It's time for schools of education to embrace new routes to teacher certification
They should extend an olive branch to competitors such as Teach for America, and offer college graduates a full year of training before they begin their jobs in the classroom.
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Let's suppose you have spent your career as a professor at an American education school, training future teachers. Then suppose that your state decided that teachers could get certified without attending an education school at all.
That's called "alternative certification," and most of my school of education colleagues are outraged by it.
I take a different view. These new routes into teaching could transform the profession, by attracting the type of student that has eluded education schools for far too long. We should extend an olive branch to our competitors, instead of circling the wagons against them.
The biggest challenger at the moment is Teach for America (TFA), which recruits graduating seniors, mostly from elite colleges, and places them as teachers in public schools following a five-week training course. Last year, a whopping 11% of all Ivy League seniors applied to TFA. It was the No. 1 employer at several other top colleges, including Georgetown and the University of Chicago.
And last month, the New York State Board of Regents voted to let groups like TFA create their own master's degree programs. Until now, in states that require teachers to obtain master's degrees in education, TFA recruits have had to study for the degree at night to become fully certified. But under the new plan, teachers will be able to join the profession without ever setting foot in a school of education.
Other states are sure to follow, spurred in part by the Obama administration. In its recent Race to the Top competition, the federal Department of Education awarded points to states that provide "high-quality pathways for aspiring teachers and principals," including "allowing alternative routes to certification."
So get ready for an explosion of new programs to certify teachers, who will increasingly bypass schools of education. And get ready for another round of breast-beating at American ed schools about how we are being disrespected.
But do we deserve respect? Secretary of Education Arne Duncan noted in a speech last fall that most ed schools are doing a "mediocre job" of preparing teachers. And he was being kind. Of the 1,300 institutions awarding graduate degrees for teaching, Harvard's director of teacher education told a
