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Comment by gatlin | Hacker News Reader

Yes, they should. However, I think they should hire doctors of education in the same way they're hiring engineers: the engineers are creating the technical infrastructure to deliver lessons, and the educators should be creating the pedagogical standards and informing the engineers about what kinds of tools to create.

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A doctorate in education is of dubious worth. As an academic field education research doesn't yet have the tools of structures to answer interesting questions. In place of rigorous theories there is currently a swamp of poorly verified or unverifiable notions.

Hire teachers, hire experts, hire anyone who either has deep knowledge or experience transferring knowledge. Hopefully both. A doctorate in education, alone, provides neither.

(this comment brought to you by small sample size interactions with real-life Ed.D. dunces)

I was speaking about people like Dr Stroup or Dr Petrosino (I've had a class with the latter and read papers by the former) who are experts and have written compelling papers. However, you're right, my wording was bad. Anyone with a proven track record or some accomplishment in teaching should be considered. Both of these people have PhDs, I'm pretty sure, not EdDs.

The most exciting thing about being involved with software development is that it is a practical discipline that has both scientific testing (A/B, unit tests), and fast evolution that is discovering successful organisational structures and working processes.

Education seems to test the wrong things (knowledge, ability at tests, not practical nor personal skills), and changes at glacial speeds (conservative, and aiming for politically motivated outcomes).

I highly doubt they're proceeding in the dark. While they may not have teachers on staff, I'm sure they're consulting with the brightest minds at the best universities to develop optimal delivery.

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