Time to Reform Teacher Credentialing and Pay



Time to Reform Teacher Credentialing and Pay

By Chris Braunlich

With the rising tide of “Baby Boomers” approaching or at retirement age, Virginia will see a huge turn-over in teachers over the next several years – a trend exacerbated by evidence that young people today are career hoppers, not “lifers.”

While these trends may not lead to a generalized teacher “shortage” (there is evidence that enough are coming into the pipeline to supplant those leaving the system), there is agreement that a scarcity of science, math, and special education teachers exists now and will continue to do so in the near future. In addition, rural school divisions face a limited number of applications and there remains a strong need for male and minority applicants.

Sound policy changes in two areas would help alleviate this situation and improve the quality of teaching: Broaden the applicant pool, and create incentives for those in critical needs areas.

While the state has improved alternative routes to licensure in recent years, career switchers still find themselves confronted with expensive coursework requirements to be permanently certified, regardless of their background or their ability to handle a classroom.

Surely there’s a need to ensure teachers have the ability to instruct. But certification alone doesn’t guarantee that ability. Ask any high school student and they’re certain to give you examples of teachers who can’t teach as well as Superstars. Meanwhile, overly restrictive conditions do prevent the hiring of eminently qualified teachers. One Virginia school system rejected a retired military officer, a former college teacher with a degree in chemical engineering, from even being considered to teach Advanced Placement, college-level chemistry. Instead, the school system backfilled with biology teachers, despite their own admitted ignorance of the subject matter.

Teachers unions and education schools argue that such detailed certification is necessary to make certain children learn. Yet, the most recent objective national evaluation of Teach for America (TFA) teachers – who temporarily join the teaching world without education school credentials – demonstrated that their students “made 10% more progress in a year in math than is typically expected, while slightly exceeding the normal expectation for progress in reading.” In fact, when compared only to the students of certified teachers and veteran teachers, the TFA students “attained greater gains in math and the same gains in reading.”

A more flexible route to alternative licensure might be to accept the American Board for the Certification of Teacher Excellence’s “Passport to Teaching” credential that requires passing tests in pedagogy and content knowledge. While local school divisions would have the ultimate authority whether or not to hire such an applicant, the ABCTE’s professional assessment board (including Virginia’s former Assistant Superintendent for Assessment) has ensured a rigorous examination of a prospective teacher’s skills.

Another option is to permit local school divisions greater flexibility in determining their genuine needs: One principal recently decried to me her inability to hire science teachers for her special education classes. The ones she wanted knew the subject and had the skills to teach the kids – but because they didn’t have that Special Education endorsement, she was prevented from doing what was best for her students.

Once in the teaching system, teachers are paid by a salary scale that considers years of experience and credit-hours earned, but not classroom performance or even the market value of their skills. Judging teachers on the basis of classroom performance probably requires a move to Value-Added Assessment enabling an accurate measure of a teacher’s skills. However, a move to that assessment model will enable localities to accurately judge the effectiveness of their teachers.

But paying more for those with skills that are hard to find is done now in the private sector, and ought to be duplicated in teaching. Paying teachers uniformly is what drives science and math teachers to the high tech world when the economy is good, and it is a reason many teachers are less likely to become instructors for the harder-to-teach special education student. Policy-makers need to examine the idea of rewarding those in fields where the work is more difficult or the skills in greater demand.

Over the last 50 years, the labor market for teachers has changed. High ability women and minorities, who once had few options other than teaching, are now able to secure the high-paying jobs once closed off to them. But the resulting ratcheting-up of teachers salaries will not, by itself, ensure a high-performing teacher workforce.

Instead, it is time to take steps to widen the pool of qualified applicants by lowering bars to participation, and make certain we pay them on the basis of their skills and what they accomplish – not on the basis of “time served.”

Chris Braunlich is a former member of the Fairfax County (VA) School Board and Vice President of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, the leading non-partisan public policy foundation in Virginia.

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