The Ed.D. a "lightweight" degree per USA Today.

I have not yet had time to read the following but I am posting them because they may be of interest to Ed.M. and Ed.D. students/holders and teachers.

USA Today dated Tues March 15, 2005 has an interesting Op/Ed feature
"Principals pass - then fail" based on a new report from Columbia University.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=742&e=1&u=/usatoday/20050315/cm_usatoday/principalspassthenfail

The complete Columbia U report is at http://www.tc.columbi

 

That's okay. In my opinion, USA Today is a lightweight newspaper, so that makes us just about even.

I don't believe that they know what they are talking about in regards to the Ed.D., but in terms of the lack of preparation of school leaders, they are rather close. My opinion is that future school leaders (site administrators, district level administrators, superintendents, etc.) should only be taught by folks who have verifiable experience as successful administrators without regard to academic qualifications. This is too important to let the lack of a doctorate stand in the way of a tremendously successful, experienced administrator.

You can only imagine how popular I am in the higher education and public school communities.




Tom Nixon

 

Actually, it has been my perception that the academy looks down its long nose at ALL degrees in Education.

Why, I have no idea. Unfairly, I have no doubt. Commonly, I hope not.

Still, one of the weakest intellectually of my law school classmates held a Ph.D. in Education from a large state University.

 

I found the teacher cert classes I took during a career veer long ago to be the most stultifying--and the teachers the most egomaniacal--I ever encountered. But those were undergrad courses and the students were generally (perhaps myself included) living refutations of Darwin.

But I agree wholeheartedly with Tom Nixon (word for word) and Nosborne.

To sneer at a degree because of nomenclature snobbery is dumb. Are some ed programs stupid? Surely. But that's true of any field. (Many DMin programs are dumb. Hardly all, or most.) And, no, I don't have a dog in this fight.

As an opponent of the increasing nomenclature monopoly of the PhD, I hope that IF there are any systemic problems with the EdD they get fixed. But I'm not persuaded that human idiocy gravitates to any particular academic field--although I have my suspicions, which I won't spell out on this forum!

 

I know a guy with multiple graduate degrees in education from different well known RA colleges who swears he never cracked a textbook over a weekend in his entire academic career.

 

I was told in the 70's by the Dean of the Dept of Remedial Reading Education at OSU that Education studies at OSU were deemed lightweight by the other faculties of that institution. I recall one doc level OSU class wherein the student was assigned the task of reading the text and in paraphrases from the text filling in omitted words to complete the thoughts. Save for statistics, nothing in my incomplete EdD experience approached the difficulty of most grad classes in Bible/Theology at Western Seminary- neither the prerequisites, materials , the class interaction, or the outcomes were equal in rigor between the two programs.

I agree that school administrators do not need (practically) docs except, perhaps, in the area of Special Education.

 

Ed degree

I can't say what the quality is like at other universities. However, I can vouch for the fact that the academic standard of my B.Ed from Brock University Ontario was absolutely dismal. It did give me the piece of paper necessary to get a teaching job. It gave me no preparation for the classroom.
The classes were well below undergraduate standard, and no credit for prior learning was given. There were no exams. There was no piece of written work that exceeded four pages in length. I manged to do the course while working forty hours a week as a machinist and stll get the a P1 (an 'A+',) not a great feat on my part as everyone in the class achieved this.
Roy Maybery

 

Will NO ONE speak in defense of degree programs in Education? Considering the vast investment and extreme importance of primary and secondary education, this thread is most disturbing!

 

My 61 hours from junior college required a great deal of work, I studied often.
My remaining hours for my Bachelor's were demanding in the area of history(my major) and my education hours required very little work.
My first masters required projects that took time but I never once took an exam or wrote a research paper like I did in my history courses. My stats class was the exception, it was very hard.

My second masters.....................in two classes, same instructor, required five article responses(less than a page) and classroom participation.
The practicum was difficult, in terms of hours needed and some of the real life responsibilities I undertook(assessment coordinator etc).

I have heard the doctorate will be hard, I cannot imagine it will be anything like my other two education degrees(the BA is in history, not history education).
I can honestly say one semester of my history courses were more challenging then both graduate degrees...
Im not trying to trash these schools...I loved the instructors and found them interesting, not challenging though.............

BH

 

Interesting thread! Here is my 1 1/2 cents

First of all, this article does NOT address the doctor of education degree (Ed.D.), but the doctorate in education, which could be a Ph.D. or Ed.D. With very few exceptions, there is no difference at all between the two degrees. Ph.D. in education students are no less "at risk", according to this article

Second, other fields look down at education for a number of reasons, one of which is that education does not require a specific undergraduate major. It is very difficult to get into a graduate program in chemistry, for instance, without solid undergraduate training in that field. Are there fluff courses and programs in education? To be sure; however, fluff is certainly not limited to schools of education. I have seen dissertations from disciplines within the humanities and social sciences that are no more rigorous than those required for Ph.D.s or Ed.D.s in education.

Third, the criticism in this article seems to focus upon doctoral programs in educational administration. Programs in other areas, such as educational psychology, curriculum & instruction, school counseling, instructional systems technology, educational research & evaluation and other disciplines within schools of education are not really addressed.

Fourth, K-12 schools & districts, community colleges and universities provide the highest number of jobs for research doctorate holders, so education provides the highest number of doctorates. Is that proof that educational degrees are "watered down" compared to other disciplines' doctorates? Is it likely? Probably.

Fifth, while I applaud the findings of the report (which is obviously much better then the marginal USA Today article), extrapolating this op ed piece to assume that ALL programs in educational administration (let alone ALL programs in education) are weak is a foolish thing to do. In the three graduate programs that I attended, for example, I had only one course taught by an adjunct faculty (of the the items of criticism in the report). The overuse of adjunct faculty is certainly not limited to schools of education.

The article is pretty lame, but the report on Columbia's site is very useful and should be required reading for those considering enrolling into a doctoral program in any field, but particularly in education. Judging any potential program by the criticisms outlined in the report, will make one an informed consumer.

Tony Piña
Administrator, Northeastern Illinois University

 

Ed degreea

The problem, I suspect, lies in the fact that education is a politically charged arena. In Ontario, teaching is controlled by the ministry of ed, and the Ontario College of Teachers. The Ontario College of Teachers is supposed to be an independant professional body representative of teachers. In reality it is a institution that siezes upon every whim of the Ministry of ed that is likely to expand their adminisration. It is essentially an arm of the provincial government, though they do deny this.
The ministry and minister of Ed in the main pursue policy that is likely to be approved by the provincial premier and seen by the electorate as the government taking action.
The faculties of ed at the universities just do as they are told under pain of being shut down. Those that call the shots are not D.Ed's or Ph.d's in anything they are in the main politicians who are often hostile to academics. They are motivated in the main by two things; public opinion and cost.
As a general rule the public is hostile to teachers because they see them as overpaid and having too many holidays. Whether ths is a true perception or not on the part of the public dosn't really matter. The piont is that the perception persists. Furthermore, while we may remember the one teacher that had a positive effect on our lives, most people can also remember those they veiwed as overbearing and unpleasant.
All this facilitates interferance by elected representatives. They are free to make changes to the curriculum without funding for textbooks. They make curriculum changes within faculties of education. They look to the popular media for potted television solutions.
The faculties are rife with such things as 'action research' (research with no control group.) Their teaching centres around reams of new legislation. Most research undertaken is that predetermined to support conclusions already proposed by the opinions of the Ministry and the College of Teachers.
As for Brock University (where I studied.) We just looked at what California is doing now. Because, in the words of our departmental teacher "that is what ontario will be doing in ten years time."
Small wonder that other departments don't take them seriously.

Roy Maybery

 

My original post somehow did not contain the complete link to the report.
It is entitled "Educating School Leaders" and can be found at http://www.tc.columbia.edu under "Filling the School Readership Vacuum".

 

Re: Ed degreea

Having been a California educator (in both K-12 and higher ed) I saw so much of what is wrong with the educational system there that I would have a difficult time recommending it as a model for emulation at all.

Tony

 

A Few Ideas

Hello,

At one point in my graduate career, I was pursuing a doctoral degree at a Michigan sate university in education--PhD in curriculum and instruction in ESL/FL to be exact. I had reached ABD status before I dropped out. It was a drag. Intellectually, it was draining because, practically, I was the only one in my co-hort who was taking his program seriously, reading, writing, synthesizing, presenting, etc. I was resented for (what one professor suggested as) "raising the bar". Even among my professors, I was not all too welcome for being a scholarly student instead of a "sit and get" student. Anywa, I converted my work into an EdS and left the program. I left disillusioned with those who were supposed to be leaders of teachers, whether they were in-service teachers or administrators.

My original master's training was in liberal arts and I was used to rigor.

Along the way, I took two Australian degrees by distance, and MEd and an MPS, both in related areas of education. I must say I was happy with the intellectual (scholarly approach) of the programs. Happily, I learned a lot.

Of course, recently, I completed my DEd from the University of Port Elizabeth (now, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University) in South Africa. Under the guidance of my promoter (advisor), I was intellectually and academically challenged to produce a scholarly product. Given the fact that two international scholars (not in education) as well as a scholar from South Africa accepted the work I presented for my thesis, I feel validated in my decision.

Why is the American doctorate in education (whether PhD or EdD) a stepchild in academia? I have reached the conclusion that it is so because education in America for the most part attracts people with attitudes of "status quo, steady as it goes." There is no fire in them for research or scholarship, they are more like technicians and facilitators. they are not about questioning paradigms but about validating the existing paradigm(s) in education. They may tinker, but nothing more than that.

Elsewhere in the world, education and educators are considered "dangerous" for being sources of social agitation and educators as agents of social changes. In the US model, educators are the socializers into the system. Due to their role, they must be conservative (not in the political sense, although there are implications here) in their approach, thought processes and professional development.

Just a few words from personal experience.

Kenneth

 

USA Today

For the USA Today to call anyone or anything "lightweight" is laughable. As a "newspaper" it rates a small step above the supermarket tabloids and its best use involves housebreaking puppies or as packing material.

Forum members love to use search engines to locate faculty at RA institutions with DL degrees. In a similar vein, why doesn't someone try to find a published scholarly paper in any discipline that quotes the USA Today?

 

Re: USA Today

Great point. If I recall correctly, Dr. John Bear has stated that USA Today is one of the leading venues for diploma mill advertising.

Tony

 

All true, but the posts here tend to confirm USA Today's opinion and I for one find that VERY disturbing.

 

Well, the posts here represent a very small sample, when you consider the fact that hundreds of universities offer doctoral degrees in education. A former professor of mine surveyed over 650 insitutions in the early 1990s.

Where USA Today falls short is in assuming that all doctoral degrees in education are substandard. Of course, they really focused upon educational administration doctorates, but the implication is that all education PhDs and EdDs are "lightweight". I have seen programs and dissertations in disciplines outside colleges of education that were as weak as the weakest ed programs (and, no, I am not going to name the disciplines, as I have no desire to make enemies of people who have degrees in those areas).

Tony

 

USA Today? Who reads that?