The Idaho legislature overwhelmingly approved a bill to drop requirements for new teachers, leaving it to districts to write their own standards.
In Idaho, anyone can teach so long as they have a BA degree, pass a criminal background check, and don’t have an infectious disease.
In short, teaching in Idaho is no longer a profession. The charter industry considers this a victory.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A friend of mine who grew up in poverty is an instinctively great teacher, but she can’t pass the extremely difficult subject matter tests in California to get a credential. I will take the contrary position that teacher “training” and “credentialling” denies many who have much to offer the chance to be in the profession. I myself just started teaching junior college with no training as a teacher and i learned as i went. Maybe its worth considering…?
Did students at that junior college pay tuition (or go into debt with a student loan) so that you could learn as you went? Maybe its worth considering…..?
Would you go to doctors who “learned as they went”? Fly in an airplane with pilots who “learned as they went”? Eat a restaurant knowing the food is being prepared by staff who are “learning as they prepare the food”? Hire someone to tend to you garden who “learned as they went” — with no supervision? Have people who fix bridges “learn as they went” — with no supervision?
It always astonishes me how some people care more about gardens than children. The pro-life party, indeed.
Yes. As the post’s title states. Anyone can teach.
Why have licensure for any profession then?
I think what you fail to recognize is that teachers are tired of armchair experts who think they can do this. It’s disrespect.
This is not worth considering. It’s just another way to move toward privatization.
Former UTLA President Warren Fletcher called this latest abomination 11 years ago (August 2011).
As then-current-president, Fletcher made the president’s annual address to the membership, and warned LAUSD’s 40,000 teachers of what the corporate ed. reformers’ end game actually is, and what they would eventually attempt:
7:08
7:08
“The goal of the phony reform movement isn’t to CHANGE your job. It’s to ELIMINATE your job.
“Their goal isn’t to CHANGE the teaching profession. It’s to ABOLISH THE IDEA OF TEACHING AS A PROFESSION.”
Idaho will regret this decision. It will discourage inmigation, business’ locating to Idaho, internal capital formation, and a falling reputation compared to other states.
Sadly, it hasn’t stopped businesses from flowing into Utah. We have all kinds of tech companies moving in, even with our appalling class siz s and lowest in the nation per pupil expenditure. Companies don’t seem to care about quality of life for their employees anymore. Just cash, and Utah provides very generous packages to businesses to locate here (that’s one reason we have such low per-pupil expenditures).
This reminds me of something Al Shanker once said in one of his famous speeches. He was talking about some school districts which were lowering the passing mark on the teacher certification exam in order to try to get more teachers, who were in very short supply. He gave an example of one really egregious case with a very low passing grade and said, “We now have the first example of certified incompetence”.
A better way to end the teacher shortage would be to raise teachers’ salaries.
Yes… along with giving teachers a voice in decisions and a little more autonomy and respect. And….. (while I am in fantasy land) a new paradigm for how administration oversees schools and teachers.
It’s the ONLY way to end the teacher shortage, now that Teach for America, charters, vouchers, and annual testing with the proficiency bar set impossibly high have deprofessionaliized, devalued, and demoralized teaching and teachers. Greedy corporate America needs to stop putting lipstick on pigs.
This is all part of so-called reform that wants to deprofessionalize teaching in order to turn it into a low wage McDonalds’ gig job.
yes: and soon enough, minimum-wage classroom ‘facilitators’ in place only to help kids who are all using computers
Such a libertarian idea (LOL). You mean to say markets work.
Nailed it, Ciedie!
Exactly what NY’s charter industry tried to do a few years ago. I feel so sad for the children of Idaho.
“We need to pay the darn teachers, that’s the solution to this problem. Pay them in rural areas, pay them in urban areas. Just pay them. That’s how you get teachers to work, not by dropping our standards.” –“Rep. Ilana Rubel, D-Boise
A different kind of Confederacy of Dunces.
Heather Cox Richardson would argue that Idaho joined the actual Confederacy after Reconstruction. They have have been Dunces for a long time .
I’m glad I do not live in Idaho. I’m glad my daughter and her children do not live in Idaho.
Idaho has another distinction we should not forget.
THE SPCL ranks Idaho high for its hate groups per capita.
“According to the civil rights organization’s estimations, the top 10 states with the most hate groups in 2020 per capita are: Montana, Tennessee, Nebraska, Arkansas, New Hampshire, Alabama, Virginia, South Carolina, Idaho, and Nevada.
“Coeur d’Alene hate group arrests extend North Idaho’s long history with extremism”
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/northwest/idaho/article262503492.html
Informal survey response: I had a rock the size of a softball whiz past my head once in Idaho, tossed by someone who called me a “spic.” That thing would have knocked me out cold or worse if it landed.
While Idaho demolishes their public school system and Hillsdale-Inspired Classical Academies steal tens of millions Public Dollars never intended for charter school consumerism, Highland Park activist citizens speak out.
TUESDAY’S 7/12 The JAN 6 Riot Hearing plans to reveal connections between DJT and multiple Domestic Terror Extremist groups. They all pooled money, guns and bodies to overthrow the 2020 election. It was an Army of Overlapping DeVos, Bradley Impact, Mercers, Waltons, Claremont Institute, Proud Boys, WFAF, GOPee, MAGA Millions, Moms For Liberty, SCOTUS and homegrown terrorists. All working together and pulling in the same direction.
Rachael Wachstein saw it coming. She lives in Highland Park Illinois and is letting everyone know that the 4th of July shooter was no wild card. He did not flip out and unexpectedly begin murdering his neighbors. He was an identified Agitator.
He and his MAGA Mob attended a 2020 Protect The Election Results Evening Vigil. They performed Nazi salutes. Screamed obscenities through a bullhorn aimed at Biden, Black Citizens, Voting Rights and more. The Police were there and did nothing to stop the violent harassment.
He joined a Pro-Trump Militia and marched through Highland Park Downtown with what they called a Trump Train.
Police and FBI were alerted to this guy and his gang 2 years ago. The heart-breaking 4th of July massacre was no surprise to those who have been trying to legally stop his Brown Shirted thuggery.
It is all inter-connected, well-funded, avaricious and dead set against Democracy and Public Schools.
The MIT Technology Review (9-16-2021) wrote, “Troll Farms Reached 140 Million Americans a Month on Facebook Before 2020 Election…All 15 of the top pages targeting Christian Americans were run by troll farms.” Most were run from Eastern Europe and they were fake.
WaPo (9-15-2020) wrote, “Pro-Trump Youth Group….Likened to Troll Farm.” The youth group was associated with Turning Point USA. The article includes the following, “Four years ago the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency amplified Turning Point’s right -wing memes…aimed at boosting Trump”. Tim Hueslman, a former member of Congress from Kansas was on the advisory board of Catholics for Trump. He is identified in the article as following the Turning Point USA-linked troll-like farm. He praised it as, “doing a great job of messaging, particularly with younger folks.”
kathyirwin1: Thank you for your comments about the H.P. shooter. Yes, an Agitator. Also marched in a parade in Northbrook–out on the corner, dressed as Waldo (as in “Where’s Waldo?”)
One important thing that the msm should STOP immediately is flashing his picture all over the place & saying his name. His fan base/killing club on the dark net are loving it. it (again, what I call someone who is NOT a person in any sense of the word) is a hero, something to emulate, & the watchers wanna do it, too–even bigger & better). The father of a man who died in the Aurora, CO theatre shooting does TED talks about this, & has an organization/website (some info I will post later). It used to be called, “Don’t Say His Name.” If all of the readers here can write emails or contact the press, maybe we can stop them from martyring this monster…& also suffering copycat murders.
Kathy Irwin,
The killer was well-known as a Trump agitator. Yet the media continues to say that his political views are not known.
Another brilliant and spot on comment from you, Kathy. Thank you.
It’s time to turn Idaho into a great educational experiment. All fully trained and certificated teachers should turn Idaho over to everyday people to teach their children. Let them at it.
Hello, class! As your principal, let’s all give a warm (but not too warm: we don’t want him baked!) welcome to your new teacher, Mr. Potato Head! &–just a fair warning –when your parents & other teachers tell you that you have to be careful not to do anything when teacher’s back is turned, because teachers “have eyes in the back of their heads?” Well, that’s REALLY TRUE: Mr. Potato Head for, indeed, have eyes in the back of his head!
That’s “does” instead of “for.”
lol
😉 Thanks, Bob! I’m glad you find my comment ap-peeling!
A hilarious visual, that!
a-peeling. LOL.
I have often commented here that I do not always attribute whatever success I had as a teacher to my professional training. Certification when I came along in the field depended more on education classes than content classes. People were always teaching history with a minor Becca as use they had the appropriate education classes. My master’s degree did not assure me of a job, the math teacher shortage did that for me, even though I was basically self-taught in math.
It was several years before I was worth paying, but most of my kids thought I was a good teacher because I was diligent and I was reasonable.
So it is not so much the removal of requirements that bothers me, it is that a person might enter the field as an afterthought. At 66, now retired, I find myself for the first time since I was 15 in a position to not be contemplating teaching. Somewhere there is a really intelligent, motivated kid wanting to teach who will be losing her job to a person who decides on the spur of the graduation moment to try it. Money will not matter. They will be gone in two years and the school will hire another, because long haul teaching is not admired in such a system.
When I first started, I was one of the first ESL teachers with a master’s degree outside of New York City. I had frequent visits from many teachers from the northern NYC suburbs that wanted help on what to do with newly arrived immigrant students. I found out that in the 1930s my district had a “volunteer ESL teacher” that was helping Russians escaping the violence in Russia. Her name was Alexandra Tolstaya, and she was the youngest daughter of Leo Tolstoy.
Amazing. I bet she taught the kids about war and peace
Really important point Roy. I used to take for granted that all teachers were drawn to the profession as just that – a profession / calling . . . not simply a job. It’s more cost effective to churn through new teachers than to invest in an experienced, highly trained and passionate educators.
But there is a cost that model that can’t be measured in $.
Remember NCLB and the highly qualified teacher requirement?
Remember when schools had to report tons of testing stats for accountability?
Those ideas were always disingenuous by. Because the 20 year pummeling of schools and teachers was all about getting us to this point.
No pay raises. Worse benefits. No pension for recent hires. Accountability will be based on parent choices. Not results. Just marketing campaigns.
Republicans finally have it all. Especially a nation that has no ability to detect misinformation.
exactly
Gates long ago gave a speech in which he said flat out that the biggest costs in schooling were facilities and teachers’ salaries and that both could be eliminated by moving to computerized instruction, which, ofc, had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that his fortune was made in computers.
Gates also echoed Erik Hanushek, who said that degrees in education do not raise test scores and are therefore meaningless.
He’s a fool. And the worst kind of fool, one who is certain he’s right and powerful enough to force his foolishness on others.
The guy has no idea how much damage he has done. No notion. He’s utterly clueless about this.
It’s been that way in Utah for a long time. And for subs in Utah, all a person needs is a high school diploma and a background check.
A background check?
To make sure you have militia training?
But surely, you have to have a concealed carry permit to teach in Idaknow?
Knuckle dragging fascist bobble head Marjorie Taylor Green believes the Highland massacre is a liberal conspiracy to pass gun control. Maybe she could sub.
That’s up there with Tucker Carlson’s man-hating, emasculating feminists are turning boys into enraged, confused incel killers.
Callisto, words fail me. MTG is an idiot.
I will not stand for this blasphemy against real knuckle dragging fascist bobble heads! MTG doesn’t even come close to that high standard.
This is sadly what we’re probably going to see more of.
While they are at it, I would recommend raising standards for politicians.
Haaa!!!! Don’t hold your breath!
What standards????
By all means, let’s hire random warm bodies to do this job. What could possibly go wrong?
Let’s imagine, for a moment, that instead of this, we were doing the best possible job of preparing teachers:
In other words, what if we were going in the exact opposite direction?
Of course, this lowering of standards for teachers is fully compatible with Education Deform as peddled by Bill Gates and his Foundation for the Devolution of Education. If your idea of training Prole children is to have them show up to a room and turn on a computer and do depersonalized online Common [sic] Core [sic] exercises in preparation for a standardized test, then all you need is a warm body who can do some rough computer troubleshooting (Is it plugged in? Have you tried rebooting?)
Excellent training (Sit up. Roll over. Good boy.) for Other People’s Children. Teach them to apply themselves gritfully to whatever mind-numbing task The Algorithm serves up to them in preparation for (drum roll, please):
“Will you be taking your latte by the infinity pool, Mr. Gates? Or would you like it brought down to the Epstein Memorial Massage Room?”
Autonomy is a huge issue. We have gone a long way down the road of teacher micromanagement, and high-quality people simply won’t work for long under such conditions. I have spent a lifetime studying English language arts pedagogy and curricula. I am not going to work for some know-nothing who thinks that he or she can dictate to me what I do in my classroom.
And that’s how people work. They do not perform well under conditions of low autonomy. Try this experiment: Hire a house cleaner. Then, when he or she arrives, follow this person around and tell him or her in detail how to do every part of the job. No, hold the cloth like this. Move it in circles like this. And so on.
How long do you think this person will continue working for you?
Teaching is one of those jobs where every idiot thinks that he or she knows how it should be done, as if there weren’t actually essential things to know about a) how people learn, b) what makes kids tick, and c) various subject areas.
Or one that people think that anyone can do, the way every idiot thinks that he or she could easily be the next great children’s author.
RE: a comment I wrote as a reply to kathyirwin1 –there are numerous articles & pictures about the shooter in Highland Park, & this has to stop. I had written that I’d post the websites where you can find talking points to write to/email/call both local & national msm & tell them to STOP showing pictures of the 7/4 H.P. shooter. He’s a hero to all the other potential (& probable) shooters on the dark web. If you put “Don’t say His name regarding shooters” in your search engine, you’ll find quite a few solid pieces about the psychology of young male mass shooters & what we SHOULD be doing to stop them (since we can’t seem to get the NRA out of Congress). Go to the websites dontnamethem.org & notoriety.org (the last was started by Aurora, CO families of victims killed in the theatre; one father also gives a TED Talk, which you can find on YouTube). The latter site has a concise list, one you can copy & send to the media.
Anderson Cooper said, once again, that they weren’t going to say the name or show pictures of the 7/4 shooter, but I think CNN did anyway (because every other media outlet is doing it). Please help in telling them to stop NOW.
Please note that his name has not been mentioned on this blog.
Yes, & thanks for that, Diane. But for the local news & hearing the interview w/his “father” (in quotes because that title is questionable), I keep forgetting his name.
Seen at DFW on t-shirt: American Until Texas Secedes.
I don’t think he was smart enough to figure out what I meant by, “So, I guess you’re not after all.”
Bingo
Similar lowering of requirements, albeit in test scores, is happening in the Show Me State: https://www.thecentersquare.com/missouri/missouri-lowers-teacher-testing-requirements-to-meet-demand/article_e431b1d0-f330-11ec-9c8f-f3dc93058ba1.html
Radiohead gets it correct:
I waited a while to post on this, and finally had time to do so. I decided to do so when a former student of mine noted that in Washington DC, they are now offering a one year credential where undergrad GPA (I believe in any area, not specifically education) can be used as evience of the basic skills test.
I want to raise a few interesting points here. On this blog, and in many other places, there has been LOTS of different posts about LOWERING the standards for teaching. I won’t go into them all, but just look for things related to edTPA (as an example) or even that teachers should not have a test like Praxis hold one back from the classroom – see the initial posts in this chain. What is also fascinating is that many of the same people who posted on those chains talking about how tests like edTPA or even Praxis weren’t related to good teaching and shouldn’t be used as a measure. Yet when states go to lower standards, there is counter about how lowering standards lowers the status of the profession.
Here are a few things that I hope that we can all agree on (even based upon some of the comments in this blog and others):
Since the 1980s (at least, but then again I was 6 or 7 at the time), teaching OR education has not been seen as a noble profession. Rather, the “if you can’t do anything else you can always teach” mantra, along with the “anyone can teach” idea has premeiated through society. Parents are encourging their children NOT to become teachers, because of various reasons: a) not making enough money is probably the main one, etc. THIS has been an issue for as long as I recall and is still somewhat an issue today.
The need for the NUMBER of teachers has incresed over time – because more children are being educated (or are eligbile to be educated). I don’t have a graphic or stat on this, but if you think in general how the population of the US has expanded since even 1980, then that means the poplation of 6 – 18 year olds has also expanded similarly, which means more children are eligible to be educated. By nature that means we need more teachers in the classroom or class sizes would be WAY out of control..
The rise of alt-certifcaiton programs – this is definitely controversial, but on the other hand have they in some cases met some support. One of the BEST teachers that I know of, who has a PRIZE named after her, came through an alg-cert program – she was an engineer who had been coaching basketball who decided to go into educaiton. It was MUCH cheaper for her to go the alt-cert program than to get a master’s in education. Yes, programs like Teach for America, Urban Teachers, various teaching fellow groups across different cites, and now Relay Graduate School have led to this. Some are better than others, BUT this leads to….
COST prohibiting access to teaching – I know of many young people who were para educators or who were interested in teaching, but the cost of a degree prohibited them from pursuing the career. That’s where these alt-cert programs help fill a major need. University programs often COST too much for those who want to pursue education as a second career…
Teacher shortage – it is worse than I have seen it in the past, and it is real. We can blame it on various factors, and then of course there is the chicken and egg scenarios that come into play – more teachers would stay in the profession if we had lower class sizes, but we need more teachers to have lower classes, so…Like ALL things education, salaries are state to state. Perhaps a national bill that set a minuimum teacher salary (similar to a minimum national wage) could help? But then again, cost of living can be an issue. Living in rural NC can be very different than living in San Francisco, so $45,000 in one place can go lot farther than 45,000 in the other.
So how do we solve this issue – well, first I think that one sets up scenarios that allow for exceptions to the rule (as noted with the first post, AND was noted on this blog about an elem teacher in Baltimore who showed success but was being forced to leave because she could not pass the Math Praxis test). Having one pathway makes for a very narrow opportunity. Imagine if going from City A to City B there was only ONE road. You have to have multiple ways to get there.
TWO – have different states create committees (or perhaps we can do this nationally) on what SHOULD be included. The challenge here is that an argument can be made against ANY measure you use: GPA (grade inflation, different grading factors at different schools), assessments (Praxis, edTPA – subjective, don’t measure teaching, not aligned), etc.
Someone posted that we would never ask for a doctor to not be credentialed, Or an architect. I chuckled at that statement because that was one of my arguments for having an assessment like edTPA – it’s similar to architect’s or doctors having their boards. BUT we know the feeling of many here about that assessment. I won’t recount or rehash that argument here.
All of us can spend time on a blog writing to one another about what doens’t work. But I encourage any of you to look back on some of your posts and consider – did I just contridict myself? Did I say that we should lower standards in one post and then here say we need to raise standards? What that demonstrates is that none of this has easy solutions.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading…
We educators need to continually remind the uninformed masses that teaching is not only about being an educated expert in a particular subject area (which nowadays isn’t even necessary anymore according to many righties in a variety of states, as mentioned in this post about Idaho & a different post on Arizona). There is much more to teaching than just knowing your subject area. It’s how to impart that knowledge to your students in a meaningful & relevant manner, while being appropriate for their age group. Up until my last year of my 32 years of teaching HS Spanish, I was still tweaking, improving, editing & modifying my lessons. How many teachers have we all had throughout our lives who may have been brilliant in their subject area, but were terrible, boring or too esoteric in teaching that material to their students? How many incredible teachers have we had who sparked our interest in something & inspired us to go on the pursue something in their subject area? My HS Spanish teacher inspired me to become a Spanish teacher, and we remained friends into adulthood.
Sadly, the New World Order that Oligarchs are imposing upon us all requires the dumbing down, the regimentation & the corporatization of our education system. This article is one example of how their plan is going to to come about.