Tom Ultican: “La Ciencia del Aprendizaje” es Otro Engaño

During 2022, DFI took in over $3.5 million in revenue. More than $2 million of that money came from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Other notable donors were the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Walton Family Foundation and the Helmsley Charitable Trust.

DFI’s stated mission is:

“Deans for Impact works to ensure that every student is taught by a well-prepared teacher. We do this by leveraging the knowledge, skills, and best practices of leaders in educator preparation and driving collective action to improve the way future educators are prepared.”

DFI’s primary activity has been creating a framework for teacher education and lobbying schools of education to adopt it. They call their framework the Essential Practice 5 (EP5) and claim it is based on research about how teachers learn best.

Their framework is teacher-centered and prescriptive. It is the kind of authoritarian top down approach that is antithetical to good pedagogy. 

The DFI framework is reminiscent of the failed approach by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) to measure teacher education. It is based on the erroneous belief that education is a discipline like science or math, and that there are best practices that can be taught to teachers in a methodical way.

Real education is an art and a craft. It is not a science. The DFI framework is not based on valid research about how teachers learn best. It is a top-down approach to teacher education that is doomed to fail.

We need to reject the false promises of the “science of learning” and the billionaires who are pushing it. We need to support authentic teaching and learning, based on the wisdom of experienced educators, not on the whims of wealthy elites.

Tom Ultican has been a teacher, administrator and education writer for over 30 years. He is a strong advocate for public education and is dedicated to exposing the scams and frauds that threaten our schools.