How much is Delaware’s contract with Relay? McDonald’s University indeed!
Relay “Graduate School of Education” is not a real graduate school of any kind. It has been accredited in a few states to award “master’s degrees” even though it has no one on its faculty with a doctorate, engages in no research, has no library, and has no relationship to the advancement of knowledge in education. It was created by charter operators to teach future charter teachers how to control classes and how to raise test scores. Its “faculty” consists of charter teachers, mostly from Teach for America, some of whom claim that they raised test scores more than anyone else in their city. Its deans do not have doctorates in any field of study, although a few say they are working towards earning a doctorate. I admit my own bias; I earned my Ph.D. at Teachers College, where my mentor was Lawrence A. Cremin, the greatest historian of his…
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The Season Of Myths 
I just commented this on the original article but thought it was worth noting here…
I don’t see a problem with higher leadership not having PhDs or EdDs considering the school does not offer doctoral programs. Even if they did offer doctoral programs, many “traditional” institutions of higher education are leaning toward having deans that have more “real world” experience than academic. So many college students graduate without any practical knowledge and career skills. I don’t see a problem in having this as one of many options for people who want a master’s degree. I wouldn’t want to see traditional programs go away but this can be a good complement.
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I respect your opinion, however the history and controversy surrounding Relay throws up a huge red flag for me. If we want our college students graduating with a proper education, I would also want our school leaders to have an appropriate education, and Relay isn’t it!
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I admittedly don’t know much about the program itself or the history/controversy, just wanted to make a point about the comments in the original article re: terminal degrees. I found the original article a bit narrow minded, not that the argument can’t be made that the Relay program is bad (again, don’t know much about it) but I found the original post to be a little bit too “Back in my day things were better.” Feel free to throw some links my way that go more into the Relay specifics!
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https://exceptionaldelaware.wordpress.com/2014/11/19/delaware-race-to-the-top-hedge-funds-millions-wasted-the-story-of-rodel-markell-charters-the-vision-network-kilroysdelaware-ed_in_de-dwablog-apl_jax-nannyfat-ecpaige-delawarebat/
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