Standards for Teachers
by Carleton KendrickUnder-educated, unqualified candidates are lining up to teach your children. Between 30 to 60 percent of our country's new teachers are failing basic skills tests required by 44 states. Why do we continue to entrust the crucial task of educating to sub-par teachers? What created this educational crisis?
Dumbing down
State teacher colleges, which produce most public school teachers, don't expect much from their college students or high school students. A 1997 nationwide survey of teacher education schools revealed their professors' disdain for teaching essential skills. Only 55 percent would require a high school student to be proficient in grammar, spelling, and punctuation. 67 percent believed students did not need to know the names and locations of the 50 states. With educational standards like these, is it any wonder these teacher-training factories graduate so many unqualified candidates?
When we allow teacher colleges to set such low admission standards, the brightest candidates will always go elsewhere. Traditionally, teacher college entrants' SAT scores are considerably lower than other incoming freshman. Some teacher education programs in Massachusetts accept students with a combined SAT score of 642 out of 1800. What caliber of student do you attract when the bar is set so low?
Why teach?
Why would any accomplished college graduate go into teaching? We continue to demand more from our teachers while holding the profession in low esteem. Virtually any profession offers higher salaries. Working conditions for many teachers resemble battlegrounds where educators use their own money to purchase necessary books and supplies. Facing staggering college debts and the lure of high-paying private sector jobs, top-ranked graduates who had wanted to teach are turning away from the profession. Can you blame them?
Talkin' 'bout a revolution
Getting talented, inspiring teachers for our children will take more than teachers' passing basic skills tests and the reform of teacher college curricula. Nothing short of a teacher training revolution will address this crisis and attract the brightest and most committed to teaching.
Japan's teacher training and its treatment of teachers offer the most successful model for change. Japanese student teachers must pass extraordinarily competitive tests and are required to take year-long residencies in schools before they are allowed to teach. This rigorous training results in only 1 in 6 candidates achieving teacher certification.
Japan honors the art of teaching by paying their starting teachers higher salaries than ours, training them more intensely, and providing them with better working conditions. Due to burgeoning enrollment, retirement, and turnovers, the United States will have to replace 2 million of its 2.7 million teachers during the next eight years. It's time for the revolution to begin!
As our online family therapist, Carleton Kendrick has gained the trust of parents who read his thoughtful answers each week in our Ask an Expert feature.
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