The Democrats' Plan for Teacher Certification

January 02, 2006

In our continuing series on how there's no war on public education, today we tackle Teacher Certification. (In future articles we'll address Mediocrity, Opposition to Competition, Opposition to Home Schooling, Lack of Discipline and Safety, Zero Tolerance Run Amok, and Lack of Accountability.)

We've written before on teacher certification and how we feel that the current model is an unnecessary barrier to entry into the profession. It turns out that we're not the only folks who feel this way. The Democratic Leadership Council has a position paper which perfectly nails the problem and has the best solution.

The current approach to training and licensing teachers deters and disqualifies many people interested in teaching, yet still does not adequately guarantee the quality of teachers who are licensed. The problem is that our current approach creates "paper barriers" instead of connecting would-be teachers with opportunities to get the skills they need to begin teaching and helping them develop a professional career path.

Emphasis ours. Teacher training and certification would be valuable if it guaranteed a certain level of quality, but it does no such thing. Worse than merely "not guaranteeing quality" it serves as an artificial barrier to those dedicated, competent professionals who want to enter the teaching field, but who majored in a real subject in college other than "Education."

To attract more talented and qualified people to the teaching profession, policymakers are experimenting with an array of innovations. One approach is to eliminate the barriers that often deter talented students and professionals from pursuing teaching jobs.

Eliminating barriers is extremely important. We're not suggesting that bums off the street be hired to teach, but the other extreme is almost as bad: only permitting teachers who've endured two years of brain-dwarfing coursework from the School of Education.

In some cases, the barriers are so ridiculous so as to be farcical. For example, there's the story of the high school music teacher in Arizona who may lose his job if he doesn't take a certain college course as mandated by the state. No matter that he's been teaching for three decades, and has taught the mandated course for nine years as a full professor. See, the educrats in Arizona never thought of that, but when faced with the folly of their requirements, merely bleat. Jan Amator, deputy associate superintendent of education for highly qualified professionals, is quoted as saying, "These are rules we have to follow."

People like Ms. Amator are the ones who craft these inane "zero tolerance policies" whereby kids who take multi-vitamins are suspended on drug violations, and 3rd graders who carry a GI Joe doll with a half-inch plastic gun are suspended on weapons violations.

Let's show Ms Amator and her ilk the door, and open it for people who want to teach, (preferably those without a "degree" in Education).

Instead of mandating that teaching applicants have a degree in education, this approach requires potential teachers to have: 1) a bachelor of arts or sciences degree from an accredited university; 2) a passing grade on a competency test in the subject they seek to teach; and 3) a clean criminal record. The premise of this approach is to allow any applicant who meets these criteria to be considered for the job, whether or not they are prepared to start teaching.

Again, there's no guarantee of teaching quality, just some measure of professional competence and subject matter knowledge. Currently, there are people who are certified to teach, but which have little to no subject matter knowledge! But they've got that diploma from the School of Education, and a certificate from the state, so the door's been open to them.

Instead of focusing on barriers to teaching, policymakers should emphasize induction and training activities for the teachers. While research finds that traditional education courses do not impact student achievement, emphasizing quality, ongoing professional development shows much more promise. Meaningful recruitment and induction programs can include mentoring projects with fellow teachers, additional coursework, and professional collaboration.

Emphasis ours. What is wrong with our profession if we require students to take coursework which is completely unnecessary, and in fact has no impact on student achievement? What's needed is an open door for teacher candidates, then on-the-job mentoring and professional development. Principals and school staffs can handle the details.

Policymakers can also fuel excellence by allowing schools of education, community colleges, nonprofit organizations, and other providers to compete for these new, expanded opportunities to train teachers.

Free market, anyone?