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 Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public ...

, history, and others, all applied to the topic of elementary,

secondary Secondary may refer to: Science and nature * Secondary emission, of particles ** Secondary electrons, electrons generated as ionization products * The secondary winding, or the electrical or electronic circuit connected to the secondary winding i ...

, and post-secondary education. The U.S. has 1,206 schools, colleges and departments of education and they exist in 78 per cent of all universities and colleges. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 176,572 individuals were conferred master's degrees in education by degree-granting institutions in the United States in 2006–2007. The number of master's degrees conferred has grown immensely since the 1990s and accounts for one of the discipline areas that awards the highest number of master's degrees in the United States.

History and areas of interest

Schools of education are historically rooted in the 19th-century

normal school A normal school or normal college is an institution created to train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high school level, turni ...

s. After the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policie ...

, universities began to include instruction in pedagogy, competing with normal schools in the preparation of teachers. Teachers College, Columbia University is the oldest graduate school of education in the United States, founded in 1887. Pedagogy and psychology, which previously were considered to be subsets of philosophy, gained status of legitimate collegiate academic disciplines thanks to William James and

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the fi ...

. By 1900, most universities had some formal instruction in pedagogy. For a long time teacher education, curriculum, and instruction remained the core offering of schools of education. By the 1930s, schools of education started training educational administrators such as principals and superintendents, and specialists such as guidance counselors for elementary and secondary schools. Many graduates of schools of education become involved in education policy. As such, issues such as equity, teacher quality, and education assessment have become focuses of many schools of education. The issue of equitable access to education, specifically focusing on

low-income Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse

, minority, and

immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...

communities, is central to many areas of research within the education field.

Types of programs

Typically, a school of education offers research-based programs leading to Master of Arts (MA), Master of Education (MEd), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Doctor of Education (EdD) or Educational Specialist (EdS) degrees, as well as professional teacher-education programs leading to Master of Arts (MA), Master of Education (MEd), or Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) 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 A school counselor is a professional who works in primary (elementary and middle) schools or secondary schools to provide academic, career, college access/affordability/admission, and social-emotional competencies to all students through a school ...

and counseling psychology.

Criticism

Low academic standards

Schools of education have been blamed for low academic standards. Critics argue that earning an advanced degree in education, specifically a master level degree, doesn't seem to actually make someone a better teacher. George Pólya quoted a typical pre-service secondary school mathematics teacher, "The mathematics department offers us tough steak which we cannot chew and the school of education eeds usvapid soup with no meat in it". Polya suggested that a college instructor who offered a methods course to mathematics teachers knew mathematics at least on the level of a master's degree and had some experience of mathematical research. Katherine Merseth, director of the teacher education program at Harvard University, described her opinion that graduate schools of education as the "cash cows of universities".

Emphasis on administration

Abraham Flexner Abraham Flexner (November 13, 1866 – September 21, 1959) was an American educator, best known for his role in the 20th century reform of medical and higher education in the United States and Canada. After founding and directing a college-prepa ...

called courses like "the supervision of the teaching staff", "duties of school officers", "awareness of situations and planning of behavior", "reflective thought as a basis for teaching method" to be "absurdities and trivialities". He admonished the attention "devoted to tests, measurements, organization, administration—including administration of the teaching staff and how to organize for planning the curriculum". Lyell Asher blames the surge of residential life "curricula" on the selfish motives of the ed schools' administrators to present themselves not as resident advisers but as residence-hall "educators". He supports the argument of E. D. Hirsch that professors of education, "surrounded in the universities by prestigious colleagues whose strong suit is thought to be knowledge, have translated resentment against this elite cadre into resentment against the knowledge from which it draws its prestige". Mr. Hirsch warns that it is "never a healthy circumstance when people who are held in low esteem exercise dominant influence in an important sphere. The conjunction of power with resentment is deadly".

Notable schools of education in the US

The annual rankings of '' U.S. News & World Report'' placed the following schools of education in the top 20 of all graduate education institutions in the United States for 2022.https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-education-schools/edu-rankings They follow here, with identical numbers indicating ties: # Harvard University #

University of Pennsylvania #

University of California—Los Angeles #

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

Vanderbilt University #

New York University

Stanford University

Northwestern University

Teachers College, Columbia University

University of Michigan-Ann Arbor , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the U ...

University of Southern California

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle ...

University of Oregon

University of California-Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 und ...

University of Texas—Austin

Johns Hopkins University

University of Kansas

University of California—Berkeley

University of Virginia

Notable scholars within schools of education

David Berliner David C. Berliner is an educational psychologist. He was professor and dean of the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education. Biography After a B.A. in psychology from U.C.L.A. and an M.A. in psychology from California State Uni ...

Benjamin Bloom Benjamin Samuel Bloom (February 21, 1913 – September 13, 1999) was an American educational psychologist who made contributions to the classification of educational objectives and to the theory of mastery learning. He is particularly note ...

Jerome Bruner Jerome Seymour Bruner (October 1, 1915 – June 5, 2016) was an American psychologist who made significant contributions to human cognitive psychology and cognitive learning theory in educational psychology. Bruner was a senior research fellow a ...

* George Counts *

Linda Darling-Hammond Linda Darling-Hammond (December 21, 1951) is an American academic who is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. She was also the President and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute. She ...

* Paulo Freire *

Nicholas Gage Nicholas Gage (born Nikolaos Gatzoyiannis; el, Νικόλαος Γκατζογιάννης; July 23, 1939) is a Greek-born American author and investigative journalist. Early life Nicholas Gage (original name, Nikos Gatzoyiannis) was born in 19 ...

* Howard Gardner * James Paul Gee * Henry Giroux * Gene V Glass *

Stephen Krashen Stephen D. Krashen (born May 14, 1941) is an American linguist, educational researcher and activist, who is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Southern California. He moved from the linguistics department to the faculty of the Sc ...

Gloria Ladson-Billings Gloria Jean Ladson-Billings (born 1947) is an American pedagogical theorist and teacher educator known for her work in the fields of culturally relevant pedagogy and critical race theory, and the pernicious effects of systemic racism and economic ...

* Peter McLaren *

Deborah Meier Deborah Meier (born April 6, 1931) is an American educator often considered the founder of the modern small schools movement. After spending several years as a kindergarten teacher in Chicago, Philadelphia and then New York City, in 1974, Meier be ...

Nel Noddings Nel Noddings (; January 19, 1929 – August 25, 2022) was an American feminist, educator, and philosopher best known for her work in philosophy of education, educational theory, and ethics of care. Biography Noddings received a bachelor's degr ...

Diane Ravitch Diane Silvers Ravitch (born July 1, 1938) is a historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Previously, she was a U.S. A ...

* Lee Shulman

References

External links

* {{Authority control Types of university or college Teachers colleges fr:IUFM no:Lærerhøyskole