It’s past time for alternative pathways to teacher certification.
A few years back, I enrolled in a PhD program in Educational Leadership. The cost to me would total more than $50,000.00. To offset the cost, my hope was to teach in the same program and share real-life experiences with the next generation of aspiring school leaders. At the time, I held a master’s degree in education and four Pennsylvania certifications: two of those certifications were in a leadership role. I had recently completed a multi-year course with the National Institute of School Leadership and, as the CEO of a successful school, worked with an incredible team achieving local, state, national and international recognition. During my tenure, we created an award-winning curriculum, quadrupled student enrollment, and financed and constructed an incredible science-focused school and campus designed and built for real-world learning. Our students thrived academically, and our waiting list grew as anxious parents applied for just a few open seats.
But, as it turns out, these years of learning and success brought little value to this program: an earned PhD was required to teach. Experience need not apply.
The irony is that my first two courses were taught by professors that didn’t have close to my experience leading, financing, or building a school and curriculum from the ground up. How many professors are preparing teachers and administrators without ever having led a school? How many have dealt with the daily issues that schools face? Instead of offering practical advice and real solutions, these two courses focused on researching research and contemplating imagined theories. One professor was firmly convinced that the theoretical rhetoric shared each week offered sound solutions to real-life problems: problems, however, that still confront education after more than half a century. After completing the first two courses, I decided that more theory wasn’t worth the price of admission. I dis-enrolled from the program.
Decades of a Failed System
Schools are tasked with a vital mission: the education of children. They are places not of theory but of practice: a practice that involves adults and children working and learning within a pressure-filled environment. Each day schools are challenged by societal problems. When confronted with real issues, teachers and school leaders have little time for theory.
Researching research, however, does confirm that the recurring issues of a failed system have been around for quite a while. In an April 2016 Stanford University article titled, America needs political will to fix unjust educational system,Stanford experts say, Stanford University President, John Hennessy lamented how the “U.S. educational system has been in crisis for a very long time,” and how this “failed system” affects society.
Unfortunately, education doesn’t learn from its history, but tends to repeat it. This is especially true in times of teacher shortages and the requirements for teacher training and certification. Research also reminds us that the unsuccessful strategies developed to address many of these issues result from the antithesis of systems thinking. “The discipline of systems thinking,” writes Peter Senge, “provides a different way of looking at problems and goals – not as isolated events but as components of larger structures” (Senge, 2000, p. 78).
The Purpose of School
If the system is to change, educators from K-Higher Education must focus on the purpose of school. In his book, A Guide to 21 Trends for the 21st Century, Gary Marx looks to the needs for society’s future and writes of the critical influence educators and the system of education have in the world. “Every road to a sound economy and a more civil society runs through our education system” (Marx, 2015, p. 78). Over a decade ago, education researcher, Lauren Resnick, reminded us we are as, “unprepared for what our students and society need from education as we were in the 1980s” (Resnick, 2010, p. 183). We know the purpose of school and how to achieve successful outcomes. Why isn’t experience the best teacher?
I asked Beth Ann Rosica this question. Beth Ann has a PhD in Education and has dedicated her career to advocating on behalf of at-risk children and families. Her response confirms my thoughts and reflects upon her own experience. Even with a PhD and 30 years of practice, Beth Ann was turned away from teaching in higher education.
“Higher education is not interested in people with real life experiences. I believe that they have a specific agenda and only hire people who fit that mold. Higher education is not preparing teachers for the challenges that face them in the classroom. They are more focused on social issues, then the pedagogy of teaching.”
What is Beth Ann’s solution to this problem? “If we want to improve the quality of instruction in the classroom, then we have to completely revolutionize the teacher preparation programs. That revolution should include different pathways to certification. Possibly offer teacher training programs that just focus on preparing teachers to teach competently – focus on evidence-based teaching strategies and leave the social agendas behind. It would be less expensive for students and possibly draw more students to the field.”
The Need for a New Path
The typical pathway to teacher certification is obtaining a four-year undergraduate degree and taking a Praxis test for certification. Often, the first two years of college are required courses that provide little, if any, foundation for direct teaching experience. Once students declare Education as a major, they are offered a few field experiences when they observe a teacher in a classroom. The final course in the program is a full semester of student teaching, where a future teacher is placed, at his/her expense, in a classroom with a mentor teacher. Ironically, the money paid by the student for this experience goes to the college, not to the school or to the mentor teacher actually teaching him or her how to teach.
The teacher shortage and the teacher readiness problems are real. It is past time for a different way of thinking. We need alternative pathways to certification. Possibly a two-year internship, where future teachers spend most of that time in real classrooms and much less time, if any, in college classrooms. Rather than being indoctrinated with theory, future teachers are in school settings where they gain practical experience: experience rooted in the purpose of school, grounded in proven strategies for how students learn, and delivered by seasoned professionals familiar with the everyday realities in our schools. Teacher interns could even support their mentor teachers as classroom assistants and help with small group learning and other supervised tasks. A win-win. Once the two-year internship is complete, these practical experiences will better prepare future teachers for their own classroom.
Nowhere is expertise needed more than in our schools. However, Linda Darling-Hammond, another education researcher and President Biden transition team member, isn’t convinced things will ever change. “Even as progress has been made, new knowledge has frequently been ignored, misinterpreted, or misused—sometimes by teacher educators and more often by policymakers—with the result that the discourse and debates about teacher education today eerily resemble those of a half century ago” (Darling-Hammond, 2016, P. 18). With an even greater teacher shortage on the horizon, we not only need more teachers, we need teachers to be better prepared for the realities of the classroom. The current system is failing. Let’s stop repeating history. We know what works and we know what needs to be done. It’s time we had the courage and the will to do it.
References
Darling-Hammond, L. (2016). Research on teaching and teacher education and its influences on policy and practice. Educational Researcher, 45(2), 83-91. doi:10.3102/0013189X16639597
Marx, G. (2015). A guide to 21 trends for the 21st century. Bethesda, MD: Education Week Press.
Resnick, L. (2010). Nested learning systems for the thinking curriculum. Educational Researcher, 39(3), 183-197. doi:10.3102/0013189X10364671
Senge, P.M. (2000). Schools that learn: A Fifth Discipline fieldbook for educators, parents, and everyone who cares about education (1st Currency pbk. ed). New York, NY: Doubleday.
I