Linda Darling-Hammond and Peter Youngs
Education Researcher, December 2002
Secretary Paige certainly caused the hive to buzz when he issued his estimable July 2002 report on teacher quality. (You can read it at http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/News/teacherprep/AnnualReport.pdf See also http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=54#802 for the Gadfly's comments on that report.) Its critique of traditional teacher preparation and certification struck hard at the conventional wisdom about boosting teacher quality - a project that has become more urgent in view of NCLB's requirement that every U.S. school child be taught by "highly qualified" teachers not later than 2006. The latest rejoinder was issued in the December issue of the American Education Research Association's Education Researcher by Stanford education professor (and unquenchable protector of the conventional wisdom) Linda Darling-Hammond, joined by Stanford post-doc Peter Youngs. They contend that Paige's conclusions rest on four erroneous arguments, which they seek to debunk in this essay. I don't find theirs a very convincing case - they rehash familiar evidence, much of it old, much of it ambiguous - although the AERA readership will likely lap it up. If you want to see for yourself, you can find it at http://www.aera.net/pubs/er/pdf/vol31_09/AERA310903.pdf.
