A Non-Math Example

Just to clarify what I'm talking about, I found an example from outside the realm of math and science. This should allow me to further illustrate and expand my point without any confusion.

The following are the requirements for a social studies education major at a well-known and well-respected private school (which falls into the Top National University category in the USN&WR rankings). By the way, if anyone recognizes the school, I am in no way trying to pick on this particular institution; the social studies education major is pretty much the same across the country.

Subject matter:
GEOG 101 – Global Environment: Understanding Physical Geography
ECON 101 – Economic Principles and Problems
PSYC 101 – General Psychology
SOC 101 – Introduction to Sociology OR ANTH 101 – Introduction to Anthropology
POL 101 – American Government and Politics
GEOG 130 – Introduction to Human Geography
POL 150 – Comparative Government and Politics
HIST 201, 202 – World Civilization OR HIST 211, 212 – United States History
HIST 364 – History of [State]
One sophomore-level geography course
One sophomore-level economics course
One junior-level psychology course
One junior-level history course

Education:
Educ 276 – Exploration of Teaching
Educ 286 - Instructional Technology in Teaching
Educ 350 - Adolescent Development in an Education Context
Educ 352 - Exceptional Education
Educ 353 - Multicultural Education
Educ 377 - Teaching Methods and Instruction
Educ 378 - Practicum in Secondary Education
Educ 379 - Classroom Management
Educ 476 - Internship

What exactly is a graduate of this program qualified to teach? This "major" consists of courses in a bunch of different fields, many of them 101 survey-type courses with no more than 3 courses in any single field, with the exception of history which boasts 4. But of course, history is the field with the most appalling gap of all, since it doesn't even include introductions to both U.S. History and World History, subjects that all social studies teachers end up teaching at some point! So we are told that someone is qualified to teach a subject when they've never taken even a college survey course in it.

This major is clearly in need of toughening up. It matters not if this major is populated by or avoided by "upper middle class white kids" or "Asian kids." If this major is toughened up and students who would complete it in its current state are scared away after it becomes "too tough," then them's the breaks and that can't be helped. We can not allow candidate supply & demand considerations to affect curriculum decisions.

It has been my experience in discussing this with a wide range of people that this major's deficiencies are immediately obvious to most people. Unfortunately, the same thing can not be said about the deficiencies in college math education majors. Perhaps that is because most people are more comfortable with the subjects above than they are with mathematics. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I will attempt to make a strong case that the mathematics education major (and by extension, the high school math curriculum) is as deficient as the major described above, even if this is less obvious at first glance.