Yesterday I posted a story from North Carolina about tweaks to the charter bill SB 337.
This is a correction sent to me by the reporter.
Originally the bill said that those who teach in charter schools did not need any certification.
At present, 75 percent of charter teachers in grades K-5 must be certified teachers, but the revised bill will drop that proportion to 50 percent, not zero.
One of those who was critical of certification requirements was Rep. Larry Pittman. He said he was misquoted in the original post, so the reporter dutifully printed his remarks in full.
Rep. Larry Pittman and his wife were disappointed in the public schools, so they home-schooled their children, who are doing well in college, which apparently goes to prove that no training or preparation or certification is necessary for teachers. Anyone can teach, right?
The link reminds me of the adage attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How long were their children home-schooled? At what point did they begin home-schooling? Did they have any help from perhaps public school educators in the home-schooling? Were there any tutors? How much help were the children receiving at home from the parents before being home-schooled? Here we go again blaming public school educators! Our politicians play this blame game very well, too well.
I am sure all of the above and online tutoring.
I wonder if they invited 27 or so children into their homes to be so well educated. Can I send along one of my EBD students along? I’m sure this family would be excellent at recognizing the signs of and helping this student circumvent a meltdown before he starts throwing desks and breaking things.
Say someone has a degree in English Lit or History or Math, and then a few years down the road they decide they want to teach. How many more credits would they need for certification, and what kind of classes?
Would someone please tell Mr. Moron Larry Pittman that homeschooling your children (a bond that is already forged, between child and parent) is not the same as imparting knowledge on a daily basis to a classroom of 24 children who belong to someone else.
Also, homeschooling does not always require the same bevy of standardized tests and local assessments that public schools do.
Gee, Larry, if you are drinking lots of orange juice every day (in your case, it’s Jonestown Cool-Aid or goblets of fresh phenobarbital) and don’t gain any weight, should we make everyone drink lots of orange juice every day also? Even the already overweight? The diabetic?
What’s good for Larry has to work for everyone else.
Larry Pittman: a bigger narcissist than Ms. foul-mouth, false apologies Paula Dean.
Why do kooks like Pittman keep getting elected in this country? They are so far from the norm. I guess someone out there keeps putting money behind them. Who are these people?
“These people” are very rich people with an agenda who fund his campaign and very stupid people who vote for Mr. Pittman and who are ill and under-informed . . . .
Mr Pittman does not understand that it is the Test-Driven Curriculum from the Department of Education in NC that is the problem.
Not the certified teachers.
This Testing Curriculum has been going on for quite some time in NC.
Long ago before the inundation of the social media, NC teachers were told..
“Cover the Curriculum.”….in other words…”Teach the Test”
NC’s Top Down Department of Education thrives on this this chaotic testing arena…They have 3 major Universities within 20 miles of each other.
They pull from these universities, the PHD’s who have never been in a classroom and get their expert professional advice…
The curriculum is too general…too broad…and no person can teach that many standards in a two-9 wk period.
SO……the teachers COVER…and Test….COVER..and Test..
I would not want my children in any of those schools.
This year was really bad and the children were given the sloppiest tests
The children were used for guinea pigs this entire year.