College of Education

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In the United States and Canada, a school of education (or college of education; ed school) is a division within a university that is devoted to scholarship in the field of education, which is an interdisciplinary branch of the social sciences encompassing sociology, psychology, linguistics, economics, political science, public policy, and others, all applied to the topic of elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education.

In the United Kingdom, following the recommendation in the 1963 Robbins Report into higher education, teacher training colleges were renamed colleges of education in the UK. For information about academic divisions devoted to this field outside of the United States and Canada, see Postgraduate Training in Education.

Types of programs

Typically, a school of education offers research-based programs leading to Master of Arts (M.A.), Master of Education (M.Ed.), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) or Doctor of Education (Ed.D) degrees, as well as professional teacher-education programs leading to Master of Arts (M.A.), Master of Education (M.Ed.), or Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.) degrees. Schools of education also offer teacher certification or licensure programs to undergraduate students. Generally schools of education have graduate programs related to teacher preparation, curriculum and instruction (or curriculum and teaching), public policy and education, and educational administration. In addition, some schools of education offer programs in school counseling and counseling psychology.

Common areas of interest

The issue of equitable access to education, particularly for low-income, minority, and immigrant communities, is central to many areas of research within the Education field.^{[1][dead link][2]}

Notable schools of education

The annual rankings of U.S. News & World Report placed the following schools of education in the top twenty of all graduate education institutions in the United States. They follow in order:

1. Stanford University;
2. Vanderbilt University;
3. University of California at Los Angeles;
4. Teachers College, Columbia University; University of Oregon;
5. Harvard University;
6. University of California at Berkeley;
7. University of Washington;
8. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor;
9. University of Pennsylvania;
10. University of Texas at Austin;
11. Northwestern University;
12. University of Wisconsin at Madison;
13. Michigan State University;
14. New York University;
15. Ohio State University;
16. University of Minnesota-Twin Cities;
17. Boston College;
18. Indiana University-Bloomington;
19. Johns Hopkins University.^[3]

Notable education scholars

Further information: Education theory

• Charles Beard
• George Counts
• Linda Darling-Hammond
• Lisa Delpit
• John Dewey
• Paulo Freire
• Henry Giroux
• Peter McLaren
• Jean Piaget

Criticism

Given the vital importance of educating a nation's youth, people from all over the political spectrum have opinions about the nature of quality education. A contrarian movement, known by some as the Education Anti-Establishment, has been critical of the status quo within most schools of education.^{[dubious – discuss]} Prominent figures contributing to this school of though include Lisa Delpit,^{[citation needed]} E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Diane Ravitch,^{[citation needed]} Chester Finn, Thomas Sowell, and Lynne Cheney.^{[4][dead link]} Common assertions made by Anti-Establishment critics include that the typical school of education has a Left-wing political bias, favoring Socialist philosophies such as Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy and the "Teaching for Social Justice" movement. Many Ed-Schools are academically, professionally, and socially inhospitable toward students whose political views do not conform to the predominant Left-leaning ideology.^{[5][6][7][dead link][8]} One concern is that the field's interest in educational equity sometimes crosses over the line between academic research and political activism.^[9]

The pedagogy in teacher-education programs promotes the belief in a false binary opposition between "traditional" and "reform" teaching methods, negatively caricaturing the former, excessively praising the latter, and implying that several qualities are mutually exclusive between the two. For example, the literature commonly read by student-teachers creates the imaginary dilemma of choosing between "teaching for understanding" and having students learn "rote facts" and perform "drill-and-kill" exercises, denying the vital role that factual knowledge and persistent practice play in the learning process.^{[citation needed]}

Another common criticism of schools of education stems from a perception of lower academic standards. Students in graduate schools of education typically have lower average GRE scores than students in most other programs at the same university.

References

See also

• Teacher education
• Student teacher
• Certified teacher
• Alternative teaching certification
• Teacher education
• Postgraduate Certificate in Education (United Kingdom)
• Postgraduate Diploma in Education
• Postgraduate education
• Postgraduate diploma
• Education Specialist
• Teacher training college