Scott Walker has a plan. It is called “reform,” but in reality it is destruction. He (acting through the legislature) is holding funding for public schools flat (he wanted to cut it); he is increasing funding for charter schools and vouchers; he is imposing draconian budget cuts on the University of Wisconsin system; and he is lowering standards for entry into teaching. One analysis says the voucher expansion proposal would drain $800 million from public schools over a 10-year period.
Tony Evers, the veteran educator who was elected twice as state superintendent of education, says Wisconsin is in a “race to the bottom.”
Wisconsin has decided to reform its teacher licensing standards—by eliminating them! Anyone with any bachlor’s degree can teach any subject, a change inserted into the state budget without hearings.
Even those without a bachelor’s degree are eligible to teach, as Valerie Strauss notes: “That’s not all. The proposal would require the education department to issue a teaching permit to people who have not — repeat have not — earned a bachelor’s degree, or potentially a high school diploma, to teach in any subject area, excluding the core subjects of mathematics, English, science, and social studies. “The only requirement would be that the public school or district or private voucher school determines that the individual is proficient and has relevant experience in the subject they intend to teach. And, the department would not be permitted to add requirements.”
Politico.com says that high school dropouts moght be eligible to teach middle school and high school under the legislative plan to drop standards.
The state Department of Public Instruction released this critique of the latest assault on the teaching profession.
Governor Scott Walker and his allies in the Legislature are working full-time to privatize public education and destroys he teaching profession. State Superintendent Tony Evers made these statements. He is a hero for standing up fearlessly to the know-nothings, joins the blog’s honor roll as a champion of education.
His office issued this blast:
“Legislative action slides teacher licensing standards toward the bottom”
“MADISON — Major changes to teacher licensing voted into the 2015-17 state budget, without a hearing, puts Wisconsin on a path toward the bottom, compared to the nation, for standards required of those who teach at the middle and high school level.
“Adopted as a K-12 omnibus motion by the Joint Committee on Finance (JFC), the education package deregulates licensing standards for middle and high school teachers across the state. The legislation being rolled into the biennial budget would require the Department of Public Instruction to license anyone with a bachelor’s degree in any subject to teach English, social studies, mathematics, and science. The only requirement is that a public school or school district or a private choice school determines that the individual is proficient and has relevant experience in each subject they teach. Traditional licensure requires educators in middle and high school to have a bachelor’s degree and a major or minor in the subject they teach, plus completion of intensive training on skills required to be a teacher, and successful passage of skills and subject content assessments.
“Additionally, the JFC motion would require the DPI to issue a teaching permit for individuals who have not earned a bachelor’s degree, or potentially a high school diploma, to teach in any subject area, excluding the core subjects of mathematics, English, science, and social studies. The only requirement would be that the public school or district or private voucher school determines that the individual is proficient and has relevant experience in the subject they intend to teach. For both provisions in the JFC motion, the DPI would not be able to impose any additional requirements. This may preclude the fingerprinting and background checks required of all other licensed school staff. The standard also is lower than that currently required for teachers in choice and charter schools, who must have at least a bachelor’s degree.
“We are sliding toward the bottom in standards for those who teach our students,” said State Superintendent Tony Evers. “It doesn’t make sense. We have spent years developing licensing standards to improve the quality of the teacher in the classroom, which is the most important school-based factor in improving student achievement. Now we’re throwing out those standards.”
“Currently, all 50 states require a beginning teacher to have a bachelor’s degree for traditional licensure, with a narrow exception for career and technical education teachers (Georgia). The states have differing standards for alternative routes to licensure, generally requiring major content coursework or a test in lieu of coursework for individuals to be eligible for an alternate route to earn a teaching license.
“Wisconsin has several routes for career changers, who want to teach our elementary and secondary school students, to earn a teaching license through alternative programs,” Evers noted. “Emergency permits allow them to work under supervision while completing educator preparation program requirements. Each alternative route program ensures that candidates are supported and are ready to do the job independently when they complete alternative licensing requirements.”
Under provisions of the omnibus motion, the leaders of 424 public school districts, 23 independent public charter schools (2R charters), and potentially hundreds of private choice schools would determine who is qualified to teach in their schools. Current provisions of the JFC motion would restrict these licenses to teaching at the district or school that recommended the individual for licensure.
“Learning about how children develop, managing a classroom and diffusing conflict among students, working with parents, and developing engaging lessons and assessments that inform instruction — these are the skills our aspiring educators learn in their training programs,” Evers said. “Teaching is much more than being smart in a subject area.
“This motion presents a race to the bottom,” Evers said. “It completely disregards the value of the skills young men and women develop in our educator training programs and the life-changing experiences they gain through classroom observation and student teaching. This JFC action is taking Wisconsin in the wrong direction. You don’t close gaps and improve quality by lowering standards.”
It makes you wonder if the “reformers” in Wisconsin plan to deregulate other professions, so anyone can be a doctor or a lawyer or whatever they want, without professional education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education and commented:
I wrote something similar about Texas and former governor Little Ricky Perry.
https://davidrtayloreducation.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/take-us-down-captain-nemo-perry-dive-dive-dive/
“high school dropouts”. Not surprising. Gates, a college dropout, peddles “school-in-a-box.” (Non-Profit Quarterly).
If author, Malcolm Gladwell is correct, Gates amassed his fortune, as a result of skills he obtained by unauthorized use of tax-funded computers, at a bricks and mortar, publicly- funded university.
The meaning of the words hypocrisy, free market vs. monopoly, democracy vs. oligarchy, and philanthropy vs.vulture “charity”, must be conceptual understandings, unfamiliar to drop-outs .
Reblogged this on History Chick in AZ and commented:
I think Tony Evers description says it best: Wisconsin is in a “race to the bottom.”
Perhaps we should be grateful to Scott Walker, since he so brazenly reveals one of the primary objectives of the so-called reformers, which is that despite their deceptive and insipid gushing about the importance of “great teachers,” what they really want is cheap, fungible teachers.
Cheap, fungible teachers for cheap, fungible future proles… why, it’s the Civil Rights Movement of Our Time.
Is Walker competing with Cuomo to see who can be the most destructive governor when it comes to the education of children?
Scott Walker’s Pyrrhic Warfare on Public Education in Wisconsin is a no-win situation—everyone loses except the CEO’s of the corporate Charters that will end up stuffing their bank accounts with the tax payers money when the public schools are gone.
We can see what little respect some people have for teachers. There have always been those who think teachers are worthless losers.
When I became teacher, I was proud to be of service to my state and community.
But, I was met with perpetual ignorance. My own brother put me down for being a teacher. Even with all I accomplished over the years and after touching so many lives in positive ways, I was never able to feel like I really had the impact I wanted to have, because ignorant, uneducated, as well as haughty “know it alls” generally had unreasonable ideas an presumptions about education.
Scott Walker is a perfect example of the misguided big mouths out there undermining public education.
Everyone who has had a physical should suddenly become a medical expert. I hear the same. It is a deep anti-intellectualism in America. When and where I went to school, being good at math was hazardous to your health. Yet, politicians reflect a largely ignorant populace. I’ve given up trying to defend reason and teaching. When my daughter was 13 she worked at a youth camp. Several mothers started complaining on how those teachers are using common core and how they keep testing their kids. One mother said she was going to complain to the school board about her kid’s teacher because of common core lessons. My young daughter (politely) educated them about federal standards. The moms were speechless.
Is Scott Walker the McCarthy of our time? If so, who will stop his rampage, his Shermanesque march to the sea?
“McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. It also means “the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism.”
There are more articles coming about his McCarthy-esque stint in college before he dropped out. Apparently, he went after fellow students. Maybe we will find the real reason he left school. That is one thing about running for president. No where to hide behind handlers. Can’t wait for the debates.
Kind of like the John Birch Society. Small wonder considering his close ties to the foundation left by Milwaukees founding member of the JBS, Harry Bradley.
It makes me wonder if Cuomo is going to try this idea next year….he doesn’t seem to have met a reformy idea he didn’t like…
I always wanted to try my hand at being a shop teacher – young children with power tools….what could go wrong? I’ve done some DIY stuff at home so I’m proficient in the areas of wood and metal working.
It’s safe to say that this bill goes further than eliminates licensing requirements by making them open to virtually anyone.
It de-professionalizes teaching and lowers it to the level of McDonald’s cashier – no experience needed – apply within – call this number now. It will effectively wipe out all the value of teachers who invested in learning to teach and glut the market with people who all want to try to be teachers – so there will be no teacher shortage if they get more draconian with their policies.
They want people who don’t know any better, who can’t fight back, who will be scared to organize or not care enough to do so, and who enter teaching because they are incompetent in other areas, not because they care about children and will open the door to nepotism and abuse at all levels – since now there’s no excuse not to hire my drop out nephew who needs a job.
TFA on steroids without the middleman fee and without the few weeks of training or even attempting to get the “best and brightest”. Maybe they’re simply trying to churn through every unemployed person in the state they can get to teach so as to sort the wheat from the chaff and end up with the best teaching force because of course, no one could get and maintain a job as a teacher if they weren’t good.
Let’s move on to reciprocity – will other states take Wisconsin’s license now? So will teachers currently licensed in Wisconsin be able to get a job elsewhere – many states do have requirements that out of state licenses have to meet similar in-state requirements – but there are some like Missouri
“The State of Missouri is currently considered an “open” state. That means that as long as you hold a valid and active teaching certificate from any other state in the United States, Missouri will accept that certificate in transfer and will issue you the certificate that is most similar in Missouri without any additional coursework or credit hours. In order to transfer a valid certificate from another state to Missouri, you need to visit the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) website and download the “out of state packet””
http://www.missouristate.edu/certification/transferfromoutofstate.htm
It brings up an kind of interesting scenario where you could go to Wisconsin to get your license, teach for a bit, then move to a state with stricter requirements but would honor the license through reciprocity though most states do require some kind of exam be passed like Praxis – but not too shabby a deal if you want to avoid some cumbersome requirements for some states that just require a test with licensing.
The ramifications for this could stretch way beyond Wisconsin…it would seem no matter how you solve that problem except by more strictly defining requirements in other states, you either end up de-valuing Wisconsin licensure so teachers are unemployable elsewhere or else it creates a loop hole in state licensure elsewhere.
““The State of Missouri is currently considered an “open” state. That means that as long as you hold a valid and active teaching certificate from any other state in the United States, Missouri will accept that certificate in transfer and will issue you the certificate that is most similar in Missouri without any additional coursework or credit hours.”
From my experience with talking with many transfer from out of state teachers, the Show Me State does not operate like that at all. Almost everyone, if not everyone has complained that Missouri did not accept their credentials and experience without additional course work, credit hours, “professional development”-as much of a joke that that means in Missouri. I know of no one who did not have to do extra to get credentialed in MO. They have gotten temporary permits but had to complete the required work in less than two years if I’m not mistaken.
This proposal is an insult to professional teachers everywhere as well as an insult to our nation’s young people.
Why isn’t there a massive protest across the State of Wisconsin?
Because people are endlessly uninformed. Plus, most Midwest jobs pay little so they’re too busy exhausting themselves to make ends meet.
Indeed, they are uniformed and tired. What about the union leadership?
It’s too bad the people had enough energy to put this Koch Brothers’ puppet in charge of their state.
We’re exhausted in other ways too. We did the massive protest thing in 2011 — collected nearly a million signatures to recall Gov. Walker — and saw all our hard work swept away in a tsunami of out-of-state campaign cash. Then to add insult to injury, the recall signatures were entered into a searchable database and have been used as a blacklist ever since… We need some hope that raising our voices will actually count for something at some point, because right now we are drowning and our screams are ignored.
The teachers in Wisconsin are heroes!! they need our help and our support. They were leading the way a few short years ago.
We will overcome
Who controls the media controls the propaganda. If the people are not informed, there will be little or no protest, and 90% of the traditional media is owned and controlled by six corporations and/or six men/women who are very wealthy and powerful.
A media free of government control does not mean an honest and balanced media. How is a corporate tyrant like Rupert Murdock different from a dictator like Hitler, Stalin, Assad, Mao or Saddam Hussein? Murdock controls the 2nd largest media empire in the world reaching a global audience that numbers in the hundreds of millions, and according to surveys about half of the people trust what they hear from the news or biased talking heads they listen to.
All the reformers need is enough votes from people they fool the win. It only takes one more vote than the opposition.
My previous reply is the same here: Where is the union leadership?
What teachers’ union are you talking about? There are about 14,000 branches that represent the teachers who work in individual school districts. Then there are the teachers’ unions at each state level—unless you teach in one of the 25 “right to work and be a labor slave state” where unions are either gone or on their way out, and then there are the national teachers’ unions. A Right to Work law guarantees that no person can be compelled, as a condition of employment, to join or not to join, nor to pay dues to a labor union
You might want to rad “How Strong Are U.S. Teacher Unions? A State-By-State Comparison published by the Fordham Institute from October 2012.
http://edexcellence.net/publications/how-strong-are-us-teacher-unions.html
Or this on on “Teachers Unions: The 5 Strongest and the 5 Weakest in America” also from October 2012.
http://www.takepart.com/photos/5-strongest-and-5-weakest-teacher-unions-country/teacher-unions-how-they-compare
Take into account that these lists might have changed since 2012.
We have the same problem potentially brewing in Illinois, and the IEA/ IFT leaderships are reticent.
Union leaders will lead when we give them the power. They can’t do it without us.
Our union leaders play a very important role, but the actual leaders, in any movement, are the unsung heroes who are not in it for the money, the fame, or the glory.
Our hostess, for example, is one of the unsung heroes!
Glen Brown,
Where’s the union leadership?
They’re busy “collaborating” with Gates and Broad, and shilling for the Common Core.
Since there are so many teachers’ unions (thousands), I’d agree that some of the leadership is “busy “collaborating” with Gates and Broad [especially at the national level], and shilling for the Common Core”, but not all of the teachers’ unions.
For instance, even the nationals might be waking up:
The American Federation of Teachers will open its annual convention Friday morning with a startling announcement: After years of strongly backing the Common Core, the union now plans to give its members grants to critique the academic standards — or to write replacement standards from scratch.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/american-federation-of-teachers-common-core-108793.html#ixzz3bdzwgAuO
Nation’s biggest teachers union slams ‘botched’ Common Core implementation
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/national-education-association-common-core-103690.html#ixzz3be02cKoz
The Common Core opposition, however, includes some traditional allies of the Obama administration, including parent-teacher organizations in a state that voted overwhelmingly for the president’s re-election, and the National Education Association (NEA), one of the country’s most powerful teachers’ unions.
http://www.usnews.com/news/special-reports/a-guide-to-common-core/articles/2014/02/27/who-is-fighting-against-common-core
Chicago Teachers Union passes resolution opposing Common Core
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/05/09/chicago-teachers-union-passes-resolution-opposing-common-core/
Another Teachers Union Speaks Out Against Common Core
When Common Core standards first passed in 2010, teachers unions were cautiously optimistic. After a glimpse of their implementation, however, that enthusiasm quickly began to sour. In 2014, the National Education Association, which once supported the standards, launched unambiguous criticism against the program, calling its rollout “completely botched.”
Now, another union is coming out against the standards. The New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), which represents nearly 200,000 teachers, is arguing that a parents should have the right to opt their children out of the Common Core aligned testing requirements known as PARCC.
http://www.freedomworks.org/content/another-teachers-union-speaks-out-against-common-core
All across the nation, teacher unions at the state and local level are joining parents, students and teachers in an unprecedented uprising against the massive unfair, inappropriate and discriminatory Common Core testing scheme.
http://jonathanpelto.com/2015/05/10/will-anything-convince-connecticuts-teacher-unions-to-join-the-common-core-opt-out-movement/
“Where is the [education] union leadership?
I think there is an oxymoron in that question.
I see what you mean. The unions don’t control public education so they are not the leaders of education. In fact, during the thirty years I was a teacher, the local union I belonged to had no influence over curriculum and how we taught. The biggest influence over that came from the state, the district administration and the principal of each school, and the success came from students who worked or didn’t work.
All I remember is the union fighting for teachers when the district attempted to add more hours and responsibilities to our already heavy work load in addition to negotiating a raise when more money came through from the state while struggling to protect our health benefits.
The state retirement system came from the state legislature and the governor. I’m sure the state teachers’ unions probably lobbied to get the best legislation possible, but still it comes down to a vote in the state legislature and must survive a governor’s veto. I don’t think the teachers’ unions have ever been as powerful as ALEC is right now.
“I don’t think the teachers’ unions have ever been as powerful as ALEC is right now.”
Quite correct Lloyd-nowhere near as powerful/influential.
You have seen the future. Teaching is not a good job any more. Places like Wisconsin will need wrong-headed policies like this to put an adult in the classroom. (Note: I did not say teacher.) Enrollment in ed programs are down everywhere. Young people don’t want a career in teaching. Media bashing of teachers is endless. Budgets are reduced to nothing. Pay is worsening and benefits are decreasing.
There is no appeal in starting a career in teaching now. It is about to be a low-paying job (not career) that people will assume until they get a better job. They will never last lng enough for a pension or meaningful 401(k). There will be no legacy costs. Privatizers will make a fortune on the backs of educator Walmart wages.
See how it’s all coming to fruition? And all the reformers had to do was say “failing public schools” enough times. That’s it. Back to the Gilded Age everyone!
Where is the union leadership? You are obviously not aware of Scott Walker’s Act 10, which was the reason for the protests and recall action in the first place. Public unions are all but destroyed in this state. A blacklist indeed! I have had parents check the recall records and bring it up in a conference. I am so ready to leave this state. I was ready to take the six credits I need to renew my license, but why should I? Shouldn’t it just be renewed automatically because of my life experience?
K, Audiologists, pharmacists, physicians must pursue credits to maintain their licenses–which are not automatically renewed for life experience.
I have my classes all lined up. I am not saying I don’t want to take classes to renew my license. I have been teaching for thirty years and have a graduate degree in reading and language arts. It is just frustrating to be doing this when, very shortly, anyone with an undergraduate degree (or maybe not) and a friend in administration or on the school board will be able to obtain a license with very little effort. I think the eventual plan is to abolish the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. The morale is very low among the public school teachers I know.
I am very depressed. I told people this would hapoen. They scoffed.
F***THIS!!! BOYCOTT!!! GAME F****** ON!!!
Unfortunately. Democrats can’t compete on education at the state level in the midwest because their approach is identical to that of Mr. Walker.
What are they going to say? “They’re hostile to your schools so vote for us! We’re agnostics!”
They’re basically irrelevant on public schools in state after state, and they don’t seem to care. I think they probably have to start losing OH, MI, WI and IL in national elections before they notice they have absolutely no influence in this “movement” they decided to tag along behind. Now that it’s full steam ahead Walker and the rest don’t need them anymore.
This is scary Gov. Cuomo is doing the same thing. The % of students in Charter schools is so small compared to the % in public schools. These are scary people who really don’t care about the population they serve.
WI used to have such high teaching standards that most people with a Il teaching degree couldn’t get a job there. I’d love to live in WI, it is beautiful and has some really nice people…but not now (ironically, because I might actually be able to teach there with my IL degree if this passes).
I have come to the conclusion that the Republican Party and selected Demo Republicans have created a well planned destruction of real education, in order to dumb down and control the US population. The oligarchy that wants to maintain its financial aristocracy and control over our government for its own self interest.
You create tests that are way above the student’s heads giving no information about how to improve learning outcomes. You evaluate and blame teachers because the students can’t master the content (in the name of higher standards, but don’t allow teachers to see where the weak areas are). Through this, you make sure you destroy unions of some of our most educated citizens, costing them their jobs……After that, you begin to dumb down requirements to teach…….4 year degree, 2 year degree, high school diploma………Make sure you script EXACTLY what you want the students to know )(all created by the same testing companies owned and contracted with, by the states, whose politicians are funded by the top 1%………And voila! You have created a brand new race to the bottom….intentionally…….brilliantly conceived, and smoke screened under the guise of higher standards.
This will allow less science to be taught, less critical thinking, less creativity, less exploration of subjects and selves. It will subjugate our population into submission without their ever knowing it. Insidious, masterful…..and at this point…….tipping in a very precarious way, unless the general public realizes the scam going on.
PP, Watching the Newark, NJ students as they have protested state-appointed Superintendent Cami Anderson’s actions gives me faith that it’s not so easy to “dumb down” the population. Read Newark Students Union Facebook page, Bob Braun’s Ledger, Jersey Jazzman.
There’s another charter funding blitz coming to Ohio:
“College Hill resident Leonard Dean is a CPS parent and serves on the Cincinnati Public School District’s Discipline Committee. Kennedy Heights resident Michelle Dillingham is a parent of a CPS graduate and a member of the Woodford Elementary School’s Local School Decision-Making Committee.
We are parents, and we have questions about a proposed education “accelerator.” The Enquirer reported last week that a group of funders including the Cincinnati Business Committee and the Farmer Family Foundation plan to spend $25 million to operate new charter schools in Cincinnati.
This sounds like a lot of money, but really this is small change when it comes to opening and operating a new school. A question we have is, who will end up funding the continued operation of these schools? Our school district already has to send money to charter schools and pay for their busing. They operate as private companies, and there is no transparency, no accountability, no requirements for parent and community involvement, and no fiscal oversight of these schools. How will building more of these schools benefit our “poorest students”?
I’m so happy that after 17 years of ed reform in Ohio someone is finally asking good questions. With all the ed reform politicians and their staffs and the 500 ed reform orgs you’d think someone would ask who will pick up the continued funding for these “gifts”?
I don’t know-can we pass the hat and hire an advocate? These parents are probably busy with their jobs. I don’t know why they’re doing the job of lawmakers.
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/contributors/2015/05/21/better-time-accelerator-launch/27734273/
This move is, unfortunately, in no way surprising. There were already 11 other alternative licensure programs in the state, but the push at the state level has been on ways to get more and more non-traditional programs in the mix. On top of that, the EdTPA is required of those in teacher licensure programs, but until the last year it was unclear if those coming into teaching from other routes would have to complete the assessment. The irony now is that those with a college major in a subject area and education coursework will need the EdTPA while those who graduate with a degree and all of a sudden decide they need a degree will be held to a lesser standard than those with more preparation. If this goes through, the need of education programs at universities will drop considerably.
Please note, this was a push made in the legislature on Wednesday night with no open debate. Since it hit the wires late Wednesday night, there has been mobilization, but knowing that mobilization did nothing in 2010, hopes are not high. Not all republicans in the legislature support this move. The question will be whether or not they are willing to stop the budget because of it.
Edit: “while those who graduate with a a degree and all of a sudden decide to teach will be held to a lesser standard…”
I’ve seen so many changes in my 30 years of teaching. It is ugly and toxic now. Honestly, I think the best years of teaching are forever behind us. As far as Scott Walker goes, how in the world did he get governor without at least a Bachelor’s degree? No one is going to spend $100,000 or more on a degree to be threatened to be fired every 3 years on the basis of a vague rubric. No one. From what I have observed, it is not going to be hard for a good teacher to be rated “ineffective” on the rubric. They are making teachers accountable for variables we have no control over. I mourn for the loss of a great career. I mourn for our young teachers.
Don’t mourn… organize!! Listen to Joe Hill
http://www.folkways.si.edu/dont-mourn-organize-songs-of-labor-songwriter-joe-hill/american-folk-celtic-struggle-protest/music/album/smithsonian
For those of us who thought the K-12 omnibus was the entirety of the legislature’s assault of public education, the Joint Finance Committee added an additional serving today by injecting a massive charter school expansion into the UW System omnibus.
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/local_schools/gop-proposes-letting-uw-system-authorize-charter-schools/article_13366561-ff7a-5201-b4de-ce2acca5ef01.html
In addition to what has been mentioned regarding the proposed licensing changes, the measure would also prohibit the Wisconsin DPI from conducting criminal background checks on applicants for these new alternative licenses.
I predicted that once the GOP (and quite a few Dems) got done decimating K-12 public ed, they’d turn their sights to public higher ed, starting with the Colleges of Education. My grad school professors pooh-poohed my prediction even as they embraced NCLB and blamed K-12 teachers for not preparing kids properly for college and unions for protecting “bad” teachers. Looks like my prediction was correct. Wisconsin is evidence, as well as the massive cuts to higher ed by Arizona and Louisiana. I saw a tweet tonight from one of my former professors bemoaning the changes to tenure in Wisconsin and how he sees that coming to his institution soon, and I was tempted to send back a “told you so”.
Just curious–will individual districts in WI have enough qualified applicants that they won’t need to hire candidates lacking teacher education? Example, in NJ decades ago Catholic schools were able to hire certified teachers even though they didn’t have to–just because there were so many certified teachers available.
Public schools will always be “mediocre” as judged by test scores because our population is and will always be “mediocre” on average. But we sound like defeatists and losers if we say this. So Walker et. al. have us over a barrel. “Excellence” can only be obtained by winnowing out the sub-par students the way KIPP and private schools do, but the reformers will never acknowledge this truth since their real aim is busting unions and extending the dominion of their sacred free market.
There may be some upsides to Walker’s abolition of credentialing requirements: much of what education schools preach is cant. Under the current regime, pedagogical “science” is greatly overvalued; content mastery is undervalued. I like the idea of young teachers getting to bypass the kind of harmful brainwashing my education school professors inflicted on me. On the other hand, the vastly expanded pool of prospective teachers will drive wages and benefits even lower. To me, credentialing’s greatest benefit for the profession has been in restricting the supply of teachers. Medical schools’ cap on enrollees serves the same function: it keeps salaries high.
Diane’s and nearly everyone else’s (including WI DPI’s) hyperbole and distortions about the actual provisions are extremely unfortunate, pretty pathetic actually.
First, here’s is the *actual* document that no one seems to want to link to so people can, you know, read it unflitered for themselves: h
Click to access Tues%20K12%20Edu%20Omnibus%2051915.pdf
Now, here’s how the provisions will actually be used:
Overall: only by rural districts not nearby a city who cannot find a certified teacher. Think Wisconsin Northwoods.
Now:
FOR NON-CORE SUBJECTS
Currently, a person with an associates degree in welding from a Wisconsin Tech College and who has taught welding for 15 years at a Wisc tech college does not qualify to apply for a position to teach it at the local high school, simply because he has no bachelor degree.
The alternative for rural districts? They don’t have welding classes. Sorry, take another art class.
How does that make sense? How, Diane?? Pray tell.
FOR CORE SUBJECTS
Currently, after a district has unsuccessfully sought to hire a certified teacher in a subject, it may have a teacher certified in another subject teach a subject for which he or he is not certified. The district then requests Emergency Certification for the teacher…and then Coach Brown gets to brush up on his Algebra while trying to teach it to the kids.
Under the new provision, a rural district will have another option beyond the Emergency License.
Instead of bringing in Coach Brown, they bring in Ms. Judy, the Teacher’s Aid who has been tutoring and helping teach math lessons at the district and in the same grade for 8 years.
So, Diane, how does it not make sense to offer districts this sort of option? Why would you want to make this call for them? Why should we not leave it up to them, since they are the ones who know their own on-ground situation best? Do pray tell.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t the “reformies” want “the best and brightest”? So then why let just anyone with a degree ( or not) become a teacher? At least I went through an extra year and a half AFTER my B.A. in English to become certificated. I think Scott Walker was the kid on the playground who got smacked around and this is his way of getting back at the teachers who didn’t protect him. Plus, his business vision is skewed; but that’s another comment later on.
I wonder how much value Wisconsin real estate just lost in one day (and how much harder it just became to lure or keep middle-class professionals in/to Wisconsin
Ms. Ravitch, I love your writing and your support for public ed. Please proof read, you have so many typos in these blogs lately! So many people share your thoughts across social media. As I read, I get stuck on the typos. Keep up the great work. Thanks!
Jenny G.,
Sorry about the typos. I write most posts speedily on a tiny cell phone, although that is not a good excuse. I am actually a stickler for spelling, grammar, and syntax. I will try to catch more typos before I hit publish.