Peter H. Hanley

I'm not much for hunting, with the exception of sacred cows, such as the mythical value of teacher credentials. The opponents of Proposition 38 continue to rail against the absence of a requirement for credentialed teachers in voucher schools. But credentialing only certifies at huge cost a teacher's indoctrination into the education establishment, not effectiveness in a classroom. The initiative empowers principals and parents to evaluate teacher competence.

Credentialed teachers range from brilliant, dedicated, motivated professionals to tenure jockeys like the one who recently declared her seventh graders, 70% of whom read below grade level, did not deserve to have individual textbooks because they would just lose them. Moreover, the parents are irresponsible deadbeats. Perhaps we should outlaw cars because daily some drivers just wreck them and don't have insurance.

Unquestionably, nothing affects student achievement more than the quality of the teacher. Studies in Tennessee, Texas, and Massachusetts demonstrate huge differences, up to 50 percentile points in test results, depending on the teacher. Nationally, 93% of teachers are credentialed and 88% of California's were fully credentialed in 1999. Yet US and California student achievement is mediocre at best and dismal compared to those of our international competitors. Over half of K-12 students who go to college, the elite of the system, are required to take remedial courses because they cannot read, write, or do math at the expected level. The American Management Association reported in 1998 that 20% of companies offer remedial reading and math training, up from 4% in 1989.

The education establishment has failed for decades to train teachers properly, yet trots out this sacred cow as if it actually means something whenever an innovation is suggested. The nonprofit Education Trust found that passing most teacher licensing tests requires no more knowledge than that expected from high school graduates. Only 38% of teachers even have a degree in an academic subject, rather than general "education." Yet by sixth grade, students of teachers with majors in their fields consistently outperform others, especially in mathematics and science. The most recent National Center for Education Statistics' Schools and Staffing Survey ranked California 50th with the highest percentage of secondary classes taught by teachers without a major in their subject areas.

The relationship of schools of education and the education establishment reminds us why incest is a crime. Such mutant theories and colossal failures as "whole language reading" and the emphasis on the process of learning over actually learning bodies of knowledge could only prosper in a closed monopoly. Credentialing is the establishment tool to assure that "conventional wisdom" continues in teaching. For years teachers bought into these bizarre practices even as learning collapsed.

Secretary of Education Richard Riley criticized the "lots of hoops" we make potential teachers jump through for no tangible benefit. These expensive, time consuming processes are in part why only 13% of the nation's teachers are nonwhite, but 33% of students are. Only 4% of education school graduates want to teach in inner cities where the need is desperate and the demand insatiable. Yet teacher unions block efforts to establish pay incentives to teach in these areas and cling to "seniority," resulting in the least experienced teachers being assigned the most difficult classrooms. Consequently, within five years of graduation half of those teaching have quit.

Lawyers and doctors are state certified because consumers must hire them directly, sometimes in life and death circumstances. But students and parents do not hire teachers, principals do. Principals exist to hire, train, and manage teachers, yet we substitute a cumbersome, worthless bureaucratic process for local accountability. This is the reverse of “empowerment” management that permeates both business and government.

The answer is not to strengthen credentialing, but to empower principals and parents to judge who is an effective teacher. Any voucher school with unqualified teachers will not survive for long. Sadly, the same is not true for a similar public school. The education establishment has made a mess of the teaching profession. Let's try something different.

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Peter Hanley is an Affiliate Director at the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park and volunteered as a high school economics teacher for five years. These are his personal views.