a schizophrenic. Skim any education-school publication list, and you’ll find a mess of auto-ethnographies, case studies, and glorified op-eds championing the latest progressive classroom intervention. Notably absent are randomized-controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies, or meta-analyses proving the theories actually work.

Education schools are indeed, as a former Harvard president once called them, a “kitten that ought to be drowned.” Such disdain is typically how conservatives discuss them: Schools of education delenda est. Or they follow Milton Friedman’s recommendation to abolish licensure policies and let the market sort it out.

A former classical-school administrator turned education columnist, I come to you, dear reader of the Martin Center, with a different request. The K-12 education system in America has a personnel problem. Were education schools reformed instead of razed, they could very well help. As the mill that produces America’s corps of teachers, the university could—dare I say must—assist in the reformation of elementary and secondary schools.

Imagine for a moment that we had an auto-pass button for legislation and made school choice universal across the nation tomorrow. Who would staff these classrooms? Who would fill administrative roles? Who would write the curricula, run the professional organizations, and make the local policy? The exact same left-leaning corps of school personnel who presently run the system.

Moreover, ask any classical-school administrator or even standard district principal who wants a returned focus to academics, and he’ll tell you that staffing is one of his greatest difficulties. All prospective teachers have gone through university teacher prep, and it’s difficult to deprogram them. Well-intentioned administrators must choose between untrained, unvetted career transitioners (a gamble) or teachers who are credentialed but education-schooled (also a gamble).

What if, instead of dismantling schools of education or undoing any licensure requirements—both politically unlikely and with their own tradeoffs—we instead reform them? We can (and should) use the rightful power of state governments over public university systems to form education schools into a better mold.

There are two avenues for reformation: correct the existing institutions or build separate ones. Look down each, and, as Robert Frost’s narrator observes, both roads for reform are just as fair.

The first avenue is to force the existing institutions into a more classical, or at least a more practical, mold. Purify the source, and the stream will run clear. Florida has already begun setting the framework to make such a policy play. Last year, Governor DeSantis signed House Bill 1291, which prohibits teacher-prep programs from grounding themselves in “theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.”

The first avenue is to force existing education schools into a more classical, or at least a more practical, mold. A report from the Claremont Institute found that those radical theories are precisely what the University of Florida was teaching future educators. Critical race theorists and other radical authors litter the syllabi. Practical manuals of instruction are few.

Other red states could follow Florida’s example. Instead of prohibiting instruction on controversial issues at the K-12 classroom level, which is difficult to prevent, target education schools. In Wisconsin, there are 13 public education schools and 421 public schools. Which is easier to surveil?

Practical training resources grounded in serious research and proven theory would set young teachers up for success in the classroom. The left happily leverages public policy to force their worldview into schools of education. Illinois’s Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards, for example, instruct teachers to provide their students with opportunities for “student advocacy,” to use activities with the aim of “raising consciousness,” and to always center their “social justice work.” Why not instead mandate that teachers learn about the best research into classroom management, study the basics of cognitive science, and read celebrated thinkers of the liberal-arts tradition?

There are plenty of practical training resources grounded in serious research and proven theory that would set young teachers up for success in the classroom.

A more popular approach, and one that policymakers are likely to pursue, is the creation of new institutions. Several already exist. Most notably, Hillsdale College and the University of Dallas both provide master’s degrees in classical education, and their graduates staff the rapidly growing classical-education movement. But because these are small programs at private, Christian institutions, their impact is inherently limited.

More recently, the Goldwater Institute created a civics fellowship for teachers at Arizona State University to attend and learn more about America’s founding, fundamental ideals, and mechanics of government. A quickly replicable program, it’s a useful model but still limited in scope.

Among the most promising institutions are those such as the storied James Madison program at Princeton University and the upstart Hamilton Center at the University of Florida. A handful of these programs at larger institutions with a greater cultural footprint would quickly have a noticeable impact.

If each red state were to create similar institutions—especially if they included an education track focusing on training classical or liberal-arts teachers—a robust network would quickly form. Existing schools would have a larger pool from which to pull employees. More would move into administrative roles in large public-school systems or found their own schools, bolstering the supply side of school choice. Each could produce scholarship, host conferences, and establish publications to offset the noxious ideologies leaking out of schools of education.

A network of such institutions would essentially foster a Gramscian counter-march through the institutions, creating a critical mass of classically trained, or at least practically minded, leaders at all levels of American education.

Along both paths of reform, it’s worth briefly addressing what alternative teacher prep ought to include. Research shows that only content knowledge and experience correlate with teacher efficacy. You can talk pedagogy and “best practices” all day, but they have little impact if teachers lack both subject knowledge and real classroom experience.

A revamped education program would spend far more time filling the minds of future teachers with math, science, literature, and history. A revamped education program would spend far more time filling the minds of future teachers with math, science, literature, and history—the best that has been thought and said—and less time discussing classroom practice in the abstract. When future teachers do learn pedagogical practices, the work must be unapologetically practical. How do you write a good quiz? What do you do if a student throws a book at another student? How do you command respect in a room of 25 thirteen-year-olds?

The personnel problem may be the single greatest source of American educational woes. The natural corollary to that assertion is that reforming education schools may be the most consequential solution. Simultaneously a source of opportunity and pessimism, the state of teacher prep in America is already so abysmal that even modest changes could cause significant improvements for students. Schools of education have already hit the iceberg. The question now is whether lawmakers, regents, and university administrators send for lifeboats.

Daniel Buck is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, the director of the Conservative Education Reform Network, and a former teacher and school administrator.