This is compliments of one of my FB Friends.
WP AZ Allows Teachers with No Teaching Background
WP AZ Allows Teachers with No Teaching Background
"New legislation signed into law in Arizona by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey (R) will allow teachers to be hired with no formal teaching training, as long as they have five years of experience in fields “relevant” to the subject they are teaching. What’s “relevant” isn’t clear.
The Arizona law is part of a disturbing trend nationwide to allow teachers without certification or even any teacher preparation to be hired and put immediately to work in the classroom in large part to help close persistent teacher shortages. It plays into a misconception that anyone can teach if they know a particular subject and that it is not really necessary to first learn about curriculum, classroom management and instruction."US News AZ Teacher Certification
"Senate Bill 1042 would allow individuals with expertise in certain areas to obtain a "Subject Matter Expert Standard Teaching Certificate" to become eligible to teach in schools and bypass the state's regular requirements to obtain basic or standard teaching certificates.
The bill would require candidates to have taught relevant courses for the last two consecutive years and for at least three years at an accredited college-level institution. They would also need to have an academic degree in their subject area or demonstrate expertise through at least five years of work experience in a relevant field."
Of course I support this as long as the Principal has the authority to interview, hire, observe and quickly fire poor performers. Just as I wish they could do with every teacher in America. (ie private business model) The kids deserve only the best most capable teachers in their classrooms, no matter their education, experience, seniority, etc.
And if the Principal is incapable of staffing their school well and keeping their teachers satisfied / engaged, then maybe we need to start firing poor performing Principals.
13 comments:
Teaching is a very difficult job.
I wouldn't send my kids to a school with unlicensed teachers.
I think most people agree with you that teaching is a very challenging job, especially in this time when many people are overwhelmed, ineffectual and/or irresponsible Parents.
These people seem to do a terrible job of ensuring their children have the pre-requisite skills, knowledge, brain development, behaviors and beliefs in place before they come to kindergarten. Then they think that the school/ teachers are magically going to make up for all their years of parental failures.
And worse yet they will try to blame the teachers as they strive to fix the screwed up kid, instead of assisting and disciplining the child appropriately.
So I do agree whole heartedly that Teachers in the Elementary grade ranges do need to have a lot of education regarding "child development and psychology". I know that this is especially critical in the early education ranges as pre-K teachers work to help young Parents identify different special needs as early as possible so the parents can start working with the correct professionals while to child's mind is still forming.
The question is do all of the Teachers need those skills / knowledge? Or maybe some nurturing people with a psychology background may do this even better?
And as for Teaching specific subjects in middle and high school... Maybe a math, science, psychology, history, etc major may do this better. From what I understand, the Teacher licensing in most States is highly restrictive to ensure only people with Teaching degrees can get into the classrooms. This of course supports the unions goal of controlling supply and driving up wages/ benefits.
Which on the other side drives up costs for tax payers and limits the excellent candidates that Principals can choose from.
That said I am still happy to take away some of the power from the Teacher Licensing Boards and Education Union to give it to the school administrators.
Those administrators sure know what staff the students of the school need more than some bureaucrat at the state level. And if people are serious about helping the minorities escape poverty and to have more of them in the classroom, this step is likely critical.
Do you think that anyone who knows math can walk in and teach well at a middle school? Teaching at that age is very difficult as well. Same for high school. What will happen with unlicensed teachers is quality of schools will go down as will teachers salaries.
Laurie,
Designing equipment is also very challenging and yet most of it is done by unlicensed engineers. I went through the trouble to get and keep my Professional Engineers license, however I have never needed it to do my job.
In the private sector we rely on Supervisors to select the correct person for the job. Where as you would prefer to rely on some bureaucrat in St Paul to decide who is qualified to be in the classroom with our kids...
And remember the other thing they can do... When an employee does not work out or starts to perform poorly... They can terminate their employment, within the rule of law.
Where as eliminating a tenured Teacher is much more difficult.
Once kids are taught to read, have good study habits and self-discipline (say by 6th grade), what they need is somebody that knows the subject they are teaching. I'll agree that teachers in say, K-3 or even K-6, need to be taught those special skills of getting kids to that point. Unfortunately, the record of our current licensing system doesn't suggest we know how to teach those subjects to future teachers. Our current staff of teachers can't even get kids to read at grade level.
You are kind of funny here... From what I understand middle school (6 - 9th grade) are the most challenging ages to teach. All those little bodies and minds being flooded with hormones... All those little clique power struggles and the resulting emotional strain...
Considering that we start moving kids from class to class in middle school, so they encounter many teachers per day rather than one that might get to know and understand them, either it isn't the problem we are told it is or our current system is flawed in that regard.
Or they want to have teacher's who are specialized in the subjects they teach so the students learn the most. And they want the students to adjust to changing classrooms in preparation for high school. Thus the importance in having great Teachers who are trained in child development.
Those are ostensibly the good reasons why the SCHOOL would want only qualified teachers in each classroom. But the reason the UNION would want only union drones, schooled in the "art," has nothing to do with those things.
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