Knowledge Ventriloquism
Ken Zeichner takes us inside the teacher prep war echo chamber
EduShyster: You introduced me to one of my favorite new concepts—*knowledge ventriloquism.* The release of the National Council on Teacher Quality *review* of the nation’s teacher prep programs seems like an appropriate time to share this concept with the world. So what is *knowledge ventriloquism*? Break it down for us.Ken Zeichner: It’s a particularly useful concept these days. Basically what you have is an echo chamber effect where think tanks and other advocacy groups just keep repeating each other’s claims until they become true. There’s a research component too, except that the research isn’t independent. In fact, you can usually predict what the findings are going to be be based on who is doing the research. Cherry picking is another essential component of *knowledge ventriloquism.* Advocates of a particular position or program will selectively choose certain findings and ignore others. The problem is that by the time any of this reaches the mainstream media and the headlines, any nuance or complexity is lost.
EduShyster: Let’s take, for example, the case of the Relay Graduate School of Education, which you just wrote about here. Now I happen to know that Relay leads the pack when it comes to raising test scores, because Arne Duncan gave them a shout out in a press release. In other words, case closed, right?