David Safier writes in the Tucson Weekly about Arizona’s new idea to address its teacher shortage: Hire unqualified people to teach! He calls this “A Certifiable Strategy.”
He writes:
“Get ready for the first of a new breed of teachers in Arizona’s public schools this year. They haven’t taken any education courses. They haven’t worked on their teaching skills in front of students. All they have is a bachelor’s degree. Actually, if they’ve spent five years working in a field that’s relevant to subjects taught in middle school or high school, they don’t even need a bachelor’s. A high school diploma will do. Or a GED. Hell, if you read the law passed during the last legislative session literally, they could be elementary school dropouts and teach.
“But their lack of teaching qualifications isn’t what makes them a new breed. Except for the elementary school dropouts, all those people could teach in Arizona’s public schools on a temporary basis before the new teacher credentialing law went into effect. The difference is, for the first time, they will be presented with the newly minted Subject Matter Expert Standard Teaching Certificate, making them full fledged, credentialed teachers who can teach until they retire if they wish without ever taking an education course or having their proficiency in subject matter formally assessed.
“The Subject Matter Expert Standard Teaching Certificate effectively de-professionalizes public school teaching in Arizona. It’s the Un-credential. It’s like the certificates little kids get when they participate in “everyone gets an award” races. If you gave your teenage babysitter a Child Management Certificate when she or he walks through your front door, it would mean as much. It’s a teaching credential granted for showing up, yet it’s the equivalent of a standard teaching certificate people earn by going through a teacher preparation program, passing subject matter and professional knowledge exams and teaching for two years.”
Safier writes that Arizona’s low bar for entering teaching was already low; now it has fallen to the ground.
Some way to “reform” education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
But I’m guessing that there is wording (in the very fine print) that the certification is ONLY good in the state of Arizona? Let the fake teachers try to cross state lines to get a better paycheck and benefits and see what happens (can you say Trump U!).
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Once again, unless teachers become more active, act the way nurses act, this will continue to take place!
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Yes; right on target. WHERE is the teacher leadership/activism? The Nurses’ union has been a great role model.
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Arizona got its marching orders from the Koch brothers. These two could care less about education for the 98%. They resent paying taxes to educate the proletariat. Hence, teaching will be like working at a fast food restaurant, not a middle class career. It is unfortunate that the evil brothers can buy so many representatives to enact a bad policy that makes no sense for the future of the state. We need to work to get the money out of politics. Arizona is the right wing laboratory of the Koch brothers. http://www.alternet.org/education/arizona-turning-one-big-right-wing-laboratory-koch-brothers
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All alternate certification paths should be banned. What other career allows anyone with a degree in whatever (i.e. basket weaving) to become certified and work. This in itself is a clear cut sign that teaching isn’t respected and thus not regarded as a professional career. I blame the Unions for allowing this B.S. but of course the NEA ,AFT ect. are only concerned with protecting their cushy little do nothing jobs and could care less about the plight of the teachers they are paid to represent.
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BINGO…I can see it clearly and I’m not even a teacher.
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Arizona had to come up with a plan to fill the teacher shortage they have had for YEARS! It has long been accepted that college credit can be earned for previous life and job experience. Why not take advantage of that in the classroom?
There is no guarantee that such a change will begin to close the teacher shortage, but the state is trying. I know of plenty of certified teachers I definitely would NOT want teaching my kids or grandkids.
Granted, if you get someone well versed in a particular subject and experienced in its real world application the kids might get a reality check that some in education and the media don’t want them to have. Personally I think the shake up could be good for educators. They get all consumed in their way of doing things they have lost touch with real world applications of subject matter.
Instead of just theoretical application of ideas, students will now get some practical application to go along with the theoretical.
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” It has long been accepted that college credit can be earned for previous life and job experience.”
You’ll have to give me a for-instance on that. I know of no reputable college or university that allows someone to come in and say, “I worked as a __________” and then gives that person college credit.
Anyway, I’m curious, have you ever actually tried to teach? [Personally, I’m down for a week after just one day of volunteering in my kids’ classes.] Assuming not, what gives you the right to opine on what would be good for teachers? Do you opine on what would be good for doctors too? I mean, do you think that they too could benefit from the shake up of competition from untrained “professionals” filling their ranks?
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Yes, I have spent time in classrooms. I have taught gifted preschoolers all the way up to individual senior management at companies like Boeing. I missed my high school graduation ceremony because I was hired by a private school in NYC to teach and run their summer program.
Back in the seventies I was part of the first group to create life experience substitution for college credit. Over the years I have written lots of training materials on a variety of subjects for all age groups and showed others how to do it on their own.
Open yourselves up to the world around you. If you fail to see the good and bad in something you are no “teacher”. A teacher is not the source of education, they are a tool for knowledge. Your greatest gift to a student is your ability to show them how to search for knowledge on their own and look for the pros and cons so they learn how to make informed decisions.
This focus has been disappearing from the classroom over the last fifty plus years. This is how creative individuals flourish, but in today’s classroom, learning is more like a horse with blinders. There is little, if any, variation of thought. You are expected to walk the line. Don’t ask questions … Don’t rock the boat … stifling and not conducive to free and thoughtful exchange of ideas to allow individuals to grow.
Maybe if we get some real business people, or some that have spent time manufacturing we might see some improvement in our declining education numbers. Sure you can teach math. But can you give any realistic application to students? How many math teachers have ever applied math to say the operation of a NC MILLING MACHINE? Or, used those math skills to build a business … making better pillows, or better donuts? Stop looking down your nose at things you know nothing about. Get those kids to THINKING CREATIVELY.
In the early days of programming computers everything was based off the “IF … THEN” statement. Can you imagine if that question was applied to a classroom topic for research and discussion? Topic … climate change and wind turbines. Thinking beyond the deaths to the eagle population ask the following questions – if we replaced 1/4 of our electrical production through conventional means and used wind turbines what would be the outcome in twenty to fifty years? Keep in mind each turbine needs fifteen acres for efficient operation. Hint – to produce that much power it would take TWICE the entire land mass of the U.S. No room for people at that point. Then Is wind power as consistent as conventional power – no it is not always windy.
Can you begin to see how our students need to be thinking, as opposed to how they are currently being indoctrinated? We need to give them tools to solve the issues that will arise in the future, not that satisfy some mantra of the day.
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Oh yea, I do have opinions about the shortcomings of the model of healthcare having been usurped by big pharma and subsequently the education of new doctors being underwritten by same!
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Whole lot of words that have absolutely nothing to do with what I asked, but you can’t even give me one for-instance of a reputable college or university that accepts life or job experience for college credit.
Thought so.
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As I have always told my students and kids … you learn nothing if I do the work for you.
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There are 2,900 ACCREDITED programs that accept life experience for some credits. Programs vary as do the names used to identify them.
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Not in NY state!
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CUNY is one.
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OMG! Where to begin with the latest pile of horse balderdash from Linda Giffin. She is putting down wind power because it supposedly is killing off eagles. This is pure bunkum. More birds are killed by common house cats than wind turbines. Birds are killed by all the aircraft in the skies, should we stop aviation? No one is saying that wind turbines alone are the solution to our energy needs. It’s the whole portfolio of renewable energy that can replace fossil fuels and nuclear energy at some point in the future. Wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, tidal, etc. Wind and solar technology are improving every day and the intermittency of wind or solar can be overcome by new storage technologies. Wind turbines can be designed to mitigate any bird kills but it’s not the big problem that Linda is trying to push. Birds are also killed off by all the pollution generated by fossil fuels, not to mention the pollution created by the extraction processes of fossil fuels.
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You missed the point and stopped where I suggested you go beyond. I was trying to get you to look beyond the eagles. Instead that is all you focused on.
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Actually, New York State does accept the CLEP exam in specific areas of study as a substitute for some college course work. http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/DHR/TeacherPrincipalSchoolProfessionals/ProfessionalDevelopment/College+Level+Examination+Program+CLEP.htm
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It’s funny how right-wingers think they can make a claim and expect others to back it up for them, as if your claim is my homework. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way, as you should know if you’ve actually ever taught anything anywhere.
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I don’t think that there are that many certified teachers out there that should not be teaching kids. Don’t blame the teachers….blame the curriculum that they are mandated to teach and blame the politicians that place undue burden (paperwork,testing) upon the teaching community. I really abhor when I hear parents talk of bad teachers. No one goes into a career that pays so little for so much work to do such a poor job. I know there are a few….but not nearly what you are trying to portray. You’ve clearly bought into the “rephorm” movement on this one. And NO……I am not a teacher but I am a parent of teenaged children.
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According to Linda Giffin, if you are a certified teacher then you are ipso facto a horrible person, a loser, a bad teacher and unqualified to teach. But if you are not a certified teacher coming to the profession from business or some other profession, then boom, you’re a great teacher who has no need of “evil” unions. Linda G. is dependably a pro charter cheerleader.
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Joe,
Linda is a strong Trumpista.
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@Joe…Linda decided to edit her post and take out her snarky “bad teacher” comments. Wonder why?
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Diane, I have held my views for DECADES … LONG BEFORE TRUMP. Dismissive attitudes do not promote open discussion of creative ideas.
Lisa, it concerns me that maybe you think my remarks might be edited by someone. I hope that is not happening. Censorship is not a sign of a free exchange of ideas.
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The bar needs to be raised as far as becoming a teacher is concerned. Then and only then will the “getting a degree in teaching is so easy” crowd have to STFU. I say make it a mandatory Master’s Degree and increase the minimum scores required to pass one’s subject area examination. Florida used to accept a sixty percent score in any subject area exam as passing which is an absolute disservice to any child in public school.
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I am an anesthesiologist. I’m the person responsible for keeping your heart beating and making sure enough oxygen gets to your brain while your gallbladder is removed. If a shortage of anesthesiologists occurs, would you be willing to try a similar experiment?
Professions have training and certification processes for a reason. Teaching is a profession critical to the health of our society. I want my own children’s education in the hands of a certifed teacher that underwent the training required by the profession.
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Teaching involves many different relaying, exploring, and experience techniques to enable a student to learn and apply that learning.
Being experienced in a field definitely enriches the learning if
the teacher know how to relay the information in methods that reach all students in the classroom. Many business people don’t have the patience, or training to be affective in the classroom.
If Arizona continues this program, new employees must be able to prove success in their professional life and take classes to learn how to relay information using real life methods.
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I wonder what counts as subject matter expertise? If one is truly “expert,” I can’t imagine many of them leaving their jobs to become an Arizona teacher. Do “experts” truly make so little in Arizona that being a teacher there is attractive?
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@ speduktr , Maybe you are not familiar with the many cases who face foreclosure since good jobs have dried up and they may be faced with the necessity of finding employment that may actually be beneath them.
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Arizona teachers are poorly paid and the schools are in drastic need of repair. High temperatures can range from 90°-115+°, lows from -20° to 40° … depending where you settle. You can find flooding during the monsoons. But, the rest of the time you will find it so dry you can feel the moisture sucked out of your body if you go outside.
I prefer hot and dusty Arizona to the gray and rainy days in the Pacific Northwest, but most don’t.
Are you ready to become a teacher in Arizona?
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Putting aside the fact that I am a little long in the tooth, why would I want to become a teacher in Arizona? Poor working conditions, poor salary, and obvious deprofessionalizing don’t make a very compelling marketing campaign. But since anyone who can claim some expertise in an academic area can claim the ability to teach, well, let all those who can’t find work in their own professions have at it. I’m sure the few remaining professionals will be more than willing to mentor them. (snark alert) Isn’t that the way it is done in corporate America. Train your replacement before you are kicked out the door? Who needs experience when you can get raw talent?
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So we agree that public schools need more money, both for teacher salaries and for infrastructure improvement. Right?
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Arizona teachers are poorly paid because of a state legislature that has consistently underfunded its education budget.
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I wouldn’t even be on this forum except to applaud the recognition of persons who have not taken the most trodden path now being given the opportunity to exploit their own hard won expertise in a given field.
My son is an autodidact living in Arizona and now he could also teach if he were so inclined.
He dropped out of school in his tenth year for failing at math….where he had achieved the 98th percentile in PSAT. Obviously there were obstacles.
He was the unpaid supervisor who converted the IT operating system in his middle school at the so called “select” public school in Philadelphia, Masterman, when he was in the fifth grade!
His patience for tutoring people in computer that he met online was something I honored and took pride in.
Not everyone who sets out for a teaching career is necessarily a great teacher and likewise, not everyone who sets out on a different path should
be disqualified as a potentially great teacher.
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That might work in a vocational school type setting, but there is a lot of psychology that goes into teaching children. Teaching children (of all ages) is like herding cats for the most part. Personally, I want a certified teacher in the front of the classroom. If I need to have open heart surgery, I want a qualified surgeon and not someone who pretends to be a doctor because they learned from watching Gray’s Anatomy.
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I didn’t mean to imply that someone coming from another profession could not become a good teacher. The procedure for doing so, however, should be a little more complicated than presenting yourself at the school door. As one who entered the teaching profession through a private school with a undergraduate degree in psychology, I have a pretty good idea of what I didn’t know at that point. It really would have served me and my special ed students much better if I had known what I was doing before I entered the classroom! My little forays into “teaching” through volunteer tutoring really didn’t cut it.
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@ speduktr , Maybe you are not familiar with the many cases who face foreclosure since good jobs have dried up and they may be faced with the necessity of finding employment that may actually be beneath them.
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Shame on you Joe, I made no such blanket claim.
Conversely, having a certification does NOT automatically make you a teacher, let alone a good teacher.
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Gee, if training for a profession does not qualify you to practice a profession,… Everyone knows that newly minted professionals of any ilk have yet to prove themselves. Most professions, I would wager, make provisions for seasoning under more experienced professionals. For some reason, teachers have not necessarily been able to count on mentoring once they have been hired. With a provisional status for a number of years (4 in my state) a teacher gets a chance to grow before making a commitment. Judging from the number of people who leave teaching and who left even before the climate was so hostile, most of the people not meant to teach are weeded out. Is everyone left awesome? No, but neither are most teachers incompetent.
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These are truly scary times. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
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Nah. Being afraid doesn’t accomplish anything. Be resistant.
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Be afraid. Then get up and kick A–
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Why, Diane, I do believe the potty mouthed among us are starting to convert you. 😉
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I find that fear can be a tremendous motivator…to kick a** or take some other type of action.
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And that is what the lying, Alt-Right conspiracy theory media machine does. It deliberately uses PSYOP strategies to spread fear and doubt with its hate and lies.
It’s deliberate.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage
Psychological operations (PSYOP) are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
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Alan Singer caught something in Arizona’s new legislation that effectively ends the profession of teaching in that state. In contrast to the previously-worded legislation, he noticed that the words “teacher” and “teachers” have been replaced with “person” and “persons” in the latest version.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/arizonas-alt-cert-law-replaces-teachers-with-persons_us_5950b28ee4b0f078efd982fe
“Ironically, in the text of the new law, the word ‘teachers’ was removed and replaced with the word ‘persons,’ possibly because lawmakers realized the people being hired will definitely not be trained teachers.”
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The Kochs are using Arizona like a pilot program to deprofessionalize teaching. If this becomes acceptable, they will buy their way into other states.
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Arizona is a U.S. state in name only.
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Well, here is the bone in the stew: Does not the Department of Education require that REAL teachers, teachers who go to college to become teachers, jump though “HIGHLY QUALIFIED” hoops to get their licenses and certifications? I know, I’m always stating the obvious when it comes to the teach for America “teachers/scabs” who are scarcely “trained” and certainly unqualified, and definitely unlicensed and uncertified – for whom hoops are removed, and doors are opened, and for whom jobs await, with lots of perks, like low income housing (think “Teachers” Village in Newark, NJ for instance), loan forgiveness, and stipends from their Ivy League alma maters after they’ve done their stint “for the kids” for “teaching” at least one year (some as high as $10,000 apiece). Teachers who WANT to be teachers must perform Clinical I and II at most NJ colleges, which means an entire school year, September through June, interning, for free, full-days, while continuing to attend classes at night, and possibly working a part-time job on weekends.
Does not the Department of Education REQUIRE teachers to be Highly Qualified by its designated criteria? Now, I know that doesn’t apply to TFA folk, but…alternate route teachers have to be highly qualified too, no? How does someone with a GED qualify to teach? What expertise might that person have?
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Unqualified teachers are nothing new to Arizona. What is new is that they are now not only allowed, but that they are now welcomed! In the past, the unaccountable Charter School sector has often hired teachers who did not meet Arizona teacher standards. With the proliferation of the State government’s onslaught and destruction of the public district sector, it finally occurred to teachers to either leave the state or to leave the profession, with thousands of jobs being left vacant – in record numbers – leaving district schools with no option but to hire teachers who may now be ‘qualified’ due to lower state standards.
Why is this happening? The answer appears to be profitability for government officials from the charter school sector. Many legislators, other elected government officials – and including State School Board members and family/friends – are investors and/or owners of privately owned, publicly-funded charter schools. They are reaping the monetary benefits of so-called ‘school choice.’ The only ‘choice’ is actually where to build the next publicly-funded, educational rip-off! Charter schools are given more tax money per student, annually, than are district schools. The extra is to account for the charter businesses having to pay for their own facilities. Meanwhile, the district schools are not funded appropriately for their legally mandated allowances for same, resulting in lawsuits that are ongoing and ever present!
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