The education column in the October 2, 2008 Washington Post is worth your attention. It raises some interesting questions about credentials and degrees held by local area school superintendents.

Having myself taught courses in law and education at Boston University and sat in on doctoral committees at GW’s School of Education and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I know that it is not sound to say that “a rose is a rose is a rose.” Doctorates in education are as useful and lame as the schools and the students that offer them and take them. Like so many other things in life, you get out of them what you put into them.

About a year ago, the Council of Graduate Schools asked me to address their annual gathering in Seattle, and I gave a talk in which I raise the question of whether or not degrees — not only doctorates in education but academic doctorates as well — were crafted to prepare people for the jobs they were actually going to perform after they left school.

Recently, I met a man who had done a Ph.D. in biology at Boston University when I was the dean of arts and sciences (nearly 35 years ago). After we talked about old professor so and so, I asked him what he was up to. He told me he was at a local liberal-arts college where he taught biology. He’d been there ever since he left Boston, had a wonderful life, loved his career, he said, referring to himself as the campus Mr. Chips,

After finishing his dissertation he never published a thing or did much research but apparently kept up with continuing education in his discipline. He’d gotten tenure on the basis of his teaching, colleagueship, and his service. I asked him how long it had taken to get his doctorate. Not surprisingly, he said about seven years. I wondered, under the circumstances, whether he wound have been better served with a doctor of arts degree, something that could have been earned in about 4 years and prepared him for the position he devoted himself to pursuing.

I think we need to take another look at the way we make ready teaching faculty, and also at the doctorate of arts degree that rose and fell a few years ago, all too quickly, in my view. It was a promising idea that needs further consideration now as at least one way we can become more resource attentive in the challenging days that I anticipate lie ahead for all institutions of higher education.

Are there any doctor of arts people out there who can talk about the quality of their experience?