Highly Qualified Teachers Need Not Apply -- Bush is trying to weaken teacher credentialing

The New Jersey Teachers Union ^ | President of the NJ Teachers Union

[summer]

February 22, 2004

Highly Qualified teachers need not apply --The Bush Administration is trying to weaken teacher credentialing.

Anyone familiar with Three-Card Monte knows it’s a game you can’t win. Keeping your eye on the money card is impossible, making the game a perfect street-corner hustle.

It’s also a perfect analogy for the Bush administration’s policy on teacher quality.

In a classic case of “watch what we say, not what we do,” the administration is setting high standards for public school teachers. Then, while our attention is diverted, it is covertly working to weaken the “alternate route” entry path for teachers, in order to soften the landscape for vouchers.

Under the administration’s so-called “No Child Left Behind” act, all public school teachers of core academic subjects (English, math, science, foreign languages, history, geography, civics and government, economics, and arts) must be “highly qualified” by September 2005.

“Highly qualified” means holding at least a bachelor’s degree, and obtaining full state certification or passing a state teacher licensing exam. The bar is unusually high for beginning special education teachers and middle school/high school teachers who teach multiple subjects. They must either pass a rigorous state test in each subject they teach or successfully complete coursework or credentialing in each subject area. Veterans must either do the same or demonstrate their competence in all subjects they teach in a state evaluation.

Ironically, under the newly enacted District of Columbia voucher law – a major priority of the Bush administration and its allies in Congress – teachers in private and religious schools receiving taxpayer-funded vouchers don’t even need to possess a college degree.

Whatever happened to “highly qualified” teachers?

This is a common theme with “No Child Left Behind.” The rhetoric sounds great, but there’s a rather profound lack of sincerity behind it. (There’s also a rather profound lack of funding to implement the law – $9 billion less than authorized this year alone. Small wonder more and more state legislatures are telling the administration to keep its inadequate money, rather than try to comply using already-strapped state revenues.)

But why the double standard on teacher quality? It’s really obvious, once you connect the dots. The Bush administration openly supports vouchers. It tried to get enabling language for a national voucher program into “No Child Left Behind,” but it was deleted in committee.

Undeterred, the administration is doing everything possible to pave the way for an eventual national voucher program. While demanding that public school teachers exhibit the highest quality credentials, it has now pumped $42 million into the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence, one of several pro-voucher organizations receiving millions of our tax dollars to further the Bush agenda for privatizing public education.

ABCTE is developing a fast-tracked route for alternative teacher certification (no “highly qualified” caveats here), consisting of – you guessed it – a standardized test. Those lower qualifications will cost a lot less – meaning more profits for private voucher schools.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige lashed out at critics of the administration’s education agenda, saying they had “a different ideology.”

We certainly do. Giving students vouchers to attend private schools – where the qualifications for teachers will apparently be little more than their ability to fog up a mirror – is about as far away from the promise of a “highly qualified” teaching profession as you can get.

Keep your eye on the money card, if you can.

[summer]

Because going where the need is greatest could kill their careers.

Yes, and another reason why their careers can be killed in those schools is because of baseless litigation against the teacher. FL is the only state that has a state law protecting all teachers, union or not, with liability insurance for free, in case the teacher is sued while doing his or her job correctly. Gov Bush was smart to protect all teachers here against such litigation, but no other governor has done so as far as I know.

[skip2myloo]

You don't want me to have access to some of my own money for the purpose of educating my children ??

If I don't send my kids to public school, why should I be taxed to send them there ??

If I don't buy gasoline, I don't pay motor fuel tax - at least not directly, at the pump.

[jammer]

I know many people who would be happy to go into teaching - if they didn't have to go back to college and get an ed degree, which is now required in many states.

Exactly. The entire credentialing process creates a cartel (like in law, medicine, etc.) under the guise of public safety or other nebulous concepts.

It arises from the false assumption that the value of any government run or regulated program is proportional to "input", i.e., money spent, rather than "output", in this case educated children. If credentialing maintained minimum standards, that would be fine. But to reward someone with the ability to yawn through Piaget's studies or other nonsense and place him or her over someone who actually works in a field is to prostitute the entire profession.

[M-cubed]

The bar is unusually high for beginning special education teachers "...<<<..SPECIAL ED!!!...Part of the problem!!....It has become a very expensive excuse for dumbing down...Check out your local schools SP. ED. population explosion and expendatures over the years...It will scare you to death!

[No Truce With Kings]

Summer:

I have been extremely cynical about the issue of teacher qualifications ever since 2001-2. I was unemployed. I had spent eight years as a business consultant teaching people to use e-commerce. I had taught classes on computer science at the college level. I had taught e-commerce in five different states to groups ranging from the US military to mom-and-pop tool and die shops. I had been an engineer for 22 years. I had written a textbook. But, because I lacked a teaching certificate, I was "unqualified" for a job teaching computer science at Westwood ISD at the junior high school level.

How did I get qualified? By taking $5000 worth of classes at an education college.

Who *was* qualified to teach the comp sci classes (and got the job)? Two english teachers at that school district who had never used a computer prior to a year earlier. They had the magic piece of "certification" that "qualified" them to teach the course.

How do I know this? Because they hired me to tutor them on how to use the computer. So, I was "unqualified" to teach computer science to school kids while being the preferred method for those "qualified" to do so to learn what they needed to know to "teach" those same school kids.

. . . And education professionals wonder why so many "unqualified" people are turning to home schooling -- and cannot even figure out why home school kids turn out some much better than those taught at public school.

Not knocking you, summer, just those that value credentials over capability.

[Swing_Thought]

If I don't send my kids to public school, why should I be taxed to send them there ??

You shouldn't. Neither should the childless couple paying for you to send your kids to a voucher school.

[Redcoat LI]

"Ironically, under the newly enacted District of Columbia voucher law – a major priority of the Bush administration and its allies in Congress – teachers in private and religious schools receiving taxpayer-funded vouchers don’t even need to possess a college degree.''

Since when is a Degree in Education considered a college degree?

It's not even a recognised field of study,last time I checked.

You can go to your local Cow college and get an ED.D,there is no Phd in "education".

It's vocational training,at best,so stop pretending you're educated.

[Triple Word Score]

But you were free to quit, and you did when you were no longer satisfied with the contract. (I assume you meant "private" in your first sentence, from context.) The free market works as long as people are free to hire, fire, seek work and education, and quit. At this point only private schools offer that freedom.

I think unions and collective bargaining are useful as long as those basic freedoms to hire and fire and quit are maintained. Teachers do not have time to negotiate the minutia of contracts; collective bargaining offers them a voice they would otherwise have only when they first take a job.

Once the right to hire and fire at will is lost, however, the unions corrupt the process and undercut the competitive aspect that makes any free market system work. If a school district is forbidden by the union to hire an uncertified teacher or to fire one who is unfit to actually teach, then the union is doing harm to the process.

No one goes into teaching for the money anyway...the private school teachers I know have been in it for as much as forty years, and the one of them who IS rich inherited his money! You had a bad experience at the one school, but I think the system in general worked because you were free to find another situation. Government can't make a dishonest business honest, but the high cost of turnover of disgruntled employees is a pretty effective market force if it's given a chance to work.

[FITZ]

Is it different for highschool teachers versus elementary? I know in this part of Texas some schools allow an alternative certification for those who already have a bachelor's degree --- mostly for high school teachers I think. The alternative certification still requires you to attend workshops and take certain classes.

[FITZ]

It seems that isn't the case in Texas anymore ---

http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/borderland/20040228-86768.shtml

'Instant teacher' rule passes

AUSTIN -- Teachers no longer will have to go through a traditional education curriculum to teach grades eight through 12 after the State Board of Education on Friday didn't overturn a new rule that could put college graduates in classrooms starting in the fall.

They can become "instant teachers" by passing a state test and a criminal background check if their college degree is related to the subjects they would teach.

[skip2myloo]

If I don't buy gas at the pump, and pay a direct motor fuel tax, it is still included in the cost of goods sold for those who use gas to manufacture, deliver and sell goods to me.

And that is as it should be.

And, public schools benefit all society, and therefore "some" public money should be used to support public schools. After all, that kid who goes there may one day discover a cure for cancer, or a new theory of quantum physics that revolutionizes our lives.

But, people who actually have kids and send them to school, should pay some marginal cost for that kid's education.

And a higher cost, at the margin, for each additional kid they send to school.

In other words, I think the paradigm is wrong that a public education means a "free" education. After all, public universities charge a marginal cost for education, even though they are not wholly self-supporting.

I think that same concept should start at Pre-K.

[AmericanMade1776]

Read the article,and that is the Teachers Union Representing Public Educators, PAID SOLELY WITH TAX DOLLARS whinning about having to meet certain standards of quality.

Private Institutions are not paid with Tax dollars.

[FrankR]

This is just another "accuse the accuser" and "follow the money" situation. It's all about teachers unions and their fear that Bush will try to nullify their influence on education.

In my opinion, Teachers' Unions...or most unions for that matter - foster mediocrity.

Yes, I said mediocrity. I have witnessed the union mentality too often, same pay for everyone, even though the "80/20 rule of probability" kicks in...with 20% doing the actual work, and the other 80% reaping the benefits.

Now, originally unions were useful, back in the days of sweat shops, etc. But, today we have more than enough Federal agencies and laws to protect most workers.

Wondering why most of our manufacturing has moved off shore? Well, unions had a lot to do with it. Insisting a factory pays someone $35 an hour to screw a lugnut on a wheel, when some little guy in China will do the same for $3 a day is why. Of course taxes and overburdening regulations have some effect on it too, but the Unions do their part in soaking employers for all they're worth too.

Any business person knows that "labor" is their biggest expense, but there is something intrinsically wrong when it is cheaper to build a factory in a foreign country, hire the labor, ship in the raw materials, and then ship the product back to America (and still sell it cheaper) rather than making it right here at home.

If there aren't, there should be some panels in place to study and analyze this phenomenon and do something to reverse before Atlas Shrugs, and America collapese financially.

I think teaching should be one of the best paid professions on the planet, but NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF OUR CHILDREN. It was better for the children when the teachers were not paid so well....why, BECAUSE THEY WERE IN IT FOR THE LOVE OF TEACHING...not for tenure, not for prestige...but for the kids.

[Dave S]

School administrators are so eager that their schools should test well that they've scuttled courses that wouldn't show up on the test - mostly art, vocational prep, some foreign languages and sports, some of the tougher science and math courses, etc. - and dumped the teachers for those courses - and turned the whole school into a giant cram course for the Bush tests (several commercial contract tutoring groups have sprung up to take the schools' money in order to direct these cram course programs). The damage done by this scheme will last for decades.

Yeah, some damage, the kids might actually learn something useful. Why worry about Art and other courses if the kids cant read and write at the 5th grade level when they "graduate" from High School.

[sphinx]

But why the double standard on teacher quality? It’s really obvious, once you connect the dots.

The union lady is right about one thing: it is obvious once you connect the dots. Private and parochial schools have to compete for students and have a serious incentive not to hire semi-illiterates and retain incompetents in the classroom. The market works.

Once upon a time, public schools also maintained standards, but somewhere along the way in the last 40 years or so, the lunatics took control of the asylum. They're facing tougher hiring requirements because, in too many places, they've systematically failed to do their jobs on screening personnel, just as they're facing tougher student testing because they've been systematically graduating illiterates.

I'm all for trusting professionals to do their jobs in their own often creative ways as long as there is accountability at the end. Unfortunately, the public schools have largely squandered their credibility on these issues.

[Clara Lou]

I teach middle school. The univerisities have several alternative education programs for people who already have degrees. Even the regions (I'm in region VI) have a very compressed alternative program. I don't believe that alternative programs exist for elementary school certification-- at least I've never heard of any.

[AmericanMade1776]

It is just another effort by a teachers Union to deny, parents and Students the freedom of choice. They want to be the education Nazi's. Sorry....this information for the NJ teacher s union steams me.

[skip2myloo]

"Neither should the childless couple paying for you to send your kids to a voucher school."

BTW, my kids don't go to a voucher school.

I pay all the costs to send my kids to go to public school, and then I pay all the costs again to send them to Private School.

Why, I even buy their lunches for them without government subsidy.

Even though I also pay for school lunches (and breakfasts and suppers) and pre-care, and after-care, and immunizations for kids who go to public school in Washington, D.C., even though they still have the lowest test scores in the nation, even worse than Mississippi and Arkansas.

[RipSawyer]

"Ironically, my BEST teacher grades 1-12 was a wonderful lady Mrs. Manning who never went to college. She started teaching at age 19 and learned it on the job."

I believe that one of our biggest problems these days is that what you know and can do is less important than what kind of papers you can produce.

[summer]

RE your post #65 - Good post, and I appreciate what you said. BTW, there is still a lot of nepotism in school districts. Those teachers hired over you may have been related to the principal in some way unbeknowst to you. I have worked in different fields, and it always amazes me how in education I see more nepotism -- with wives, husbands, friends, relatives, etc. getting jobs over people who are more qualified.