A 'Bar Exam' For Teachers?
One of the country's largest teachers' unions is proposing rigorous new credentials for teachers, similar to the bar exam for lawyers. The American Federation of Teachers, or AFT, also supports the National Common Core State Standards, educational standards in English and math adopted by 46 states so far. We explore how organized labor is approaching education reform issues.
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Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, discussed the group's proposal to require incoming teachers to pass a rigorous bar-like certification exam. The training program would include a classroom practicum as well as a paper-and-pencil subject test. States could choose to adopt the national standards and offer reciprocity to out-of-state teachers, similar to the law profession. "We are trying to do the work you have to do to make a real profession so that there are high standards, that people are really prepared to meet those standards, and they get the tools and conditions they need," Weingarten said.
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As a teacher in DC, I see some poorly qualified teachers that have full union protection but are not working for the benefit of their students. Will teachers now be grandfathered in and not have to take this test? If so, what can we as a profession do to improve ourselves and get rid of these lemons?
Will teachers be prepared to do well on this new teachers' "bar" exam? A friend of mine was a highly successful private school teacher for 5 years before deciding to get a graduate degree in education so she could teach at public schools.
Once "trained" she began work at a public school - completely unprepared for the realities of the classroom. The kids ate her alive. She ended up leaving part way through the year because the additional education she pursued to be ready for this school completely failed to prepare her for all the things that are more about being nanny/social worker/prison guard than about conveying knowledge.
For public school teachers to convey knowledge, they need numerous skills that are not taught in teacher ed programs. How does this bar exam address that?
The bar exam is an exam for lawyers that is intended to test knowledge in several key areas. It is equivalent to being a general practitioner. This may be the case for elementary school teachers, but it isn't for teachers of upper level classes.
The Bar Exam actually doesn't test prospective lawyers for how they should handle clients or a court case. It doesn't test whether someone knows how to do lawyering; it only tests for knowledge. Also, the Bar Exam tests some pretty arcane subjects that are not really applicable to modern practice.
What knowledge are you going to be testing for?
Elementary school teachers need to have a good grounding in several subjects. On the other hand, they don't have to know upper level physics.
Should a chemistry teacher be required to know the articles of the United States Constitution or the date of the "shot heard round the world" at Lexington and Concord?
I would not use the Bar Exam as a template for an exam for teachers.
How much money is Ms Weingarten paid to come up with these tired proposals? ($200,000? $300,000?) How many of the teachers that she represents make as much money as she does? (None!) Would she object to rewarding the best teachers in America with pay equivalent to her salary? (Expect a "no" to that question of course: it would be "unfair" to her membership not to pay them all the same "living wage"!)
"Modern education" is ALL about money and "fairness". We have never paid more for education in America and we have never gotten less for it than we do today. No one goes into teaching to get rich, but the growth business in education is not teaching, it's administration and that's where most of our money goes these days. For union hacks, "educating children" is just a pretext to secure a living wage and job security for their dues-paying membership. Education is not their primary concern and I accept that, but please don't invite such a person on your show and expect her to represent anything but her own warped self interest. It's unfair to expect the people who have turned teaching into one of the most unrewarding, unproductive and undesirable of professions to actually provide solutions: it hasn't happened in a hundred years. (I should know: I got out of teaching 28 years ago and I never looked back.)
The only people who really care about education are those who suffer the most from its abuses: parents and their children. As long as parents continue to believe that government, school administrators, teachers and their unions have primary responsibility for educating their children, there is no limit to the harm that will be done. The teaching of reading, writing, ciphering and thinking are too important to our future to be left in the hands of people who have other fish to fry.
(BTW: teachers, and all public workers, should have no right to collective bargaining. No one forced them to accept a government job. That's what FDR thought, that's what I think.)