Teacher training seen as missing link in school choice expansion, expert says, with serious reforms needed

While school choice has expanded rapidly, a significant roadblock remains: Who will teach the students moving to private schools, microschools and homeschool co-ops?

In a recent op-ed, Daniel Buck argues that fixing schools of education is essential, since the majority of teachers still train there.

Writing for the Martin Center for Academic Renewal, Buck – a former classical teacher and current head of the American Enterprise Institute’s Conservative Education Reform Network – says schools that train teachers should prioritize content knowledge and classroom practice over “woke ideology” that dominates education schools. 

“The most-assigned books and essays for prospective teachers are a heady mixture of race essentialism, gender theory, and outright Marxist kookery,” he writes. “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.” 

Buck says radical change in schools of education began in the 1960s, when activists “found refuge in them,” ultimately giving birth to concepts such as critical race theory, microaggressions and white fragility. 

So extreme were they that Lawrence Lowell, a former Harvard University president, said the education school was “a kitten that ought to be drowned” – and that was in 1933, before the cultural upheavals of the 1960s and today’s far-left ideologies. 

While many conservatives argue the schools should be abolished and replaced with free-market solutions, such as ending teacher licenses, Buck takes a different tack: reform. 

“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?” he writes. “We can (and should) use the rightful power of state governments over public university systems to form education schools into a better mold.” 

Buck sees two ways of doing this: correcting existing institutions and building separate ones. 

By forcing “existing institutions into a more classical, or at least a more practical, mold … the stream will run clear,” he writes. Florida is a leading example, with Gov. Ron DeSantis signing a bill last year that “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.’” 

Buck recommends other red states follow suit, changing how teachers are trained – the source – rather than focusing only on prohibiting topics such as critical race theory from classrooms. Because there are far fewer education schools than public schools, he argues, reforming teacher training could influence the entire system. 

“The left happily leverages public policy to force their worldview into schools of education,” Buck writes, citing Illinois’ requirement that teachers be trained to raise “consciousness” and center their work on “social justice.” 

“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?” he asks. “Perhaps if teachers are taught to teach again, they will simply do so, instead of being filled up with a leftist social agenda.” 

He also calls for creating independent teacher-preparation programs for classical and non-woke schools. 

Hillsdale College in Michigan and the University of Dallas, a Catholic school, are prime examples, along with a civics fellowship at Arizona State University that teaches America’s founding and related principles. Larger institutions, including the James Madison Program at Princeton University and the University of Florida’s Hamilton Center, are also entering the mix. 

“A handful of these programs at larger institutions with a greater cultural footprint would quickly have a noticeable impact,” Buck writes, urging each red state to create similar programs, especially for classical and liberal-arts teachers. 

He argues that more well-prepared teachers would allow current educators to move into administrative roles or found their own schools, “bolstering the supply side of school choice.” 

A movement of such teachers could also create publications, conferences and resources “to offset the noxious ideologies leaking out of schools of education.” 

Buck points back to the basics: “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 – the best that has been thought and said – and less time discussing classroom practice in the abstract.” 

A teacher who grew up in China agrees. In a separate piece published by Joanne Jacobs, a man who calls himself “Yellow Heights” took a one-year master’s program at a well-respected U.S. university but found it “a total waste of money, a waste of time.” 

He has since written a book about his experiences. 

The program was “pretty ideological” and “very culturally focused,” with one class dedicating six chapters to social issues but very little time to how to actually teach, said the former Microsoft engineer and tech entrepreneur. “Every class was about how to infuse equity in everything you do,” he said, adding that some of his peers raised the grades of students from “challenged families” and lowered standards in the aftermath of COVID-19.  

That’s what Buck wants to see change. He calls the current state of education schools “a source of opportunity and pessimism,” arguing that “even modest changes could cause significant improvements for students.” 

“Schools of education have already hit the iceberg,” he concludes, referencing the Titanic. “The question now is whether lawmakers, regents and university administrators send for lifeboats.” 

Image credit: Wikipedia (VCU School of Education)