SOLES an emblem of corrupt education

Juan Pablo Garcia / Guest Writer / The USD Vista

Last year, USD inaugurated a new education building. Home to the School of Leadership and Education Sciences (SOLES), the new facility is truly state-of-the-art. Equipped with the latest gadgetry, this palace-like building was without a doubt a massive investment. Such an investment, however, invariably begs the question: was it worth it?

The new and expensive SOLES building is arguably a microcosm of one of the most glaring and ironic contradictions in American education. On one hand, the American educational system has built up a large industry or “complex” around the propagation of educational “research.” On the other, American education finds itself in a state of perpetual crisis.

Despite the explosion of “educational science” as a scholarly discipline, and in spite of the glut of professors with doctorates pushing a litany of recycled pedagogies, our schools remain plagued by chronic underperformance.

The contradiction was recently a question subject posed to President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain during the final presidential debate. The moderator commented, “the U.S. spends more per capita than any other country on education. Yet, by every international measurement…we trail most of the countries of the world.” What gives?

For one, education policy is premised upon an almost total lack of understanding of basic economics. Faced with the problem of under-qualified teachers, policymakers created mandatory teacher preparation programs. Such programs, which are expensive and unnecessarily time-consuming, invariably have the opposite of the desired effect: even less qualified teachers.

Why is this the case? Credentialing programs create what economists call a “barrier to entry.” Law schools and medical schools also create entrance barriers to specific labor markets, but there is a difference. Unlike law or medical school, the current pay and status of the profession does not merit the barrier.

As promising college graduates with enthusiasm for teaching abandon the system because of credentialing bureaucracy, those left are often under-qualified candidates interested only in “buying in” to an unionized labor market.

In California, the most infamous step in the teacher credentialing process is called student teaching. At USD, student teachers are placed in city schools to work. Even though candidates are expected to assume the duties and obligations of paid teachers, student teachers are unpaid. Just like an unpaid internship right? Wrong. In exchange for dumping students into local school districts to serve as unpaid labor, USD then bills its student teachers for 12 graduate units, approximately $14,500. Keep in mind the tuition charges are not in exchange for 12 graduate units of actual instruction by USD faculty. USD simply knows student teaching is required by the state.

Make no mistake, schools likes SOLES are part of the problem, not the solution. When I see the sparkling new education building on campus, I do not see a symbol of educational triumph, but rather an emblem of a corrupt education-industrial-complex. I am reminded of the many student teachers working in city schools, without pay and health insurance, while they pay USD thousands in exchange for no actual instruction or services rendered.