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With
the General Assembly entangled in an extended
session over transportation gridlock, other issues
have taken a backseat in the public consciousness.
Despite the lip service given to educational
improvements in the 2005 elections, no major
changes in the Commonwealth’s delivery of
education services have emerged, leaving true
improvements wanting.
This
is not necessarily a bad thing, considering that
92 percent of Virginia's public schools meet
statewide standards for student performance. The
Commonwealth has developed and implemented among
the most stringent elementary and secondary
education standards in the nation. Although some
school districts still fail in their duty to that
are failing in their duty to educate students,
particularly lower-income and minority children,
the notion that Virginia’s schools are broken is
suspect.
One
important issue, however, still needs resolution
-- teacher training and credentialing. If one
peers past the current, seemingly encouraging
statistics, a significant problem is looming.
According
the Commonwealth’s educational report card, the
percentage of teachers covering core instructional
subjects who fall short of standards set by
federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) standards has
declined from over 16.5 percent four years ago to
4.4 percent last year. Forty-three percent of all
teachers have earned a masters degree or higher.
Under NCLB, core academic subjects are those such
as English, reading or language arts, mathematics,
science, foreign languages, civics and government,
economics, art, history and geography.
There
are spots of concern. In high-poverty districts,
the percentage rises to 6.5 percent, compared to
2.8 percent in low-poverty districts. Another 7.1
percent of teachers have earned only
“provisional” licensing. Overall, these
numbers are satisfactory -- for the moment. But
they do not take into account current and future
teacher shortages in classrooms across the state.
According
the Virginia Department of Education’s 2002
Report on Supply and Demand of Instructional
Personnel in Virginia: 2001-2002, “Estimates of
the supply of teachers and administrators over the
next five years provide little remedy for the
current shortages. Although teaching programs
graduate many new teachers each year in Virginia,
the rate of retirements and attrition is
increasing. Research at the national level has
projected significant and growing shortages
throughout the country, particularly in the
endorsement areas of science, mathematics, foreign
languages, and special education. Data from the
2001-2002 survey concur with national
projections.”
In
2002, more than four percent of available teaching
positions went unfilled statewide, with higher
gaps in Fairfax and Southside Virginia, areas on
opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. With
the impending retirements of Baby Boomers, an even
bigger shortage looms. The supply is not
sufficient to offset retirements and demand
created by increasing enrollments.
A
number of responses have been proposed, notably
the career switcher programs, alternative
licensing programs, and initiatives to assist
less-qualified teachers meet standards. One
potential solution has been notably missing from
the teacher education equation – offering formal
bachelor’s degrees in education at Virginia’s
institutions of higher education. Currently,
Virginia’s teacher education provisions prevent
colleges and universities from awarding
undergraduate education degrees in most subjects
outside of arts, special education and vocational
education.
According
to officials at the State Council on Higher
Education in Virginia (SCHEV), the Commonwealth's
policy dates back to 1986, when then-Gov. Baliles
convened a Commission on Excellence in Education
charged with developing of a set of
recommendations that would "place Virginia's
public elementary and secondary schools into the
first-rank in education in the nation." As an
outgrowth of those discussions, Virginia's college
and universities refocused their teacher training
programs on subject matter and not on educational
pedagogy. The state mandated that undergraduates
NOT be offered majors in elementary or secondary
education and natural or social science education
(those core subjects under NCLB). Instead,
students desiring teaching careers are required to
pursue bachelor's degrees in the content area in
which they would eventually teach, while taking
supplemental courses in education fields. Since
1990, education has been relegated to the
practical equivalent of a minor field of study.
Thus,
“history education” majors gave way to history
majors with an interest and some coursework in
education. Today, Virginia's grade-school
students’ only exposure to instructors who
earned undergraduate education degrees from
Virginia colleges and universities after the 1990
changes are in subjects such as music, art,
agriculture, and physical education. An amazing
irony is that these classes are most vulnerable to
cutbacks in today's high-stakes SOL testing
environment in favor of core subjects.
Virginia's
university-level education schools do offer
masters and doctoral programs in education.
Therefore, individuals interested in
education-specific degrees must enroll in graduate
programs. On top of that, they must take several
standardized tests and conduct student teaching if
they are to be fully credentialed. For those who
want to teach for less than three years, no
credentials are required for the first three years
of teaching.
Over
the past year, I have spoken with a number of
dedicated educators - superintendents, central
office personnel, administrators, classroom
teachers - who believe that this approach to
teacher education should be reconsidered. Smaller
rural districts and harder-pressed urban districts
note that the current rules may serve as an
impediment to recruiting and retaining a
well-trained teaching force. Such school districts
lose promising young teachers to higher-paying
districts or to school systems in communities with
better quality of life. In some cases, schools
have hired less-qualified instructors, including
those who have not passed the requisite
examinations and even those with little or no
education coursework, for up to the three years
allowed under state law.
In
some areas, provisionally certified teachers
represent a significant proportion of classroom
instructors. One school superintendent noted
anecdotally that more psychology majors had been
hired to teach classes in that district than other
types of degree holders. For those targeting
education majors, recruitment sometimes focuses on
adjacent states like Maryland and North Carolina
which offer a fuller complement of undergraduate
education degrees.
Admittedly,
no definitive “proof” exists as to whether
teachers with undergraduate education majors in
education are inherently better than those who
pick liberal arts, science, or other majors and
simply take the requisite education courses.
Still, a strong case can be made that in the
decade-and-a-half since Virginia’s policy was
implemented, the environment of public education
has shifted considerably. With No Child Left
Behind placing emphasis on teacher quality and
qualifications as a measure of academic progress,
it would seem prudent for Virginia’s leaders to
rethink the Commonwealth’s teacher education
regime. While Tarheel and Terrapin alums are no
doubt well-qualified to teach, I'm sure that
Virginia families would also like to see their
kids taught by a fair share of equally-prepared
Cavaliers, Hokies, Rams, Patriots or Trojans.
Even
if a wholesale policy change is not on the
horizon, it stands to reason that Virginia should
encourage its higher education institutions to
explore developing more specific undergraduate
educational degree programs. Doing so would not
necessarily detract from their current menu of
options, which they will undoubtedly guard
closely, but it may allow for greater academic
preparation for students who are seriously
committed to becoming teachers earlier in their
careers. At best, such efforts may help needier
districts gain access to a greater supply of
qualified teaching prospects. At worse, it could
help Virginians assess the true benefits of a
16-year-old policy, thus enhancing accountability.
As
it stands now, our colleges and universities are
producing credentialed and educated professionals
in fields such as marketing, accounting,
engineering, criminal justice, and even sports
management. Yet, when it comes to getting a degree
in education, future teachers enrolled in Virginia
higher education institutions remain SOL.
--
May 1, 2006
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