They don't ever get tested scientifically before being implemented.
http://nas.org/polArticles.cfm?Doc_Id=229
The Negative Influence of Education Schools on the K-12 Curriculum
June 30, 2008 By Sandra Stotsky, University of Arkansas
"Teacher educators as a group tend to discourage scientific research on
the
effectiveness and effects of the pedagogical theories and practices that
they promote in coursework for aspiring or practicing teachers and
administrators. The contrast in point of view between two articles in
Educational Researcher in 1990, at the time of heightened debate on 'whole
language' versus phonics approaches to beginning reading instruction,
illuminates their anti-scientific attitude toward empirical research. The
three authors of the first article, 'Whole Language: A Research Agenda for
the Nineties,' make the reasonable suggestion that, to resolve the debate,
researchers should design research comparing groups of students taught
each
way and find out which group does better. The author of the second
article,
'Whose Agenda Is This Anyway? A Response to McKenna, Robinson, and
Miller,' accuses these three authors of 'paradigm blindness' for proposing
an empirical approach to resolve the debate.
"Because they have been unwilling to evaluate empirically the effects of
the theories and practices that they promote before dismissing disliked
theories and practices that are sup****ted by large bodies of empirical
evidence, education schools have ended up mistraining several generations
of educators in their preparation, master’s degree, and professional
development programs."
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James Schrumpf http://www.hilltopper.net
Let there be no doubt tonight -- no doubt!
That they shouldn't have played the Old Gold and Blue.
Not tonight!
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