The somber sounding "licensing and certification regulations" are formal statements of what sort of teachers you in the community want.  Over the long term they set the floor for teaching skills and are useful for measuring school system progress.

But occasionally they can have short term consequences too — like keeping and finding good teachers. (more...)

The State Board of Education is working to change the licensing and certification requirements so that eventually we move from measuring credentials — how many courses, degrees or "seat time" a candidate has amassed — to measures of effectiveness, such as student achievement.

What's a "highly qualified teacher?"

The Federal No Child Left Behind law requires a "highly qualified teacher" educator in every classroom.  Under this law, each school system is left to define the term.

Federal funds are available to school systems that seem to have a suitable definition.  Therefore, this definition is a good starting point for improving any school system.

How does a definition of "highly qualified" translate into licensing and certification standards?

Painfully, I'm afraid.

The DC school system tried writing really stringent requirements for credentials.  Teachers had to have a bachelor's degree in the same exact field as they taught.

At first blush that seems quite reasonable.  If your subject didn't excite and interest you throughout your education, how could you be expected to build enthusiasm and fire the imaginations of your students?  Besides, ill-informed dilettantes have no business in our school system.

The problem is that teachers, like many of us, develop considerable expertise and new skills long after leaving college.  A physicist may end up with a career in aviation or theoretical mathematics.  An English major may transfer grammar and syntax skills to computer languages.  And could anyone argue against the value of students experiencing a cross-discipline approach to problem solving in the classroom?

What happened was that the stringent credential requirements had unintended consequences.  As a practical matter the requirements really limited who could even apply for a teaching position in the District of Columbia.  To make matters worse, the requirements were forcing out proven and accomplished teachers whose education credentials weren't the required perfect match.  (more...)

But we can't let just anyone teach our kids.  Clearly the requirements for teachers need to be changed, but to what?  And what unintended consequences might the new requirements have?

So the Board had to do a lot of listening.  The result is to continue to give credentials the weight they deserve, but recognize that, in the "real world" you and I live in, it's what you're able to do with the students that really matters.

OK, what am I doing?

Well, here's an example.

Together with several of my colleagues on the State Board I participated in a working group on educator quality hosted by State Superintendent Deborah Gist.  The group included deans of several local colleges of education, DCPS officials, charter-school principals, representatives from nonprofit teaching groups and other education experts as well as members of the OSSE staff.  Click here for a short report on what we're doing.

It's no different from the way you and I make major decisions for our families.  We read.  We ask friends and neighbors.  We get in touch with experts.  We look at what others have done.  After a while, we become something of an expert in cell phones, medicine, washing machines, barbecue grills, vacuum cleaners -- and education.

Return to home page