2: Ed Schools and the Problem of Knowledge

In 1997, the University of Chicago closed its education department. The news was greeted with dismay by faculty in other education departments throughout the country, largely because the University of Chicago's education department has played such a visible and important role in our history. But it is not clear whether anyone else noticed, or at least cared. These other responses, of people outside of education departments, are more important, for they indicate the extent to which education is considered to be a legitimate field of study in higher education.

A central issue in arguments about whether education programs should exist is whether they provide warranted and useful knowledge. Like most programs in higher education, education programs are maintained under the premise that they provide a body of knowledge that is (a) empirically justifiable, and (b) valued by someone— in this case, it should be valued by education practitioners. Consistent with this premise, education faculty members are encouraged to conduct research, findings from research are codified into textbooks, and courses for a wide range of education practitioners are organized and offered to students—indeed, required of students. All of this occurs under the assumption that there is a justified knowledge base that can be articulated and transmitted to students and, further, that this knowledge base can contribute to their future practice.