Q: Is the White House push for alternative teacher certification good for students? No: Don't lower teacher-quality standards. Instead, raise them!

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 24, 2003 | by Reg Weaver

Byline: Reg Weaver, SPECIAL TO INSIGHT

The idea that we can raise standards for student achievement while lowering standards for entry into the teaching profession is absurd. And yet, this is the very policy the Bush administration has chosen to pursue. It is investing millions of federal dollars in programs that make it easier and quicker for a person to become a certified teacher.

These programs such as the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence's "Passport to Teaching Certification" greatly reduce the amount of time a candidate must spend studying how to teach (pedagogy) and totally eliminate the requirement that a would-be teacher first must practice teaching in a real classroom, under the watchful eye of an experienced teacher, before teaching solo.

Everyone agrees that a teacher candidate must possess a deep understanding of the subject matter he or she is going to teach. You can't teach what you don't know. And many would agree that there must be alternate routes to teacher certification for people who already have bachelor's degrees, want to change careers and want to go into teaching. The state of New Jersey, for example, has provided such an alternate route since the mid-1980s without lowering teacher-quality standards, and it has produced many quality teachers.

Serious disagreement arises, however, over how much knowledge a teacher candidate must have about how to teach. As a veteran teacher, it is my judgment that it takes a lot more than a bachelor's degree, a winning personality and good intentions to become a quality teacher. Teaching is a profession, not missionary work. It requires practice and the mastery of a special body of knowledge about how children learn and develop.

What's more, as an African-American male teacher, I encourage more African-American and Hispanic men to come into the teaching profession and serve as role models for our children. And as much as I desire that, I never would advocate lowering teacher-quality standards to achieve my objective. That would be self-defeating.

No two students are alike; a quality teacher not only must know his or her subject, but also how to reach and inspire learners. In the classroom, one size definitely does not fit all. Quality teachers know how to adapt their instructions to meet the different needs of their students. I know that it took a few years in the classroom for me to learn the most important lesson of my professional life: If my students can't learn the way I teach, then I must teach the way they learn. Today's children will challenge you, no question about it. But all children can be taught if you know how. All children can learn. All children can achieve.

Studies consistently show that experienced teachers are more effective at tailoring their teaching for students with diverse learning needs. And, according to a recent survey by the American Association of School Administrators, 70 percent of high-school principals report that teachers with more experience are more knowledgeable about curriculum, assessment and instruction.

Today, teacher quality in schools that serve poor and minority children is not being undermined by "burdensome education requirements" that discourage bright people from going into teaching, as some insist. Rather, as the latest report from the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future states: "The real school staffing problem is teacher retention."

High teacher turnover is what is undermining teacher quality and student achievement in our urban and rural schools. One-third of new teachers leave the profession within three years and almost one-half leave within five years; the turnover rate is even higher in urban and rural schools. The fact is that too many students are being taught by underqualified and inexperienced teachers.

Research tells us that teachers who exit the profession in the first few years of teaching are far more likely never to have done practice teaching and never to have received adequate training in child psychology and development or in different instructional techniques and classroom management. In other words, these new teachers were ill-prepared for the classroom. This shouldn't come as a surprise to us. A soldier who is

ill-prepared for combat is more likely to get shot, and a lawyer who is ill-prepared to practice law is more likely to lose in court. Preparation matters.

Conversely, there is no research evidence that supports the claim that quality teacher preparation, rigorous program accreditation or strong certification or licensure standards are barriers to providing the nation's schools with a sufficient quantity of highly qualified teachers.

It is instructive to note the track record of a program such as Teach for America. In this program idealistic college graduates receive a summer crash course in how to teach and, come fall, they are given a classroom and students to teach, usually in an inner-city school. Teach for America's teacher turnover rate is 75 percent in the course of a five-year period even higher than the national average.