Paul Shaker and Elizabeth Heilman
Policy Perspectives, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
January 2002
The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) may mean well but it's irrevocably cast in the role of apologist for the nation's ed schools and what goes on in them. This sometimes means striking back at those who find fault with conventional teacher training and certification, with conventional ed-school style research, etc., and savaging those who engage in independent studies that arrive at "outside the ed school box" conclusions. A particularly nasty version of this retribution recently appeared in Policy Perspectives, an AACTE newsletter. There we find a piece called "Advocacy Versus Authority-Silencing the Education Professoriate", by Paul Shaker of California State University at Fresno and Elizabeth E. Heilman of Purdue University. It tries to find fault with numerous critical reports and studies, ranging from A Nation at Risk to the recent report of the National Reading Panel, from Diane Ravitch's book Left Back to CREDO's recent study of the Teach for America Program in Houston to the journal Education Next, and so forth. Its essential argument seems to be that the "critics" haven't a scholarly leg to stand on but are winning the policy fights because the ed school professoriate is too na??ve, quiet and inner-directed to hold its own. It never occurs to Shaker and Heilman that, to the extent that critics are making some headway, it might be due to their compelling evidence, stronger analysis and more cogent argumentation. If you want to see for yourself, you can go to www.edpolicy.org/perspectives/archives/free_issue.htm.
