Homework answers / question archive / A Lesson Plan for A+ Teachers- WSJ- WSJ http://online

A Lesson Plan for A+ Teachers- WSJ- WSJ http://online

Sociology

Share With

A Lesson Plan for A+ Teachers- WSJ- WSJ http://online. wsj .corn/articles/a-lesson-plan-for-a-teachers-1414 7674 ... TAKE SURVEY THE \\m STREET JOUI mE WALL STREET JOURNAL. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints .com. http://online. wsj .com/articles/a-lesson-pian-for-a-teachers-1414 767 437 ESSAY A Lesson Plan for A+ Teachers Former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein on how to raise the quality and performance of teachers 'If we are to raise the quality and the performance of teachers across the country, more effort must come from the profession itself,' writes Joel Klein. GETTY IMAGES By JOEL KLEIN Oct. 31, 2014 10:57 a.m. ET Lots of research in the past decade underscores the importance of great teachers. Summarizing these studies, the distinguished Harvard economist Raj Chetty noted that good teachers aren't only "effective at teaching to the test and raising students' performance on tests"; they also have a long-term impact "on outcomes we ultimately care about from education," such as encouraging students to avoid teen pregnancy and putting them on the path to college and middle-class ~arnings_ During my tenure as schools chancellor in New York City from 2002 to 2011, we found that, with proper recruitment, support and incentives, we could increase the numbers of teachers who were both temperamentally and intellectually equipped for the modern classroom. We accomplished this by making our schools exciting places to work, bringing in partners to aggressively recruit talented new teachers and significantly improving our compensation system. 1 of5 1116/2014 5:02PM A Lesson Plan for A+ Teachers - WSJ - WSJ http://online. wsj .comlarticles/a-lesson-plan-for-a-teachers-14147674 ... But if we are to raise the quality and the performance of teachers across the country, ;nore effort must come from the profession itself. This could begin with an honest assessment of the system that educates and certifies those who become teachers. Today, despite some recent improvements, we still are not getting the best students to go into teaching. Nor are young teachers well served by the profession as they enter it. Too often, they are hired to provide instruction in subjects outside their areas of academic expertise. This mismatch surely affects both student achievement and teacher satisfaction. Too many teachers in our big urban school systems are overworked, isolated and bureaucratically oppressed, struggling to educate students who can be exceedingly difficult to reach. As anyone who has stood before a classroom will attest, teaching is a tough job. But if you look carefully, you can find places in the world where teachers as a group enjoy greater success, more job satisfaction and higher social standing than they do in the U.S. In China, Japan, Finland and several other countries, teachers are accorded the same level of respect as doctors. Among Western industrial nations, Finland stands out for the consistently high scores of its students on international achievement tests. Ninety-three percent of Finns graduate from high school, and fully two-thirds of the country's high-school graduates go on to college. These results have attracted a great deal of attention among Americans in part because Finland wasn't always at the top. Forty years ago, its schools ranked near the bottom in Europe. Their success today began with a commitment to reform back then, showing that sound policies can lead to much better academic outcomes. Unlike in America, Finnish teachers are drawn from the top 10% of their college classes. They must earn a minimum of a master's degree before applying for a job, and when they do apply, the competition is stiff. Once they are employed, Finnish teachers go through a yearlong teaching apprenticeship and, if they succeed, are required to devote 2 of5 11/6/2014 5:02PM A Lesson Plan for A+ Teachers- WSJ- WSJ http://online. wsj .com/articles/a-lesson-plan-for-a-teachers-1414 7674 ... two hours a week to professional development throughout their careers. Finnish teachers are permitted to try out almost any innovative method they prefer, so long as they meet certain general curriculum standards. They also collaborate freely to help students with challenges and share what they learn with one another. LUC/ GUTIERREZ The Finnish model suggests that, if we are serious about improving the quality of the people who go into teaching, we must begin by asking more of the education schools that train our teachers. Far too many of these schools function as indiscriminate revenue sources for universities and colleges accepting underqualified students and their tuition dollars for programs that are academically weak. 2 To solve this problem, states could institute rigorous exams-similar to the bar exams for lawyers or licensing tests for doctors-that graduates would have to pass to be cleared for the classroom. In addition to testing pedagogy, these exams would require prospective teachers to demonstrate real subject-matter knowledge, something that is largely ignored today. Once a bar exam for teachers becomes the norm, all sorts of services and associations would arise to support the profession and enforce standards. Like lawyers and physicians, teachers could be required to take ongoing continuing- education courses, and those who sought to specialize in certain areas such as English as a second language might be required to pass additional exams. In time, new designations, with increased compensation, might emerge-master teacher, mentor, team leader and so on-and these too could benefit from certification tests. With such a system of rigorous certification and continuing education, the teaching profession could gain not only greater respect but also more influence over research, teacher-education programs and public policy. Although I'd like to take credit for these ideas, they were promoted almost 30 years ago by the teachers union leader Albert Shanker. Shanker was well known because ofthe teachers' strikes he led in New 3 of5 11/6/2014 5:02PM A Lesson Plan for A+ Teachers- WSJ- WSJ http://online. wsj .com/articles/a-lesson-plan-for-a-teachers-1414 7674 ... York City during the 1960s and '70s (and he became even more famous when Woody Allen described him as the man who had blown up the world in the 1973 comedy "Sleeper"). Later in his career, after he left New York to head the American Federation of Teachers, Shanker became a visionary leader on education reform. In 1985, this once dyed-in-the-wool trade unionist said, "Unless we go beyond collective bargaining to the achievement of true teacher professionalism, we will fail in our major objectives." He called for a "second revolution in American public education" -the first being collective bargaining, which he had pioneered a quarter-century earlier. Shanker urged teachers to embrace his agenda to protect their own economic, social and political status. But he knew this could happen only if the transformation he proposed resulted in a different, and much better prepared, teaching force. Notably, for a union leader, he saw the parallels between the destruction of the U.S. auto industry by overzealous trade-union policies and what could happen to American public schools and their teachers. As Shanker explained in 1993, "I think that we will get-and deserve-the end of public education through some sort of privatization scheme if we don't behave differently." More than 20 years later, these wise words remain largely unheeded. For the sake of students and teachers alike, we need to make teaching a well-respected profession that attracts our best college graduates. We need to pay teachers well and base their overall salary on merit and performance, not length of service. Let's also give them the tools and curriculum support that modern technology can readily provide, helping them to be better at their craft and to use their valuable time more effectively. Most important, perhaps, let every school create a culture of accountabilit~ where every adult strives to do better for every child every day. These are the lessons of hope in American education, and I feel sure that we can realize them. -Mr. Klein}s new book is ((Lessons ofHope: How to Fix Our Schools/' 4 of5 11/6/2014 5:02PM A Lesson Plan for A+ Teachers- WSJ- WSJ http://online. wsj .corn/articles/a-lesson-plan-for-a-teachers-1414 7674 ... from which this essay is adapted. He currently serves as chief executive ofAmplify~ the education division ofNews Corp~ the publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Copyright 2014 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. 5 of5 1116/2014 5:02PM Tear Down This Wall: The Case for a Radical Overhaul of Teacher Certification Author(s): Frederick M. Hess Source: Educational Horizons, Vol. 80, No. 4, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL: THE CASE FOR A RADICAL OVERHAUL OF TEACHER CERTIFICATION (Summer 2002), pp. 169-183 Published by: Phi Delta Kappa International Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42927125 Accessed: 05-01-2019 18:29 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Phi Delta Kappa International is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Educational Horizons This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Tear Down This Wall: The Case for a Radical Overhaul of Teacher Certification By Frederick M. Hess even proponents of the existing system cannot Introduction America needs more teachers. Retirements, define a clear set of concrete skills that make for rising student enrollments, and a drive to reduce a good teacher. Despite the absence of widely class size will create a demand for as many as 2 accepted pedagogical standards, aspiring teachers are forced to run an academic gauntlet of courses, needs are especially pressing in the distressed requirements, and procedures created by accredited training programs that vary dramatischools where teachers least want to teach and in million new teachers over the next decade.1 The cally in quality. subjects such as math and science. But more is not enough: America also needs better teachers. Mounting empirical evidence of proponents of the existing system Even the importance of teacher quality has sparked a dialogue about the quality of the nation's teachcannot define a clear set of concrete skills ing force.2 Perversely, the students who need the very best teachers are those most likely to bethat hurt by the shortfall of quality teachers.3 make for a good teacher. Proposals to address this problem generally This dual quality-quantity challenge demands fall into two camps. Some propose abolishing new thinking in our approach to training and cerschools tifying teachers. While "certification" or "licen- of education or doing away with certification altogether. Others believe that adding new sure" systems - punctuated by an array of excepbarriers to entry or creating advanced "master tions and loopholes - vary from state to state, curteacher" certifications will address the quality rent arrangements are premised on the notion problem and increase the "rigor" of teacher prepathat public educators should be required to earn ration programs. Neither of these approaches will state-issued licenses through approved teacher adequately tackle the problems at hand. education programs. Such programs consist priI propose a third approach to reform: a "commarily of a series of courses on pedagogy and petitive certification" model that breaks the edusubject matter and some practice teaching. The cation school monopoly on the supply of teachtheory is that this licensing process elevates the ers, expands the pool of potential teachers, and profession by requiring aspiring professionals to addresses the issue of quality. The goal is twofold: master well documented and broadly accepted to increase the pool of qualified applicants for knowledge and skills; the reality is very different. teaching jobs and to simultaneously increase In law or medicine the existence of an accepted competition among providers of preparation and canon helps ensure minimal competence and ongoing professional development for teachers. consequently boosts public confidence in memContrary to the claims of some critics, howbers of the profession; educational licensure as ever, the problem is not the existence of schools currently practiced, however, imposes significant of education and teacher preparation programs costs without yielding commensurate benefits. or their particular failings. The real problem lies Currently, there is no canon for educators. There is some agreement on what teachers should know but no consensus on how to train Frederick M. Hess is Assistant Professor of good teachers or ensure that they have Education masteredand Politics at the University of essential skills or knowledge. Debate rages over and a senior fellow at the Progressive Virginia what the best pedagogical strategies are, and Policy Institute. Summer 2002 educational HORIZONS 169 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms in state laws that give these schools and programs a monopoly on training and certifying teachers. Parents and the public rightly expect some sort of screening process for aspiring teachers. A competitive certification process begins by establishing a few key criteria for entry to the teaching profession. It brings new urgency to the need to give schools greater freedom to hire and fire teachers. And by treating teachers like professionals and their schools like professional institutions, it allows them to tailor their professional development to their needs, rather than requiring aspiring teachers to complete a series of courses of little demonstrable value. Under the competitive model, aspiring teachers can apply for a teaching job if they: the current monopolistic model undercuts key incentives for quality and relevance in teacher preparation, the competitive model treats teachers as autonomous professionals able to make informed decisions about professional preparation and development. Dare We Let Janet Teach? To grasp the practical effect of the current system, consider an example. Imagine Janet, a twenty-eight-year-old marketing director who graduated from a liberal arts college with a B.A. in English and a 3 5 grade point average. Janet has been working for a consulting firm in Washington, D.C., since graduating, but is looking for a job that feels more rewarding. Janet has performed well, received strong reviews, is regarded as effective at leading teams and working with clients, and has both an academic appreciation content knowledge that would obviously vary for English and a practical background in comby grade level and academic discipline; and munication. If Janet were to apply through normal channels to teach English at a junior high • pass a criminal background check. school in the D.C. public school system, she The competitive model assumes that addi- would be summarily rejected.4 Why? Because tional preparation and training, particularly on-Janet is not a certified teacher. What does it take to become a certified the-job training, are not only desirable but also essential, as is true in other professions that teacher? The conventional model, through w require contextual knowledge and subtle inter- the vast majority of new teachers enter the personal skills. However, instead of contempo- fession each year, calls for aspiring teacher rary teacher preparation's bureaucratic hurdles, complete an accredited teacher education p such work should welcome diverse approaches gram. Aspiring teachers accumulate a prescr and competition among providers of teacher number of courses and serve as practice teac preparation and professional development. Whilein local schools. • hold a college degree; • pass an examination of essential skills and 170 educational HORIZONS Summer 2002 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The implicit certification assumption is that until Janet has completed the licensure requirements, the children in Washington's junior high schools (and other public schools) must be pro- long-term substitutes.6 These teachers are hired at tected from the possibility that their principal will a patchwork of alternative certification and stopgap emergency certification processes in part for mistakenly hire Janet in a moment of weakness. This approach is problematic. Unless we believe the principal incompetent or unconcerned with teacher quality, there is little reason why the principal should be forbidden to decide whether Janet is likely to better serve her school's students than the alternatives.5 In other words, the traditional certification model does not serve the larger interest of educating students, especially when it is fail- ing to produce either the quantity or quality of teachers we need. the last minute, when the systems - having discouraged or turned away Janet and hundreds like her - are desperate for bodies. We have adopted the purpose of minimizing these problems that we have created. Certification would prohibit any member of the English faculties at Georgetown, American, or George Washington universities from teaching in the D.C. public schools. Regardless of Janet's demonstrated skills, or Imagine if colleges and universities refused to the questionable performance of some current teachers, the presumption implicit in certificahire any faculty lacking the "license" of traditional tion is that the children will be ill served ifacademic Janet degrees. Higher education institutions is allowed to teach. Similarly, certification would have historically hired "lay practitioners" such as prohibit, absent some loophole or exception, the any poet Maya Angelou, the journalist William member of the English faculties at Georgetown, Raspberry, or distinguished public officials: Alan American, or George Washington universities Simpson, Julian Bond, Al Gore. In fact, the artists from teaching in the D.C. public schools. In fact, and writers "in residence" at dozens of public uniwhile the nation is starved for math and science versities would fail to meet the criteria implicit in teachers, no member of the math or physics the public school certification model. Do we departments at those schools could teach believe basicthat these universities are engaging in a algebra or earth science! regrettable disservice to the student body by Proponents of current licensure schemes using lay practitioners who lack essential training? argue that there is no guarantee that the math, Janet Writ Large physics, or English faculty at these universities Several scholars have recently conducted would be effective at teaching these subjects in middle and high school. That's true. However, the studies raising serious questions about the value converse is true as well: despite the premise of certification. These important studies should implicit in certification, there is no certainty that cause policymakers to reexamine long-held such individuals wouldn't make effective teachassumptions based more on ideology or custom ers. It is essential to remember that allowing than on empirical evidence.7 What data tell us someone to apply for a job is not the same as matters greatly, but we risk misinterpreting or guaranteeing them employment. Making appli- misapplying analyses if we are not first clear on whether the arguments at stake make sense in cants eligible for a position simply permits employers to hire them in the event they are the first place. deemed superior to the other existing alternaThe issue is not the quality of teacher educatives. The argument for modifying our currenttion or even the performance of the graduates of system of certification is not that any unconven- teacher preparation programs, but rather whether we ought to - as best we are able - bar tional applicant will necessarily be a good teacher; it is only that such an individual might from teaching those who have not completed a be. If one accepts this point, then case-by-case teacher preparation program. After all, we don't judgments are clearly more appropriate than require journalists or farmers to complete maninflexible bureaucratic rules. dated training before seeking work in their fields. The situation is even more troubling than Rather, it we assume that training is factored into appears, since many large school systems'the classhiring process, along with considerations like rooms are filled with uncertified teachers and aptitude, diligence, and energy. Why in education Summer 2002 educational HORIZONS 171 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms demonstrated an established degree of profes sional knowledge. cine, law, or engineering, where many aspirants do we instead embrace the model used in medi- are barred from seeking employment? The Case for Certification However, the oversight challenge is very dif ferent in education, where educational "exper argue that the complexity of teaching makes difficult to judge a good teacher outside a specif Three Key Assumptions ic classroom context. This makes it difficult, if n Three assumptions support the existing approach to certification. The first is that the impossible, to abstractly determine which as training one receives while getting certified is rants possess satisfactory teaching skills. essential to perform adequately as a teacher. ThisProfessional educators themselves readily illusargument presumes that the training and prepa-trate this point when they seek to explain what ration required for certification develops essen-makes a teacher competent, what teachers need tial skills, knowledge, or expertise that uncertifiedto know and be able to do, and what standards ought to characterize teacher preparation.9 personnel lack. Absent concrete benchmarks, screening cerThe second assumption is that certification protects students by keeping unsuitable peopletification aspirants must rely on subjective judgout of schools. A minimalist version of screening ments about acceptable preparation and behavwould simply try to pick out felons, unstable indi-ior. In essence, proponents of teacher certificaviduals, and the uneducated. However, our cur- tion suggest that teaching is more like the crafts rent system presumes that undergraduate andof cosmetology or athletic training - where the graduate teacher training programs select out key criteria for licensure are completion of a aspirants on more subtle factors related to theirspecified set of courses or workshops, a sufficient number of apprenticeship hours, and the willingabilities and professional suitability. The third assumption is that certification bol-ness and ability to behave in specified ways sters teaching's allure by making it more "profes- than professions with concrete requirements such as engineering, law, or medicine. sional." This argument is relevant primarily because of the claim that certification enhances What professionalism by both increasing the quality of Certification Can and Cannot Do Effective certification requires clear stanaspiring educators and screening out interlopers. However, the beliefs that certification attracts a by which aspirants can demonstrate comdards better class of teachers and that careerists will be petence. If we agree that lawyers need to know a more effective than "interlopers" are open to certain body of law or that civil engineers need to question. know how to calculate stress tolerance for a Each of these three presumptions is flawed. bridge, it then becomes straightforward to judg Before explaining why this is so, it is necessary to whether the aspirant is competent. first consider the incoherence at the heart of However, if no clear standards of profession al competence exist, we typically (and approp ately) hesitate to prohibit some individuals fr The Contradiction in the Certification practicing a profession. Rather than endors Presumption incompetence, we recognize licensing as ineff Certification is most effective when the tive and potentially pernicious in controllin licensing body ensures that only aspiring quality. profes- Licensing without concrete benchma teacher certification. sionals who have mastered essential skills or allows public officials (or, even more frightenin knowledge obtain licenses. Licensing is thegenerally leaders of independent organizations) to thought most essential where tasks are make critical subjective decisions about who is permitto pursue a given career, and we are properly and when members of the public mayted have troufearful such an outcome. ble assessing provider qualifications. It can beofdif- Thus, even though licensure could protect whether a bridge is properly designed, whether a community members (including children) from exposure to "bad" entrepreneurs or journalists, doctor is performing appropriately, or whether we do not prohibit some individuals from seekan attorney is knowledgeable in the law.8 Licensing ensures, not that these professionalsing to start businesses or work for newspapers. Instead, we trust that potential investors or are talented practitioners, but that they have ficult for members of the public to know 172 educational HORIZONS Summer 2002 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms employers are the best judges of who ought to be ease and low minimum passing scores do little to supported or hired; and we understand that the investors and employers are ultimately account- actually ensure content mastery. This brings us to the issue of practice (or "student") teaching, which often becomes a red herring in discussions about certification. trust that an unsuccessful writer or entrepreneur Although will eventually be persuaded to find a more suit- some student teaching improves the able line of work. This free-flowing process performance fosof some aspiring teachers, it is a poorand basis for certification because it is frequentters diversity, opens the door to new ideas ly unclear what student teachers are supposed to approaches, and ensures that unconventional workers are given a chance to succeed. master during their classroom experience. Even in professions with clear knowledgeStandards vary from program to program and even overseer to overseer, and many student or performance-based benchmarks for certificateachers tion, as in law or medicine, licensure is used pri-are assigned to weak or uninterested marily to establish minimal competence. teachers A med-or placed in school environments unlike ical or a law license is not imagined to ensure their intended destination. If such practice teaching does not ensure that teachers achieve minicompetence in ambiguous, subtle skills like comforting a patient or swaying a jury - skillsmum competence, wouldn't children be best analogous to the interpersonal relations thoughtserved by permitting more potentially effective crucial to teaching. Few would choose a doctor teachers in the classroom - in place of the teachor attorney solely on the basis of a test score ers that administrators deem less competent without considering recommendations, experi- and then providing them with mentoring and ence, manner, or methods. However, basing cer-supervision tailored to their workplace context? able to their backers and to their customers. We tification on such traits is difficult, because we Rejecting knowledge-based and skill-based cri- may disagree about what they entail or how teria, certification as currently practiced emphathey can be assessed devoid of context. The sizes various hard-to-judge personal qualities. Such skills that teacher educators deem most impor- a model is the norm in professions like marketing, tant - listening, caring, motivating - are not journalism, consulting, or policymaking, where a subtle blend of people skills and relevant expertise readily susceptible to standardized quality conis required. In professions like these, where there trol. Certification will work poorly in profesare a number of ways for practitioners to excel but sions in which practice depends on amorphous where it is difficult to know in advance how any interpersonal relationships, criteria for determining effectiveness is lacking, and differentparticular practitioner will perform, the most senkinds of styles may prove more or less effective sible way to find talent is to allow aspirants to seek with different clients. work and to permit employers to screen them on To resemble certification in law or medicine, teaching certification would require a core of a variety of criteria - such as education, experience, and references. essential mastery. The obvious candidate for such A Dubious Screen a role is the content knowledge of aspiring licensees. While few believe -that encyclopedic While certification can serve to screen out knowledge alone makes someone a good aspirants who fail to meet a minimal performance standard, our current system is not designed to teacher - just as knowledge of case law alone do so. To begin with, schools of education generdoes not make one a good attorney - it would ally are not selective (even the elite programs clearly seem an essential ingredient. Lawyers who do not know the law or doctors who do not generally admit 50 percent or more of applicants) know human physiology are unlikely to be effecand "fail out" few if any students for inadequate performance. After that less-than-grueling regitive. Unsurprisingly, research suggests that teacher subject matter preparation and knowl- men, more than 95 percent of their graduates edge have significant effects on student learn- receive teacher licenses. The licensing exams are ing.10 Ironically, certification defenders frequently simple and standards for passage are generally so oppose rigorous content-based testing, which low that the Education Trust concluded they they say does not fully capture the array of impor- exclude only the "weakest of the weak" from classtant teaching skills. While content tests are com- rooms.11 As a 2001 report for the National School monly used in state certification systems, their Board Association - no enemy of professional Summer 2002 educational HORIZONS 173 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms educators - stated, "It would appear that traditional certification routes provide no guarantee of teacher quality."12 Certification currently provides little protection against unqualified aspirants willing to slog through the requirements. Teacher educators suggest that certification keeps out "interlopers" who might teach three or four years and then move on to another career. In fact, the validity of the concern is questionable, in light of some evidence that noncertified teachers are no more likely (or even less likely) to leave defined role in establishing professional norm (except possibly in a negative sense) and plays no role in grievance mechanisms. And it is rarely demanding or rigorous, nor does it often screen for competence or expertise. Educational certification, as currently practiced, does nothing to address these concerns. In fact (as noted earlier), certification may actually dissuade many talented individuals from seeking to enter the profession. Eliminating the certification barrier would make education more akin to the professions, like journalism or consulting, that emphasize "soft" skills, and it would likely lure more talented and better-educated individuals into the profession. teaching than their certified peers.13 Sadly, certifica- A rigorous certification model - in which aspirants were held to clear standards and in tion does not so much screen out the unskilled or which training programs therefore had more rea- provide an assurance of specialized mastery as to be choosy about whom they accepted and son ensure that a candidate has completed a prescribed then permitted to graduate - could help to address these concerns. However, given contincourse of study and logged mandatory practice hours. Whether or not most teacher training ued gradopposition to efforts to adopt more rigorous uates are qualified practitioners, certification tests cur- in states such as Massachusetts or Illinois, there is no evidence that this goal is what certifirently provides little protection against unqualified aspirants willing to slog through the requirements. cation proponents have in mind. The Faulty Prestige Presumption THE COSTS OF CERTIFICATION That certification fails to achieve its intended Contrary to conventional wisdom, nothing about certification necessarily raises a profesgoals is problematic, but the larger concern is sion's prestige or lures more able individualsthat intoit also imposes significant costs. It makes the field. Teachers, in fact, often lag in the esteem teaching more costly to enter, reducing the real accorded to such uncertified groups as journalcompensation of teachers; dissuades potentially ists, farmers, athletes, entrepreneurs, or business effective teachers from entering the profession; executives. Put another way, cosmetologists, trafstifles intellectual diversity; and undercuts profesfic school instructors, athletic trainers, nail care sional development. professionals, and the practitioners of a multitude Opportunity Cost of other fields are all certified, but the public exhibits no special regard for them. Certification raises the "opportunity cost" of Law and medicine do not offer the guidance teaching by requiring potential teachers to that advocates of teacher certification believe become familiar with the procedural requirethey do. First, the public has evidence that such ments, pay tuition, sacrifice the opportunity to practitioners have demonstrated mastery of work in order to attend courses, practice teach essential knowledge. Second, the practitioners for eight or twelve weeks without compensation, and undergo additional certification to are held accountable for certain professional norms and standards of behavior, and dissatisfied work in a state other than the one of original clients can pursue formal grievances through certification.14 All these requirements must be licensing agencies and the judicial system. Third, finished before the individual can apply for a professional training programs are intense and job. To become a consultant or a journalist, the demanding, including a rigorous application same individual would need only to find a willprocess. ing employer. There is no corresponding established and Other things being equal, many potential canresearch-based canon of essential education didates would be likely to pursue teaching absent knowledge. Certification does not play a opportunity clearly these costs. These costs reduce the 174 educational HORIZONS Summer 2002 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms number of potential teachers and shrink the tal- for advancement are few. They may wish to teach but be unwilling to forgo work for a year, sit ent pool. Perhaps, some would answer, those unwilling to pay such costs ought not enter the through poorly regarded courses, or jump proceclassroom anyway. Ultimately, though, the costs dural hurdles.17 It is more likely that individuals with fewer do not efficiently screen out the unmotivated, attractive options will undertake the tedious, untalented, or undesirable. Rather, by requiring intellectually undemanding requirements of ceraspiring teachers to jump through a series of tification. In fact, it can be argued that by suptime-consuming but little-regarded hoops, this pressing the supply of teachers, certification system disproportionately deters the entrepreneurial and energetic. enhances teachers' job security. Coupled with a compensation scale that rewards seniority rather Let's say that someone is considering a than performance, certification may make the teacher certification program that costs $13,000 in tuition and expenses and entails a full-time profession more attractive to graduates seeking a less-demanding line of work. obligation for a year. Assuming that the individual is giving up a $35,000 annual income to enroll, obtains a $35,000-per-year teaching position after By making it more complicated and costly certification, and receives the same $1,000 annual raises the alternative job would have provided, to become a teacher, certification dissuades after five years the new teacher will earn $39,000 less ($185,000 versus $146,000), while payingmany $13,000 in tuition. In other words, staying put in potential educators. the non-teaching job will net a $37,000 average Ideological Gatekeeping annual income, nearly 40 percent more than the $26,600 annual net income that teaching will By entrusting schools of education with control over entry into teaching, certification lends provide the first five years. Given that teaching is the instructors a privileged position in sensitive not especially lucrative in the first place, imposing significant additional costs on people who social and moral discussions. Professors of educhoose to teach seems ludicrous - unless there cation tend to espouse such views as a "constructivist" conception of pedagogy, curriculum, are compelling reasons to do so. and schooling, aggressive multiculturalism, man- Dissuading Potential Teachers dating that aspiring white teachers confront society's ingrained racism, and a view of girls in pubBy making it more complicated and costly to lic schools become a teacher, certification dissuades manyas victims of gender discrimination.18 While these are legitimate views, they are normapotential educators.15 Those seeking a traditional subject teacher license have to decide either totive, major in to fierce debate, and often sharply divergent from those of most voters (as reflected education at age eighteen or nineteen or to attend a graduate program in education later. in public opinion surveys). Basing certification These barriers deter potentially talented teacherson anything besides demonstrated mastery of who are unsure about their interest. Rather than specified tasks or knowledge inevitably entails infusing the normative and moral leanings of the try out journalism, consulting, or a multitude of gatekeepers with quasi-official status. other possible opportunities for a year, they have to make an extensive, early commitment to enter public school fine teachers fication may accomplished Professional Development teaching. Many who mightUndercutting make Rather than push teachers to continue develnever enter the profession. Certiespecially dissuade educationally oping in a profession characterized by continuous growth, minorities who have a number of the licensure model can actually undercut professional development. Since certiattractive career options and who often are substantive not as fication, rather than demonstrated performance, is well situated to absorb the costs of teacher prepa- rewarded, ration.16 In general, it is the most talented and teachers tend to focus on clocking the hardest-working individuals who have thecourses most or hours of study necessary to retain their certification. For instance, states generally require career options and who sacrifice the most by entering a profession where compensationteachers is not to obtain about six semester hours of credit every five years in order to retain their linked to performance and where opportunities Summer 2002 educational HORIZONS 175 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms licenses.19 Because no corpus of particular skills or Several states have also increased the use of emer- knowledge is involved, and because the students gency certification, especially for math and sci- are not rewarded for such mastery, they generally ence teachers and in urban areas. Emergency cer- seek out the least-demanding and most-conven- tification allows teachers to teach in places or ient courses available. The result has been a cot- subjects for which the district cannot find certified teachers. tage industry of desultory "professional develop- ment" courses that teachers view as a chore and Alternative certification programs - complex, poorly publicized, enrolling limited numFor instance, while nearly all teachers report bers, requiring applicants to negotiate bureauengaging in professional development during theand procedural mazes - can often prove cratic course of a given year, most report that thecostly total in both money and time. As a result, even time devoted to such activities amounts to cumulatively, these programs remain marginal. between one and eight hours, or theRather equivalent than reduce the barriers blocking entry to of one day or less of training.21 Similarly, more teaching, other reformers have sought to raise than half the teachers who had participated instandards. However, precisely certification professional development indicated thatbecause they still reformers have enjoyed little success felt unprepared to meet classroom needs in the clarifying essential skills or knowledge for teach- for which they often have little respect.20 very area in which they had received training.22 ing, these efforts simply generate more paper - as Comparing teaching to other professions if sheer documentation will eventually illuminate helps to clarify the problem. Many businesses, for teacher competence. Some procritics of teacher certification call for example, tend to provide intensive internal fessional development, even though abolishing it is notschools of education or otherwise mandatory that they do so; they see evidence suggest that that teacher education has no construcit makes employees more productive.tive Employees role. Many defenders of the current desire the training because it makes them more approach to teacher certification, in turn, have valuable, helping them retain their jobs and reap conceded that the current system may require individual rewards. some refinement but assert that its premises are In fact, it is largely because the training issound vol- and its value is real. What I seek to offer untary that it is effective. If employers believe here is, in essence, common ground, in the form training is not worth the cost, they have incenof two propositions: tives to cut it back or eliminate it. Similarly, employees have no incentive to participate unless 1. If proponents of teacher certification can they believe it useful or the employer - believingclearly, concisely, and convincingly explain what certified teachers need to master and it useful - rewards participation. The result is that both employer and employee monitor the qualityhow they will assess and ensure mastery, of training. Under the certification model, by conthen a more narrowly tailored and more usetrast, district officials charged only with seeing ful certification is entirely possible. that employees accumulate the specified number 2. If proponents cannot do so, then - while it of hours have little reason to worry about the should still be recognized that many forms of quality of training. Meanwhile, teachers underteacher preparation probably have real stand that professional development is a procevalue - preparation ought not be made a predural obligation and that employers will little note requisite for pursuing a teaching position. whether it is productive. Some grade levels or content areas may conExisting Reform Efforts tain more definable, concrete expectations Policymakers have adopted regarding a growing knowledge array or skills than others. For of alternative certification programs and aproceinstance, we know fair bit about reading acqui» sition, and it would seemand clear that K-3 teachers dures in recent years, with thirty-five states the District of Columbia having adopted ought to demonstrate active an understanding of at least programs as of 1999 23 These programs, which this body of knowledge. If it turns out that we are take a variety of forms, make itable easier forconcrete aspirants to develop expectations (and certito enter the schools without fication slogging through requirements) for some teaching roles but the full array of teacher preparation hoops. not all, this should not be viewed as problematic. 176 educational HORIZONS Summer 2002 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms way to ensure that teachers possess essential knowledge or skills without creating the larger interpreted in myriad ways and rightly should differ for those wishing to teach younger children or older students. But problems of one-size-fits-all certification. teachers should at the least demonstrate An Opportunity for Reform material they will be teaching. Instead, it offers a coherent, flexible, and effective appropriate academic knowledge of the Is there some way to address these problems, without throwing classrooms open to the dangerous or the incompetent? Happily, there is. In fact, larger trends make this a moment of high 3. A rigorous criminal background check. Current checks tend to be compromised by the state's need to simultaneously engage in related certification paperwork. Ensuring promise for reform. Why? that teachers first do no harm is one role that For decades, the traditional licensure system made sense. We had a large captive population of teachers, no reliable means of assessing teacher state-level bureaucrats can usefully play and for which local educators clearly lack the resources. performance, and reason to fear that administra- Is anyone who meets these criteria ready tors would make capricious decisions. Matters teach? Of course not. Should anyone who me have changed. New opportunities for women and minorities mean that we can no longer rely these criteria be free to walk into a school and on a steady supply of capable classroom teachers. start teaching? No. Permission to seek work does Once, input regulation was the only feasible not equate to the right to hold a position. In fact, way to control teacher quality. Now we have allowing more people to apply for a job deepens assessment systems increasingly able to provide the talent pool and makes employment more feedback on student learning. Finally, administra- competitive. Most if not all teachers, like other professiontors are subject to new forms of outcome account- ability that can serve to check indiscretions and als, will need training and preparation in the provide remedies for cronyism or incompetence. beginning and throughout their careers. The What might a new approach to teacher certi- problem is not with preparation per se, but with fication and training look like? the effort to prescribe or codify that training in the manner of existing state systems. That distinction is the crux of the competitive model of Proponents of the existing licensure struc- certification: it doesn't diminish the importance ture often argue that the alternative is simply of ongoing professional development but seeks allowing anyone to teach. Few certification pro-to invigorate this process through greater components actually endorse such an approach, butpetition and professionalism. Thus, it would be a mistake to see the forethe prospect rightly frightens parents and hinders reform. Instead, a third way would combine going as doubting the value of high-quality the little that reliable research tells us about effecteacher preparation or induction. Precisely SKETCHING AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH teacher training is so important, trying to tive teaching with an approach that considers because the ensure readiness with a crude, one-size-fits-all problems raised in this paper. paper barrier is counterproductive. Without cerThat said, whether this approach "abolishes" tification as we know it, districts and schools conventional certification or merely reforms it by would have the flexibility they now lack to comprehensively adopting an ambitious program ensure that their new teachers are prepared, of "alternative certification" is a semantic point. inducted, and supervised in a manner appropriCertain safeguards are reasonable and necessary. Therefore, there is a strong commonsense caseate to to the challenges at hand. be made that teaching candidates must meet Teacher Preparation Programs in a System these three minimum requirements: of Competitive Certification Leaders of some elite teacher education programs embrace the kind of reform discussed 2. Passing a test that demonstrates competence here. The reason? As one explained, "Under the in knowledge or skills essential to what theycurrent system, we're constantly worried about seek to teach - a loose definition that can be state regulations and state requirements. If we 1. A B.A. or B.S. degree from a recognized college or university. Summer 2002 educational HORIZONS 177 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms weren't in the certification business, we'd be free to design programs as we think best." Because aspiring teachers would no longer have to attend formal teacher preparation programs in order to teach, enrollment in education schools would shrink significantly. These schools would have to contribute value - by providing to tamper with a formula that is "working." I such districts, except where a nontraditional applicant has extraordinary credentials, we would expect that the school administrators would continue to cherry-pick from the nation's top teacher education graduates. It is in the less- teacher training, services, or research that created desirable and more-troubled systems, the nation's urban and rural school districts, where adminis- demand and attracted support - or face signifi- trators currently have difficulty finding sufficient cant cutbacks. In considering the changing role of numbers of certified bodies. This is doubly true in schools of education and teacher education pro- math and science education. It is in these dis- grams, the issue of research becomes central. The tricts, where critics have fretted about the num- difficulties of obtaining high-quality education bers of long-term substitutes, "burned out" veter ans, and underqualified teachers, that the wave o research - especially reliable, practitioner-friendly new teachers will most likely be recruited an welcomed. preparation is a source of value, reputation, or Although many of the resultant applicants will no doubt be deemed unprepared or intellectual energy, schools of education will continue to shape the institutional missionunsuited and culfor the jobs they pursue, few urban or rural has principals would not welcome the chance ture. However, where teacher preparation dominated research and teaching by bureaucratic to pick and choose from their ranks. research - are well documented. Where teacher In many dysfunctional school districts, critics fiat rather than merit, an appropriate reallocation of resources and energy will be productive point and out, the application process for aspiring desirable. Freed from the confines of the teachers existingfrequently involves long waits, poor regime and its bureaucratic links to state screening, depart- and inadequate information. Competi- tiveeducacertification alone does not remedy these of problems; however, it is easy to envision innovaresponsitions in teacher placement and recruitment takbilities to focus on crucial questions and on rigoring place in a more decentralized environment. ous scholarship. ments of education, faculty at schools tion would have new opportunities and reform offers significant benefits Thinning the ranks of teacher preparation Moreover, pro- grams and schools of education would free to those up already in the nation's classrooms. Allowing more individuals to apply for teaching resources, create new opportunities for the best jobs will programs to expand, and reduce the need for increase the potential supply of teachers and create more competition for such posiheavy-handed regulation of numerous marginal tions. Such a dynamic is likely to boost the proprograms. At the end of the process, we might anticipate a system of no more than a few fession's hundredprestige while also, and properly, discouraging unqualified applicants. Allowing programs, as is the case in training for professions such as law, medicine, or engineering. more accomplished individuals to try teaching may help them understand just how difficult the profession is, and making it easier to remove teachers may help eliminate some ineffective teachers whose performance hurts the cause of and rural their colleagues. It is in the less-desirable and more-troubled systems, the nation's urban school districts, where administrators Teacher Development with Competitive Certification currently have difficulty finding sufficient Critics may fear that the elimination of certifi- numbers of certified bodies. cation requirements will mean the end of teacher training. Such concern is misplaced. First, allowTeacher Hiring with Competitive Certification ing uncertified individuals to enter teaching does Under this proposed system, little is likely to not mean that they must be accepted as "comchange in many of our high-performing districts. pleted" professionals. Such a fear is a vestige of Such privileged school systems are flooded withour current system, which stipulates that all teachtrained applicants, and local officials will hesitate ers are certified and competent professionals. 178 educational HORIZONS Summer 2002 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Doctors and lawyers, after all, must serve a trial period (as a hospital resident or as a junior partner in a law firm, for instance), during which their full value of retaining elements of the current model of "practice teaching," without retaining the costs of mandatory certification. panoply of skills is developed and monitored. Beginning teachers might serve on a probationary basis, receiving substantial monitoring, counseling, and oversight. Legal and contractual language ought to make it simpler to terminate ineffective teachers or to target assistance to those requiring Adopting competitive certification does not mean doing away with professional teacher education programs. additional support. To judge from the precedent set by journalism and business schools, adopting competitive An appropriate compromise is to encourage schools and school systems to train new hires, certification does not mean doing away with promuch as in medicine, where residents learn the fessional teacher education programs. Many softer, more practical skills of medical practice by applicants have attended such schools, even though such training is not officially required to working under the supervision of veteran docobtain a job, simply because it may make gradu-tors. New hires might receive formal instruction ates more effective and better able to find in key areas before the school year, teach about half the would standard load, receive mentoring, and employment. Similarly, aspiring teachers presumably continue to attend teacher-training access a support network similar to the student cohort that teacher certification programs supprograms thought to add value or enhance employability. ply. The proposed model would train teachers in Moving away from the traditional certificationthe environment where they will actually teach model does not mean shortchanging professional and create support mechanisms that will still be development or teacher training. On the contrary,present the following year. As with hospital resimany of the current system's difficulties are root-dents, programs or schools might deem it approed in its failure to provide such preparation effec-priate to pay these new teachers substantially less tively. Current preparation programs try to simul-than their peers. taneously serve teachers entering widely varied educational environments and rely on university Teachers entering a troubled urban school personnel to teach practitioner issues. They cannot anticipate the particular programs or approachesor a high-performing suburban school have that a teacher may be asked to utilize. Teachers entering a troubled urban school or a high-per-very different challenges ahead. Why try to forming suburban school have very different challenges ahead. Why try to train them in the same train them in the same program, divorced program, divorced from the contexts in which they from will actually teach? Why havé practical courses like the contexts in which they will classroom discipline or lesson design taught by actually teach? academics who may not have taught a K-12 class While teacher advocates have reason to be for decades? Why require aspiring teachers to spend a year learning about practical approachesinitially wary of such a proposal, it is vital to recto reading acquisition or science teaching thatognize that the new teachers would be compenmight be at odds with pedagogy or curriculum at sated with free professional development and training. Moreover, it would no longer be necesthe school where they will teach? Instead of attempting to stuff loosely definedsary for new teachers to pay the opportunity "knowledge" into aspiring teachers and then costs of certification. States could encourage and help fund professional development, but some of declare them "certified" professionals, many of the necessary resources could be recaptured the key skills teachers need could be developed through professional practice, in which new from beginning teachers at no net loss to these teachers would have time to observe, receive teachers, since they would no longer face the feedback from colleagues, and undergo training exorbitant monetary and opportunity costs of the while practicing their work. This suggests the current approach to certification. Summer 2002 educational HORIZONS 179 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This model could open up dramatic new not to doubt its potential usefulness, but to opportunities for enhancing the quality and rele- ognize that our current system fails to prov contextual, applied, and nuanced preparation vance of professional development. Districts Eliminating traditional certification does not su could provide training by contracting with schools of education or state agencies, providing gest that teacher preparation or growth is irre it internally, or hiring consultants. Rather thanvant; it instead argues that a certification-driv hoping that a certified teacher's preparation preparation system is unlikely to deliver effect would be adequate and locally appropriate, dis- preparation. tricts could tailor training to address local needs, pay talented veterans to work with new recruits, and contract with the best of the nation's Teacher Termination in a System of Competitive Certification Giving districts more leeway to hire promisi teacher-training programs - without regard to candidates does not mean they will always m state boundaries. These changes could potentialgood decisions. Some ineffective teachers will ly create new rewards for effective teachers; inevitably continue to be hired. However, because deepen the impact of the best teacher educators noncrucial barriers to entering the profession will and programs; create strong incentives for teacher educators to improve their services andbe eased, it will be appropriate that exit be eased demonstrate their effectiveness; permit the bestas well. If administrators obtain more leeway in programs to serve more teachers in more locales;hiring decisions, they also have more leeway to fire - and they must be held accountable either and focus teacher preparation on its quality way. Thus, the new model for "certification" paralrather than requisite time spent on courses. In essence this model, merely by changing lels school-management trends toward more flexible, decentralized decision-making. In fact, archaic the sequence and structure of induction and much "professional development," introduces a regulatory and bureaucratic practices have been a much-needed competitive element to education. key obstacle to greater school autonomy and In no sense does it call for the abolition of these choice (for both parents and teachers). This is a certification model for an environment of greater activities - breaking with previous calls to dischoice and school autonomy. mantle the existing teacher certification system, which implicitly suggested that professional Conclusion preparation has little or nothing to offer aspiring The problem with teacher certification is not teachers. Critiques of teacher certification often schools of education or teacher preparation profail to address the appropriate role of professiongrams per se, but a system of teacher certification al development. This omission can mistakenly and licensure that tolerates incompetence, perimply that any adult with the appropriate knowlmits mediocre teacher training programs to flouredge and aptitudes is ready to be an effective ish, and provides little incentive for such programs to select suitable, or weed out unsuitable, candidates. Such dynamics undermine rather Eliminating traditional certification than enhance the professional status of teachers. does not suggest that teacher The central problem is that professional eduteacher. cators desire licensure without concrete stan- preparation or growth is irrelevant. dards. The result is a collection of frustrating paper barriers that deter many potentially talent Ironically, both defenders of the currented professionals from entering the field. approach and those who seek to dismantle it fall Obviously, the politics of this issue are com plex. Teacher associations have an obvious into the trap of viewing teachers as "completed" investment in the current system, believing that it after they have met their preferred and prehelps to protect current practitioners and elescribed barriers to entry. The current system sigthe status of their profession. Influential nals licensed teachers that completing a seriesvates of organizations, such as the American Association hoops and hurdles equals adequate preparation, of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) and disregarding whether they have learned or the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher demonstrated important knowledge or skills. To (NCATE), have a similar investment in free professional development from licensing Education is 180 educational HORIZONS Summer 2002 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms safeguarding the place of existing teacher prepaappeared originally in November 2001 on the ration programs. Not only are there no similarly Web site of the Progressive Policy Institute , motivated organizations on the other side of the www. ppionline. com. issue, but potential critics of the existing arrangeNotes ments often duck the issue for fear of being 1 . For one of the most recent summaries on the number of attacked as "anti-teacher" or "anti-public educateachers the nation will need in the coming decade, see tion." Those critics who do speak often make a Cheryl C. Sullivan, "Into the Classroom: Teacher related mistake, becoming shrill and strident, Preparation, Licensure and Recruitment" (Alexandria, Va.: National School Board Association, 2001), 1-2. demonizing defenders of the status quo, or suggesting that teacher preparation is without merit. 2. See William L. Sanders and June C. Rivers, "Cumulative and Residual Effects of Teachers on Further Student Meaningful efforts to promote reform will Academic Achievement" (Knoxville,Tenn.: University of require a middle course, one in which the contriTennessee Value-Added Research and Assessment butions of teacher educators and schools of edu- Center, 1996). An excellent overview of the Tennessee as well as of research from Boston and Dallas is the usedstudy to cation are recognized but are no longer Education Trust report, "Good Teaching Matters: How justify regulations that squelch innovation, comWell-Qualified Teachers Can Close the Gap" petition, or philosophical diversity. (Washington, D.C.: Education Trust, 1998). Available online at http://www.edtrust.org. Of course, striking down the certification 3. For example, Sanders reports that "black students were barrier will not by itself "turn around" the over-represented in the least effective teachers' classnation's troubled schools. Problems posed by our rooms by about 10 percent and were under-represented existing systems of school management and govin the most effective teachers' classrooms by a similar amount." William L. Sanders, "Value-Added Assessment," ernance, teacher compensation, and school accountability, to name just three, will still be The School Administrator (December 1998). A recent study by the RAND Corporation found that teachers in with us. However, tearing down the wall posed California are more likely to transfer out of schools with by teacher certification offeis a step toward proa higher percentage of minority students than those with a low percentage of minorities, making it harder for viding our children with the schools they school districts to fill vacancies in those schools and deserve. lowering the quality of teachers for minority students. All in all, the individuals best equipped to Stephen J. Carroll et al., The Distribution of Teachers carefully assess the qualifications of prospective among California's School District's and Schools (Santa Monica, Calif: RAND Corporation, 2000). Also, collective teachers are the principals who will be responsibargaining arrangements, seniority provisions, and budgble for them. These same principals ought to et procedures in many school districts exacerbate these have the strongest incentive to see that teachers problems by limiting the ability of administrators to are effective. If we believe that the administrators assign or manage teachers. For example see Paul Hill, "A of Silence," Hoover Institution, February 12, Conspiracy charged with managing and supervising schools 2001. are either unequipped to evaluate prospective 4. Although something constituting an "alternative path" into the teaching profession exists, at least on paper, teachers or are unwilling to do šo, teacher certifi- cation will not suffice to protect our children there is tremendous variance in the quality of these pro- from such profound systemic dysfunction. If we grams and they serve only a small percentage of trust administrators, then certification is unnec-prospective teachers. In practice, for most teachers like the fictitious Janet, the traditional route is the most ready at hand. See David Ruenzel, "Tortuous Routes," essary and entails significant costs. If we don'troute trust them, let us address that issue directly and Education Next 2, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 42-48. 5. In fact, not rely on the hollow promise of a' problematic as we would expect, research suggests that prin- cipals who do not have to abide by certification requiresystem of flimsy parchment barriers. ments are especially likely to hire and reward teachers Today, while many school systems are forced who attended high-quality colleges, who possess strong or science training (areas where schools face perteachers to teach our children, thousands of capa-sistent shortages), or who put in more instructional hours. See Caroline Hoxby, "Changing the Profession," ble, committed, educated adults would be sum- to turn to long-term subs and underqualifiedmath Education Matters l,no. 1 (Spring 2001): 57-63. marily rejected if they applied for teaching posi- 6. Nationally, about 12 percent of teachers who have tions. In the twenty-first century, having finally taught for three years or less do not have full certifica- recognized that accountability and flexibility tion. See Laurie Lewis, Basmat Parsad, Nancy Carey, Nicole Bartfai, Elizabeth Farris, and Becky Smerdon, "Teacher Quality: A Report on the Preparation and regulation, can't we do better? Qualifications of Public School Teachers," NCES 1999AllM. Hess. 2001 by Frederick 080, Bernard Greene, project officer (Washington, D.C.: Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department A longer version of thisNational essay allow educators to serve children better than bureaucracy and Copyright © rights reserved. Summer 2002 educational HORIZONS 181 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms of Education, 1999). A 1996 study by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF) charged that 50,000 teachers a year were entering teaching on emergency certification or substandard licensure and that more than half of the nation's high school science students, and more than a quarter of math students, were being taught by "out-of-field" teachers. NCTAF, "What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future" (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1996). 7. For recent research questioning the benefits of certification, see Dan D. Goldhaber and Dominic J. Brewer, "Does Teacher Certification Matter? High School Teacher "Teacher Education Programs Are All the Same," in Dispelling Myths about Teacher Education , ed. Greta Morine-Dershimer and Gail Huffman-Joley (Washington, D.C.: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, 2000). Dispelling Myths was issued by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) for the express purpose of debunking concerns about the rigor, quality, or value of schools of education. 10. See Dan D. Goldhaber and Dominic J. Brewer, "Teacher Licensing and Student Achievement," in Better Teachers, Better Schools, ed. Marci Kanstoroom and Chester E. Finn (Washington, D.C.: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, 1999); David H. Monk and Jennifer A. King, "Multilevel Certification Status and Student Achievement," Teacher Resource Effects on Pupil Performance in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 22, no. 2Secondary Mathematics and Science: The Case of (2000): 129-145; Dan D. Goldhaber and Dominic J. Teacher Subject-Matter Preparation," in Choices and Brewer, "Evaluating the Evidence on Teacher Consequences: Contemporary Policy Issues in Education , ed. Ronald Ehrenberg (Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press, Certification: A Rejoinder," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 23, no. 1 (2001): 79-86; Margaret1994); and Harold Wenglinsky, "How Teaching Matters: Bringing the Classroom Back into Discussions of Teacher Raymond, Stephen H. Fletcher, and Javier Luque, "Teach for America: An Evaluation of Teacher Differences and Quality" (Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service, Student Outcomes in Houston, Texas" (Palo Alto, Calif.:2000). Center for Research on Education Outcomes, 2001);1 and 1 . See Ruth Mitchell and Patte Barth, "Not Good Enough: A Kate Walsh, "Teacher Certification Reconsidered: Content Analysis of Teacher Licensing Examinations," Stumbling for Quality" (Baltimore: Abell Foundation, Thinking K-16 (Education Trust: Washington, D.C.) 3, 2001). For research that challenges such critiques and no. 1 (Spring 1999). 12. See Sullivan, "Into the Classroom," 10. makes the case for the benefits of certification, see Linda 13. Darling-Hammond, "Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: A Review of State Policy Evidence" (Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington, 1999); Linda Darling-Hammond, Barnett Berry, and Amy Thorenson, "Does Teacher Certification Matter? Evaluating the Evidence," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 23, no. 1 (2001): 57-77; and Jianping Shen, "Has the See Margaret Raymond, Stephen H. Fletcher, and Javier Luque, "Teach for America: An Evaluation of Teacher Differences and Student Outcomes in Houston, Texas" (Palo Alto, Calif.: Center for Research on Education Outcomes, 2001): 18-19, and Richard J. Murnane, Judith D. Singer, John B. Willet, James J. Kemple, and Randall J. Olsen, Who Will Teach? Policies That Matter (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991). A Comparison between Traditionally and Alternatively 14. Especially for those individuals who did not complet Certified Teachers in Public Schools," Educational teacher-training program as an undergraduate, the cost can be significant. It is not unusual for postgraduat Evaluation and Policy Analysis 19, no. 3 (1997): 276-283. For discussions of the difficulties in assessing teacher training programs to require a full-time comm the benefits of certification, see Dale Bailou, "Alternative ment of sixteen or even twenty-four months, or a par Certification: A Comment," Educational Evaluation and time commitment that can stretch to three years or more. See Alternative Paths to Teaching: A Directory o Policy Analysis 20, no. 4 (1998): 3 13-3 15; Jianping Shen, Postbaccalaureate Programs (American Association o "Alternative Certification: A Complicated Research Colleges for Teacher Education: Washington, D.C.: 2000 Topic," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 20, no. 4 (1998): 316-319; and Suzanne M. Wilson, 15. For instance, a 2000 study by Public Agenda found t one of the two main reasons that college graduates Robert E. Floden, and Joan Ferrrini-Mundy, "Teacher opted for a field other than teaching was that they didPreparation Research: Current Knowledge, Gaps, and n't want to have to return to school to take education Recommendations" (Seattle, Wash.: University of courses. See Steve Farkas, Jean Johnson, and Anthony Washington, 2001). Foleno,^4 Sense of Calling: Who Teaches and Why i New 8. Dale Bailou and Michael Podgursky have made this York: Public Agenda, 2000). point, explaining, "The case for licensing in medicine rests partly on the premise that consumers cannot make16. Teachers who enter the profession through alternative certification programs are more racially diverse than well-informed decisions concerning the quality of medthose who enter through traditional certification. ical services. There is a complex body of specialized Moreover, alternatively certified minority teachers have medical knowledge that medical consumers cannot be higher levels of educational attainment than both white expected to know." The same is not true in the case of and minority teachers with traditional certification. See schooling, since, as we shall shortly see, even professional educators are not sure what teachers need to know or Jianping Shen, "The Impact of Alternative Certification be able to do. See Dale Bailou and Michael Podgursky,on the Elementary and Secondary Public Teaching "The Case against Teacher Certification," The Public Force," fournal of Research and Development in Education 32, no. 1 (1998): 9-16, and the same author's Interest 132 (1998): 17-29. "Alternative Certification, Minority Teachers, and Urban 9. See E. C. Wragg, G. S. Haynes, C. M. Wragg, and R. P. Education," Education and Urban Society 31, no. 1 Chamberlin, Failing Teachers? (New York: Routledge, (1998): 30-41. 2000); Gerald Grant and Christine E. Murray, Teaching in America: The Slow Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: 17. See Jay Matthews, "Is This Any Way to Hire Teachers?" Harvard University Press, 1999); and Mary E. Diez, Washington Posi, July 22, 2001, Bl, and Richard W. Riley, Alternative Certification Policy Materialized Its Promise? 182 educational HORIZONS Summer 2002 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms "New Challenges, A New Resolve: Moving American Education into the 21st Century," Sixth Annual State of American Education speech, Long Beach, Calif., February 16, 1999. 18. For instance, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) - the national organization of teacher education programs - makes clear its members' views in these matters. Of the fifteen "Special Study most common, as it is the predominant option in about half of the states, according to the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification. The NASDTEC Manual 2000: Manual on the Preparation and Certification of Educational Personnel , 5th ed. (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 2000), Table E-2. 20. Practicing teachers themselves voice concerns about the quality of their coursework in pedagogy and education. Groups" sponsored by AACTE, none focus on teacher For instance, in the best-known effort to see what teachperformance, while seven focus on issues of race, geners think about this issue, researchers found that 73 perder, sexuality, or multiculturalism. Similarly, in 1990, cent of teachers rated courses they had taken in their 1995, and 2000, the AACTE officially adopted resolutions subject area as "very valuable," but only 37 percent rated endorsing the equal rights amendment to the Constitution, terming the bill a "legislative priorit [y]," their education courses and in-service activities in the and calling for AACTE members to "incorporât [e] multi- same fashion. See C. Emily Feistritzer and David Chester, cultural education in all aspects of their programs." In "Alternative Teacher Certification" (Washington, D.C.: 1990, 1995, and 2000, terming "the educator's affirma- National Center for Education Information, 1996); "Public tion of the worth of cultural diversity essential" to effec- School Teacher Survey on Education Reform," National tively educating all students, AACTE promised to contin- Center for Education Statistics Fast Response Survey ue providing a "national forum" in the "areas of human System, FRSS 55 (Washington, D.C.: National Center for rights . . . and multicultural and global education." In Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, 1990 and 1995, AACTE took the relatively radical step of 1996); and Lewis et al., "Teacher Quality," 47-57. resolving that "no program of selection be devised21. byBasmat Parsad, Laurie Lewis, and Elizabeth Farris, schools, colleges, and departments of education or state "Teacher Preparation and Professional Development: 2000," NCES 2001-088, Bernard Greene, project officer education agencies that eliminates disproportionate (Washington, D.C.: National Center for Education numbers of minority candidates from the teaching proStatistics, U.S. Department of Education, 2001), 4-5. fession." AACTE called upon schools of education to "establish multiple admissions requirements to increase 22. Ibid., 37. 23. C. Emily Feistritzer and David Chester, "Alternative the number of under-represented minority students." Teacher Certification: A State-by-State Analysis 2000" 19. Ten states require no ongoing professional development (Washington D.C.: National Center for Education to maintain certification. The rest use a variety of Information, 2000). approaches, though the credit hour approach is the Summer 2002 educational HORIZONS 183 This content downloaded from 148.84.34.106 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 18:29:03 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms chers who bearKrat, and­ e>rnia ically ing a f the 3.kers "ed:rs of cera:s." that ·ading conas a ; coltrap, 1 the we :lass:ized ging rk. Lt 157 Why johnny's Teacher Can't Teach Why Johnny's Teacher Can't Teach Heather Mac Donald This selection first appeared in City journars Spring 1998 edition. Heather Mac Donald is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of the Institute's City journal (www.city-journal.org). Americans' nearly last-place finish in the Third International Mathematics and Sciences Study of student achievement caused widespread consternation this February, except in the one place it should have mattered most: the nation's teacher education schools. Those schools have far more important things to do than worrying about test scoresthings like stamping out racism in aspiring teachers. "Let's be honest," darkly commanded Professor Valerie Henning-Piedmont to a lecture hall of education students at Columbia University's Teachers College last February. "What labels do you place on young people based on your biases?" It would be difficult to imagine a less likely group of bigots than these idealistic young people, happily toting around their Handbooks of Multicultural Education and their exposes of sexism in the classroom. But Teachers College knows better. It knows that most of its students, by virtue of being white, are complicitous in an unjust power structure. The crusade against racism is just the latest irrelevancy to seize the nation's teacher education schools. For over 80 years, teacher education in America has been in the grip of an immutable dogma, responsible for endless educational nonsense. That dogma may be summed up in the phrase: Anything But Knowledge. Schools are about many things, teacher educators say (depending on the decade)- self-actualization, following one's joy, social adjustment, or multicultural sensitivity- but the one thing they are not about is knowledge. Oh sure, educators will occasionally allow the word to pass their lips, but it is always in a compromised position, as in "constructing one's own knowledge," or "contextualized knowledge." Plain old knowledge, the kind passed down in books, the kind for which Faust sold his soul, that is out. The education profession currently stands ready to tighten its already vise-like grip on teacher credentialing, persuading both the federal government and the states to "professionalize" teaching further. In New 158 Parents and Teachers York, as elsewhere, that means closing off any routes to the classroom that do not pass through an education school. But before caving in to the educrats' pressure, we had better take a hard look at what education schools actually teach. The course in "Curriculum and Teaching in Elementary Education" that Professor Anne Nelson (a pseudonym) teaches at the City College of New York is a good place to start. Dressed in a tailored brown suit with close-cropped hair, Nelson is a charismatic teacher, with a commanding repertoire of voices and personae. And yet, for all her obvious experience and common sense, her course is a remarkable exercise in vacuousness. As with most education classes, the title of Professor Nelson's course doesn't give a clear sense of what it is about. Unfortunately, Professor Nelson doesn't, either. The semester began, she said in a pre-class interview, by "building a community, rich of talk, in which students look at what they themselves are doing by in-class writing." On this, the third meeting of the semester, Professor Nelson said that she would be "getting the students to develop the subtext of what they're doing." I would soon discover why Professor Nelson was so vague. "D eveloping the subtext" turns out to involve a chain reaction of solipsistic moments. After taking attendance and- most admirablyquickly checking the students' weekly handwriting practice, Professor Nelson begins the main work of the day: generating feather-light "texts," both written and oral, for immediate group analysis. She asks the students to write for seven minutes on each of three questions: "What excites me about teaching?" "What concerns me about teaching?" and then, the moment that brands this class as hopelessly steeped in the Anything But Knowledge credo: "What was it like to do this writing?" This last question triggers a quickening volley of self-reflexive turns. After the students read aloud their predictable reflections on teaching, Professor Nelson asks: "What are you hearing?" A young man states the obvious: "Everyone seems to be reflecting on what their anxieties are." This is too straightforward an answer. Professor Nelson translates into ed-speak: "So writing gave you permission to think on paper about what's there." Ed-speak dresses up the most mundane processes in dramatic terminology- one doesn't just write, one is "given permission to think on the paper"; one doesn't converse, one "negotiates meaning." Then, like a champion tennis player fmishing off a set, Nelson reaches Why johnny's Teacher Can't Teach ers )ffi :he .on )) m ~ge :uit m)US :m .rse sor m)Ok tird 1 of y;sor ,ght 1sks ms: tch·ssly e to rns. ing, . the re. into )) )OUt dra- 159 for the ultimate level of self-reflexivity and drives it home: "What was it like to listen to each other's responses?" The self-reflection isn't over yet, however. The class next moves into small groups- along with in-class writing, the most pervasive gimmick in progressive classrooms today- to discuss a set of student-teaching guidelines. After ten minutes, Nelson interrupts the by-now lively and largely ofT-topic conversations, and asks: "Let's talk about how you felt in these small groups." The students are picking up ed-speak. "It shifted the comfort zone," reveals one. "It was just acceptance; I felt the vibe going through the group." Another adds: "I felt really comfortable; I had trust there." Nelson senses a "teachable moment." "Let's talk about that," she interjects. "We are building trust in this class; we are learning how to work with each other." Now, let us note what this class was not: It was not about how to keep the attention of eight-year-olds or plan a lesson or make the Pilgrims real to first-graders. It did not, in other words, contain any material (with the exception of the student-teacher guidelines) from the outside world. Instead, it continuously spun its own subject matter out of itsel( Like a relationship that consists of obsessively analyzing the relationship, the only content of the course was the course itsel( How did such navel gazing come to be central to teacher education? It is the almost inevitable consequence of the Anything But Knowledge doctrine, born in a burst of quintessentially American anti-intellectual fervor in the wake of World War I. Educators within the federal government and at Columbia's Teachers College issued a clarion call to schools: Cast ofT the traditional academic curriculum and start preparing young people for the demands of modern life. America is a forward-looking country, they boasted; what need have we for such impractical disciplines as Greek, Latin, and higher math? Instead, let the students then flooding the schools take such useful courses as family membership, hygiene, and the worthy use of leisure time. "Life adjustment," not wisdom or learning, was to be the goal of education. The early decades of this century forged the central educational fallacy of our time: that one can think without having anything to think about. Knowledge is changing too fast to be transmitted usefully to students, argued William Heard Kilpatrick of Teachers College, the most influential American educator of the century; instead of teaching childead facts and figures, schools should teach them "critical thinking," 160 Parents and Teachers he wrote in 1925. What matters is not what you know, but whether you know how to look it up, so that you can be a "lifelong learner." Two fmal doctrines rounded out the indelible legacy of progressivism. First, Harold Rugg's The Child-Centered School (1928) shifted the locus of power in the classroom from the teacher to the student. In a child-centered class, the child determines what he wants to learn. Forcing children into an existing curriculum inhibits their self-actualization, Rugg argued, just as forcing them into neat rows of chairs and desks inhibits their creativity. The teacher becomes an enabler, an advisor; not, heaven forbid, the transmitter of a preexisting body of ideas, texts, or, worst of all, facts. In today's jargon, the child should "construct" his own knowledge rather than passively receive it. By the late 1920s, students were moving their chairs around to form groups of "active learners" pursuing their own individual interests, and, instead of a curriculum, the student-centered classroom followed just one principle: "activity leading to further activity without badness," in Kilpatrick's words. Today's educators still present these seven-decade-old practices as cutting-edge. As E.D. Hirsch,Jr., observes, the child-centered doctrine grew out of the romantic idealization of children. If the child was, in Wordsworth's words, a "Mighty Prophet! Seer Blest!" then who needs teachers? But the Mighty Prophet emerged from student-centered schools ever more ignorant and incurious as the schools became more vacuous. By the 1940s and 1950s, schools were offering classes in how to put on nail polish and how to act on a date. The notion that learning should push students out of their narrow world had been lost. The final cornerstone of progressive theory was the disdain for report cards and objective tests of knowledge. These inhibit authentic learning, Kilpatrick argued; and he carried the day, to the eternal joy of students everywhere. The foregoing doctrines are complete bunk, but bunk that has survived virtually unchanged to the present. The notion that one can teach "metacognitive" thinking in the abstract is senseless. Students need to learn something to learn how to learn at all. The claim that prior knowledge is superfluous because one can always look it up, preferably on the Internet, is equally senseless. Effective research depends on preexisting knowledge. Moreover, if you don't know in what century the atomic bomb was dropped without rushing to an encyclopedia, you cannot fully participate in society. Lastly, Kilpatrick's influential assertion that knowledge was changing too fast to be taught presupposes a Why johnny's Teacher Can't Teach f 1 l, l, >. :r tr l- d 1- of l 's ut re 1e >1u- ·e- tic of rr- ch to ior )ly re:he ·ou er- 161 blinkered defmition of knowledge that excludes the great works and enterprises of the past. The rejection of testing rests on premises as flawed as the push for "critical thinking skills." Progressives argue that if tests exist, then teachers will "teach to the test"- a bad thing, in their view. But why would "teaching to a test" that asked for, say, the causes of the Civil War be bad for students? Additionally, progressives complain that testing provokes rote memorization-again, a bad thing. One of the most tragically influential education professors today, Columbia's Linda Darling-Hammond, director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, an advocacy group for increased teacher "professionalization," gives a telling example of what she considers a criminally bad test in her hackneyed 1997 brief for progressive education, The Right to Learn. She points disdainfully to the following question from the 1995 New York State Regents Exam in biology (required for high school graduation) as "a rote recall of isolated facts and vocabulary terms": "The tissue which conducts organic food through a vascular plant is composed of: (I) Cambium cells; (2) Xylem cells; (3) Phloem cells; (4) Epidermal cells." Only a know-nothing could be offended by so innocent a question. It never occurs to Darling-Hammond that there may be a joy in mastering the parts of a plant or the organelles of a cell, and that such memorization constitutes learning. Moreover, when, in the progressives' view, will a student ever be held accountable for such knowledge? Does DarlingHammond believe that a student can pursue a career in, say, molecular biology or in medicine without it? And how else will that learning be demonstrated, if not in a test? But of course such testing will produce unequal results, and that is the real target of Darling-Hammond's animus. Once you dismiss real knowledge as the goal of education, you have to find something else to do. That's why the Anything But Knowledge doctrine leads directly to Professor Nelson's odd course. In thousands of education schools across the country, teachers are generating little moments of meaning, which they then subject to instant replay. Educators call this "constructing knowledge," a fatuous label for something that is neither construction nor knowledge but mere game playing. Teacher educators, though, possess a primitive relationship to words. They believe that if they just label something "critical thinking" or "community-building," these activities will magically occur. For all the ed school talk of freedom from the past, teacher education in this century has been more unchanging than Miss Havisham. Like 162 Parents and Teach ers aging vestal virgins, today's schools lovingly guard the ancient flame of progressivism. Since the 1920s they have not had a single new idea; they have merely gussied up old concepts in new rhetoric, most recently in the jargon of minority empowerment. To enter an education classroom, therefore, is to witness a timeless ritual, embedded in an authority structure of unions and state education departments as rigid as the Vatican. It is a didactic ritual as well. The education professor's credo is: As I do unto you, so shall you do unto your students. The education professor "models" how she wants her students to teach by her own classroom methods. Such a practice is based on a glaring fallacy- that methods that work passably well with committed 22-year-olds, paying $1,800 a course for your wisdom, will translate seamlessly to a class of seven- or twelve-year-olds. The Anything But Knowledge credo leaves education professors and their acolytes free to concentrate on far more pressing matters than how to teach the facts of history or the rules of sentence construction. "Community-building" is one of their most urgent concerns. Teacher educators conceive of their classes as sites of profound political engagement, out of which the new egalitarian order will emerge. A case in point is Columbia's required class, "Teaching English in Diverse Social and Cultural Contexts," taught by Professor Barbara Tenney (a pseudonym). "I want to work at a very conscious level with you to build community in this class," Tenney tells her attentive students on the first day of the semester this spring. "You can do it consciously, and you ought to do it in your own classes." Community-building starts by making nameplates for our desks. Then we all fmd a partner to interview about each other's "identity." Over the course of the semester, each student will conduct two more "identity" interviews with different partners. After the interview, the inevitable self-reflexive moment arrives, when Tenney asks: "How did it work?" This is a sign that we are on our way to "constructing knowledge." A hallmark of community-building is its overheated rhetoric. The education professor acts as if she were facing a pack of snarling Serbs and Croats, rather than a bunch of well-mannered young ladies (the vast majority of education students), hoping for a good grade. So the community-building assignments attack nonexistent problems of conflict. Tenney, sporting a black leather miniskirt and a cascade of blond curls, hands out a sheet of paper and asks us to respond to the questions: "What climate would allow you to do your best work? How should a Why Johnny's Teacher Can't Teach 163 class act to encourage open and honest and critical dialogue?" We write for a while, then read our response to our interview partner. Now is this question really necessary, especially for a group of college graduates? Good classroom etiquette is hardly a mystery. In the evil traditional classroom, and probably also at Teachers College, if a student calls another a fathead, thus discouraging "open and honest and critical dialogue," the teacher would simply reprimand him, and everyone would understand perfectly well what just happened and why. Consensus already exists on civil behavior. But the education classroom, lacking a pressing agenda in concrete knowledge, has to "problematize" the most automatic social routines. Of course, no amount of writing about the conditions for "open dialogue" can change the fact that discussion is not open on many issues at Teachers College and other progressive bastions. "If you don't demonstrate the correct point of view," says a student, "people are hostile. There's a herd mentality here." A former student of Tenney's describes the difficulties of dissent from the party line on racism: "There's nothing to be gained from challenging it. If you deny that the system inherently privileges whites, you're 'not taking responsibility for your position in racism.'" Doubtless, it would never occur to Professor Tenney that the problem this student describes impedes community-building. All this artificial "community-building," however gratifying to the professors, has nothing to do with learning. Learning is ultimately a solitary activity: We have only one brain, and at some point we must exercise it in private. One could learn an immense amount about Schubert's lieder or calculus without ever knowing the name of one's seatmate. Such a view is heresy to the education establishment, determined, as Rita Kramer has noted, to eradicate any opportunity for individual accomplishment, with its sinister risk of superior achievement. For the educrats, the group is the irreducible unit of learning. Fueling this principle is the gap in achievement between whites and Asians, on the one hand, and other minorities on the other. Unwilling to adopt the discipline and teaching practices that would help reduce that gap, the education establishment tries to conceal it under group projects. And so the ultimate community-building mechanism is the ubiquitous "collaborative group." No activity is too solitary to escape assignment to a group: writing, reading, researching, thinking- all are better done with many partners, according to educational dogma. If you see an ed school class sitting up in straight rows, call a doctor, because it Parents and Teachers w means the professor has had a heart attack and couldn't arrange the class into groups. For all their "progressive" sympathies, not all ed students like this regime. "I'm a socialist at heart," says one of Tenney's students, establishing her bona fides, "but so...