More on the Implications of Senator Ruiz's Bill

Senator Ruiz’s TEACHNJ bill is just the kind of legislation we need in New Jersey. Even though there is a lot in the bill I take issue with, it’s the kind of legislation that raises so many tangential issues and is so provocative and progressive that it may stimulate people to think and motivate people to act on behalf of education reform, but more importantly on behalf of our children.

In my previous blog I addressed the overall issues of teacher accountability and effectiveness, taking the position that the bill is heavily skewed towards accountability; the amount of attention and resources the bill dedicates to teacher effectiveness could lead many to conclude it was nothing more than a cynical effort to placate certain stakeholders. Or maybe the Senator just didn’t bother consulting specialists in the field that could have provided her with a more extensive menu of choices for improving teacher effectiveness.  The bill utilizes operant conditioning based on negative reinforcement: to avoid losing your tenure or being transferred you better get off your ass and improve your effectiveness. The threat of losing tenure or being transferred is supposed to stimulate or strengthen positive behavior, in this case more effective teaching. I’m not saying this won’t work, but it falls far short of an enlightened “action plan.”

There were many points made at the hearing that you should be aware of, and several implications of this bill that are absolutely deserving of our time and interest.

There is no denying that the current system is broken. As Newark Mayor Corey Booker pointed out, “95% of our teachers are being graded as proficient, but only 40% of students receive a similar grade.” Mayor Booker’s observation makes clear that the oft cited performance gap between the cities and suburbs tells only half the story. Not only are our suburban schools outperforming our inner city schools, but it appears that teachers in the inner city are receiving satisfactory evaluation grades in spite of their students’ poor performance. Obviously there are other factors working to suppress student achievement, but if we are to herald our teachers when student performance is above the norm, they must be held accountable when performance falls far short. The new tier system for evaluation will no doubt provide a more accurate assessment of teacher effectiveness.

The issue of teacher retention, currently based on seniority and the principle of LIFO (last in, first out), was the subject of considerable scrutiny. As currently formulated in the bill, LIFO will be eliminated but grandfathered in so as to deflect the concerns and suspicions of the NJEA that the process as currently designed is too political and vulnerable to manipulation. I support the DOE and various administrators’ associations that LIFO should be ended immediately, as long as the bill is improved to create, in the words of NJEA President Ginger Goldschnitzer, a “strong and credible” procedure for evaluating teachers.

In the previous blog I spelled out a host of practical and procedural problems with the evaluation system envisioned in the bill, and several presenters suggested changes to make the system more fair and above reproach. Even the Principals’ Association, whose members evaluations will become the fulcrum for tenure, believe that a hearing would be proper when the issue of tenure is at stake. The NJEA believes that tenure issues resulting from the evaluation process should be handled by an arbitrator whose decision would be binding. And the Newark AFT made the point that if teachers are to be viewed as professionals- an important issue when we talk about attracting the “best and brightest” to education- then the evaluation process should also include peer review, and that this peer review be more than just “window dressing” for the bill; it should be an important component of the final evaluation.

The NJEA, as you might suspect, had the strongest objections to the bill. Their concerns with the “priority pool” and “mutual consent” provisions are legitimate  and should be addressed. They also pointed out the possibility of having a teacher retained year after year but never achieving tenure; the system can in a sense be rigged to keep a teacher from getting tenure in perpetuity. Their position, which I support, is that it should be “all or nothing” when it comes to tenure, otherwise you are creating a very divisive work environment that would vitiate efforts to improve teacher collegiality and effectiveness.

When it comes to the issues of greater accountability and improved effectiveness, the one “job description” that could play a critical part in both outcomes is that of the clinical supervisor. I have used this blog as a soapbox to beg and cajole anyone who will listen that New Jersey must require the hiring of clinical supervisors in every district, and that the overwhelming number of observations conducted in this state be clinical or formative in nature. There must be a person(s) in every district whose ONLY job is to improve the effectiveness of teachers. Every non-tenured and “at risk” teacher in a district must be under the direction of a clinical supervisor. Principals and other administrators just do not have the time to do an effective job providing the support that these teachers need. In my view, the absence of these professionals from this bill makes it nothing more than a political document, not a true reform measure.

Student achievement on standardized test scores will no doubt be an important metric for evaluating teachers, but it was pointed out that only 20% of subject areas are currently tested. I am hopeful that a greater good, that being a complete reworking of our HSPA, might result from this glaring hole in the evaluation process.

Student achievement on standardized test scores will no doubt be an important metric for evaluating teachers, but it was pointed out by several presenters that only 20% of subject areas are currently tested. This fact alone makes the creation of meaningful quantitative metrics to evaluate teachers problematic. I am hopeful that a greater good, that being a complete reworking of our HSPA, might result from this glaring hole in the evaluation process. The current HSPA only tests students in 2 of the 7 categories in the Core Curriculum Content Standards. Moreover, the current HSPA is completely detached from the “real world” content and skills we should be teaching and testing student on. The fact that we require certain content to be taught, but do not make this content part of the test for graduation, is both negligent and farcical.  Maybe an unintended consequence of the legislation will be the DOE revisiting its mandate to test students as a prerequisite for graduation. If so, I could not be happier.

And finally, it is clear to me that this legislation is the first step in the process for bringing performance pay into the system of remuneration we use for our educators. The jury is still out on whether performance pay will be  effective at improving teacher performance, but as a simple matter of fairness, and as a way of attracting “the best and brightest” to teaching, performance pay is an idea whose time has come. The four tiered system of evaluation in this bill provides an excellent foundation to initiate a performance pay scheme. However, it should also be pointed out that a significant body of research suggests that a “career ladder,” as opposed to a merit pay plan, might be a more effective modality for the teaching profession. My suggestion, which I believe is absolutely achievable, is to integrate the two ideas, creating a performance pay scheme that includes a career ladder for those teachers who ascend to the levels of “effective” and “highly effective.”

So in conclusion, Senator Ruiz has created a sound beginning to the creation of a more effective system for improving teacher accountability and effectiveness. As was clear from the testimony of the stakeholders, there is work to be done improving the current formulation of the bill. If all goes well, New Jersey might just end up with not only a great new law, but with a new graduation test and a new system for rewarding exemplary performance in the classroom. This might be wishful thinking, but by now it should be clear that the quality of education being provided to our children in the inner city is an embarrassment,  a disservice to the children, their families, and the businesses in our state that depend on a well-educated, highly skilled workforce. We need to embrace change, but we need to be sure that it is inclusive, with significant input from our teachers. Without their support, change will be slow, uneven, and inadequate.

Senator Ruiz Presents Tenure Bill to Packed Hearing

This past Monday I attended Senator Ruiz’s long anticipated hearing on S1455, the “Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey Act,” otherwise known as TeachNJ. The passion that this bill generates was clear from the start, as supporters and opponents took turns expressing their views on the draft. After a full day of intense listening I came away optimistic that reform is on the horizon, but I was less than sanguine about the bill in its present form.

S1455 is a long overdue and much needed effort to reform the manner in which teachers earn and maintain tenure throughout their career in the classroom, in addition to ending the practice of "last in, first out," or LIFO. It provides a solid foundation from which we can debate and hopefully implement a system of remuneration based on performance-and including a career ladder- rather than years of service. Unfortunately, there are some critical flaws that will make implementation of the plan problematic. The legislation as it is currently written also raises some questions as to the primary motivation for the bill and its ability to meet both of its stated objectives, improving teacher accountability AND effectiveness.

As indicated in the legislations title, the bill is designed to improve teacher effectiveness and hold such educators accountable for the choices and decisions they make to fulfill their responsibilities to our children. However, other than the addition of some supplemental professional development programs for “at risk” tenured teachers, and the implementation of a mentoring program for first year teachers, there is nothing in this bill indicating a desire to actually improve the performance of teachers other than the threat of losing tenure or be possibly transferred. It would be hard for any teacher reading this legislation to come away from it not seeing this as anything but a “gotcha” bill that gives principals enormous leverage in scouring the faculty to remove poor teachers or, possibly, those whose style does not comport with their own. Admittedly, removing poor teachers is a worthy goal, but an equally important goal would be broad improvement of teacher effectiveness; this legislation falls far short of that need.

I am at a loss to understand- as were representatives of the Supervisors Association-  why there is no mention and no participation whatsoever of department supervisors in the observations conducted by the School Improvement Panel. Students are in class to learn both skills and content, and the ability of the teacher to connect the two through the teacher’s lesson plan is critical; department supervisors are much better equipped to understand the goals and intent of the teacher in this regard.  

This leads to my second point.  Each teacher is supposed to receive multiple observations, including one summative evaluation. In summative evaluations the goal of improving teacher effectiveness is secondary- you are really doing nothing more than recording what you see- and so I would like to presume that most or all of the other observations are clinical or formative in nature. To be effective, these observations require a pre and post conference in addition to the actual lesson. These are time consuming and collaborative in nature for the vast majority of teachers. Given the amount of time that administrators invariably spend dealing with superiors at the Board Office, in addition to their other responsibilities, it is inconceivable to me that these observations can be properly planned, implemented, and followed up to yield meaningful professional development.

There is also an issue whether these evaluations will be “drop in” or scheduled observations. Besides the disruption that an observation can create, any teacher will tell you that observations can affect the classroom dynamic. Evaluators obviously don’t want to observe a contrived, “scripted” class lesson, but you also don’t want to “drop in” and create any undue tension or stress for the teacher as well. Remember, the importance of these observations has now been elevated; a teacher’s career is  at stake.

Moreover, I have some concern that this new process, especially when done by administrators other than a department supervisor, will stifle innovation and risk taking on the part of the teacher. Where job security is now the issue, risk averse, conventional lessons will more likely be the norm unless the rubrics show a propensity to reward “entrepreneurial” type behavior by the teacher.

The power this bill gives to principals is substantial, and the fact that his/her decisions cannot be grieved shows almost contempt for the notions of due process and equal protection under the law.  Teachers are currently granted by law the right to a Loudermill Hearing whenever disciplinary action is taken that impacts or removes a teacher’s property right, in this the teacher’s tenure. This bill seems to completely disregard this right. There seems to be a presumption in this bill that the relationship between teachers and administrators is efficient, effective, and harmonious, and that teachers will willingly acquiesce to their decisions. This, quite frankly, requires a real leap of faith.

The bill pairs first year teachers with a mentor, but what about the other years leading up to tenure? I also don’t see why underperforming teachers aren’t also paired with a mentor. Their situation is essentially no different than that of the non-tenured teacher, and in both situations the supposed (putative?) goal is the same, to improve their effectiveness in the classroom.

One of the most moving presentations of the day was made by a young lady,  the parent of two “special needs” children, who noted the lack of specificity in the bill regarding the needs of special education students.  Special education is the fastest growing component of public education, and special education teachers find themselves in a variety of unique teaching/learning environments and structures. Although the bill does provide exclusions for employees whose job description differs from the classroom teacher, guidance counselors for example, I think it is important that, given the unique nature of the job, special education programs be directly addressed .

Charter schools are required to abide by all of the substantive portions of the bill that are relevant to the goal of teacher quality, but I think this legislation could prove onerous for many of these schools, and that there should some flexibility worked into the legislation whereby a charter school can present an “action plan” to abide by the goals of the legislation without following the absolute requisites laid out in the bill. On a side note, I heard several attendees comment on how charter schools, who receive 90% of per pupil costs in the sending district to finance their schools education plan, are shut out from receiving any facilities funding. This is a subject that is clearly connected to teacher effectiveness and deserving of attention.

Improving teacher quality and effectiveness is the single most critical issue facing public education. But, as many presenters pointed out, including the Principals’ Association and the Chamber of Commerce, achieving that goal requires taking a multifaceted approach: we need to attract the “best and the brightest” college graduates, we need to encourage the use of alternate routes into teaching, we need to rethink and redo our core curriculum content standards to reduce what we require kids to learn, we need to replace the existing graduation test with one that reflects the entire school curriculum and is tied to real world needs. And finally, we need to institute an integrated merit pay/career ladder plan to reward our best teachers and encourage disinterested, uninspiring, and generally ineffective teachers to improve their performance. The restructuring of our tenure system is in fact an important step towards creating a viable merit pay/career ladder plan.

Though it does a good job of redesigning the “levels” of effective teaching and tying retention to performance rather than seniority, the legislation before us falls short in its goal of actually improving teacher quality. It is designed more to “catch” bad teachers than to make the occupation more professional and the teachers more effective. What is needed, what MUST be included in this legislation, is a commitment to providing clinical supervision for our teachers. I believe these clinical supervisors should be tied to the evaluation process, but at the very least they should be required on site so teachers can avail themselves of their expertise.

I believe that every high school in New Jersey should be required to have a clinical supervisor on staff, with the primary goal of providing their expertise to all non-tenured or “at risk” teachers at the school. They would also be available so that other teachers can request their assistance in the classroom. In fact the “multiple observations” required by the bill should- in the case of the non-tenured and at risk teachers- be carried out by the clinical supervisor in concert with the principal. This will also help stem any perception of abuse of power by the principal.

There is an obvious lack of teacher or administrator input into the construct of this bill, as anyone with experience in schools will tell you that the members of the School Improvement Panel will find it almost impossible to coordinate their schedules so as to provide fair, comprehensive observations above reproach. Research clearly indicates that “the frequency with which teachers are evaluated and feedback provided is correlated with teachers’ confidence in their supervisor’s evaluation, their satisfaction with their work, and student achievement.”

Other than offering supplemental professional development and a mentoring program for first year teachers, there is nothing in this legislation designed to improve teacher effectiveness other than the threat to job security. This may lead some to see this bill as a cynical approach to our most pressing educational need.

Effective clinical supervision is the key to improving teacher effectiveness. Its absence from this bill is a fatal flaw, as none of the other actors in this drama can offer the time and expertise necessary to provide the training the authors of this legislation claim to want.

Taken in total, this is a bill heavily skewed towards teacher accountability, with only a modest proposal to improve teacher performance. With modifications, especially those ideas offered by the panel presenters the bill is deserving of support. As it is currently written, it should be rejected.

The New Haven Merit Pay Experiment

In Monday’s Trenton Times, Nicholas Kristof wrote a wonderful piece about the education reform efforts being taken by the New Haven school district, specifically its effort to implement a merit pay system. The plan they have undertaken has the support of AFT President Randi Weingarten and has apparently been well received by the teachers’ union.

The collaboration between district administrators and the union to devise a plan is refreshing and may serve as a model for other inner city school districts. And while I disagree with the large (50%) emphasis they place on data driven assessments, it nonetheless proves what can be accomplished when all the stakeholders are given legitimate participation in the plan’s conception.

The plan is limited to the New Haven district, and I think that is a very important point that we in New Jersey should not overlook. The problem I see in New Jersey is that our political leaders, led of course by the Christie Administration, is trying to devise a system for evaluating teachers with the obvious intent of using that system as the basis for a merit pay plan to be used by all New Jersey school districts. This “one size fits all” approach is, I believe, the absolute wrong way to go in a state like ours with such a huge disparity in the performance of our schools.

It is my contention that the best way to proceed is for our legislature to mandate that all districts have a merit pay plan in place by 2013, but allow for these districts to work with the local union to construct a plan on their own. It is also incumbent on our state government, possibly working in concert with the many corporations that call New Jersey its home, to provide enough supplementary funding to allow for substantial salary increases for teachers in our inner city schools.

Merit pay is one of many ways in which we can attract college students with degrees in areas other than education into the field. There is an extraordinary need for such students to join the ranks of educators. Merit pay is also an important component to a revised system of remuneration for teachers. The current system offers absolutely no motivation for teachers to perform at the “top end of the curve.” It is demoralizing for our best teachers to receive no more pay than mediocre, lazy, risk averse, and disinterested teachers. Years of service and attained degrees are a horrendous basis for pay.

I applaud the New Haven school district and hope that, either by desire or executive mandate, we can find school districts in our State willing to experiment with reform that will clearly result in improvements to the quality of teaching we provide to our students, especially our students in the inner city. There are legitimate concerns among teachers with creating a valued merit pay plan: the plan must be transparent, provide safeguards against arbitrary and capricious decisions, created with the participation of teachers, and include both qualitative and quantitative metrics.

The urgent need for meaningful reform of our inner city schools is without question. It is time for the NJEA, our legislators, the Governor, and our corporate stakeholders to work together and place the needs of our students at the forefront of our thoughts. It is impossible to justify any other need before theirs.

In Support of Charter Schools

Charter schools play an important role in our efforts to reform education in New Jersey and improve the culture of learning in our inner city schools. But recently I have noticed an apparent backlash against these schools, as evidenced in the bill working its way through our legislature, a bill that would require all future charter schools be approved by a public vote. This bill MUST be defeated; its passage could be the death knell for the charter school movement.

The genesis of this proposed legislation is the proliferation of so-called “boutique” charter schools. The term refers to charter schools that are seeking approval in high performing school districts like West Windsor-Plainsboro, Montgomery, Princeton, and Cherry Hill. The proposed charter in the West Windsor-Plainsboro area, for example, would be a Mandarin immersion school, this in spite of the fact that the school district has an incredibly excellent Chinese language program.

Charter schools should NEVER have been approved anywhere but the districts most in need of reform, districts like Camden, Newark, and Trenton. By approving these boutique schools, the DOE has deviated from the intent and mission of the original charter legislation. By promulgating charters in high performing and highly taxed school districts it has created what many of these families see as a threat to the quality of their schools and a disruption of the status quo.

The controversy and debate we are seeing today is directly related to the perversion of the relationship that should exist between public and charter schools. The problem can be traced back to those in the education reform movement that promoted charter schools as competition to public schools, advancing the mistaken belief that competition is the key to improving the quality and performance of our inner city public schools.

For reasons I’ll address in a future post, true competition, even if it could exist, is not the answer. The point I want to make is that nowhere in the original charter school legislation was there ever a hint that competition was the bill’s intent. The purpose of charter schools is to experiment with innovative ideas that either could not be or simply were not being implemented in our failing schools. It seems clear to me that the purpose was to demonstrate what works and then share that knowledge with the public schools. The relationship was meant to be collegial, not adversarial.

If the charter school movement is to stay vibrant and relevant, it is incumbent on the DOE to publicly declare that it will only approve charter schools located in “failing” school districts. Put an end to these boutique charter schools and restore the focus to our inner cities.  At the same time, find a way to facilitate communication between charter schools and public schools in these cities.

Charter schools are a great idea, but the relationship between public and charter schools must be properly structured to allow for the efficient exchange of ideas. The proposed legislation must be defeated, and the DOE must not only refuse to approve charters in high performing districts but it must also increase the level of scrutiny it applies to a review of applications. End this characterization of charter schools as competition for our public schools, and promote the idea that the success of charter schools is in everyone’s best interests. The failure of our inner city schools is a tragedy that will, at some point, touch all of our lives.  Charter schools hold great promise in helping to turn around our public schools. They are not the enemy.

Christie, the NJEA, and Inequities in Education

The drama between the Christie Administration and the NJEA once again took center stage Wednesday as the Governor, along with voucher legislation sponsors Raymond Lesniak and Tom Kean Jr. , “condemned” NJEA executive director Vincent Giordano’s statement that “life’s not always fair” with respect to the blight of inner city families “stuck” in failing schools.

The NJEA’s basic position on vouchers is that “it is not the way to address the challenges faced by urban schools,” while opponents base their argument on the belief that “parents of limited means (should not be) forced into failing schools by virtue of their ZIP code.”

Who’s right in this case? Well, they both are.

Vouchers may turn out to be bad public policy, but by the same token “resource poor” families in the inner city should not be resigned to years of trying to navigate through substandard schools and crime ridden neighborhoods in their struggle to secure the same opportunities for success as kids in the suburbs.

The debate can in effect be reduced to the rights of individual families versus the needs of the community. If in fact “voucher families” can find schools willing to receive them, the impact on the community school may be devastating.

We need a “Marshall Plan” for urban schools. If such a plan were in place, it would be hard to argue against allowing a voucher plan to proceed. This is a State with a progressive history; it needs to experiment with change. Try a voucher plan, try some merit pay plans. Try allowing some inner city schools to form their own charter schools. Try a redesigned HSPA that tests students in all disciplines, not just math and English. Try out a streamlined Core Curriculum that only requires teaching kids what they MUST learn rather than all those things we aspire for them to learn.

Then turn to the neighborhoods. Try a program that incentivizes suburban families to move back into the city. Try out the “elastic cities” concept in one of our urban centers and its surrounding communities. Try creating “urban opportunity zones,” with incentives for businesses to move into the city and create “connections” with urban schools. Try, try, try.

I learned an important lesson in one of my international economics classes at Lehigh. Studying rural populations in the Third World, we learned how risk averse communities would not support agricultural innovations offered by the U.N.; the risk of failure outweighed any “theoretical” gains. It wasn’t until the U.N. used their own land to demonstrate the merits of their technology that these communities would agree to give it a try. My sense is that the same line of reasoning applies here when it comes to education reform.

Children have no say in who their parents are, or what kind of life they were dealt at birth. They are born equal, and they should be thought of as equal when it comes to educational opportunity. As Rawls so rightly declared, inequality can only be justified if there is a societal benefit to be gained by it. Our economy benefits from some measure of inequality. Our education system does not. It cannot be justified. It cannot be tolerated. It cannot continue.

The Folly of Raising the Age for Compulsory Education

Tuesday’s Trentonian carried a story that our “enlightened” legislature has decided that raising the graduation age to 18 should be a priority as we struggle to find answers to the deplorable state of education in the inner city. Their argument, as far as I can gather, is that the growing need to acquire skills necessitates that even students intending to drop out should at least stick around long enough to learn those requisite skills.

Of course a secondary benefit of this change in our system of compulsory education is that the graduation rate might show improvement since most students don’t turn 18 until their junior or senior year in school. I guess they figure that if kids are required to stay in school until they turn 18 they might just figure “what the hell” and stick around long enough to graduate. But then again these kids would now be required to take the HSPA, and it may just be that instead of reducing the dropout rate it will increase the HSPA failure rate. That in turn would further increase the intrusion of government in the schools as the worsening statistics will lead to greater scrutiny of a school’s performance.

No doubt the legislation will include a provision for those who intend to drop out for “hardship” reasons such as providing income for the family, or maybe in cases of pregnancy. I’m going to digress for a minute; I wonder if the “Family Leave Act” would apply to students that feel the need to stay home and help care for a newborn?

So why would I have a problem with this idea? Well for starters, I’ve always had a problem with the idea of “forcing” kids to stay in school. Shouldn’t we be designing the kind of education where kids “want” to be in school rather than having to stay in school? Don’t we really need to provide the kind of schools that kids look forward to each day because they are motivated by the curriculum, the teachers, and the opportunities that will be available at the end of the journey?

Providing those kind of schools seems a distant dream, and will stay a distant dream until we reduce the volume of required “cumulative progress indicators” and content requirements. By concentrating on what kids MUST learn prior to graduation, and creating a HSPA that actually tests kids on that curriculum- something it currently DOES NOT DO- we can untether educators from teaching required courses and give them an opportunity to create innovative, dynamic courses that will inspire and motivate kids, feeding off the passion and knowledge that teachers would bring to their classrooms. It would also allow us to refocus our attention on the skills we should be requiring kids to learn. Given the rationale for extending the age of compulsory education, my line of reasoning seems wholly consistent with the legislature’s apparent goal.

My greatest problem with extending the graduation rate, besides priming the public to think of school as something kids must do, is the fear that discipline problems, crimes, and a general sense of insecurity will arise as we require kids that don’t want to be in school to in fact stay in school. Can’t we assume that a vast majority of those “potential dropouts” were students who felt disconnected from the “learning experience” and were either “trouble makers,” candidates for special education programs, or kids with failing grades and who were in all likelihood not “at grade level” in terms of their basic knowledge and skills? Why foist these kids on the rest of the student body, forcing them to sit in classes with kids that want to be there?

Theoretically speaking, I don’t believe education should be compulsory. I oftentimes wonder who would show up for school if they didn’t have to. Some would show up because that’s where their friends are, and no doubt learning social skills is an important part of the learning process. And some would show up because they truly value an education and want to learn. I suspect most kids attend for a combination of the two.

I’m sure the legislation will pass, and we will either see a rise in graduation rates or HSPA failure rates throughout the State. But please don’t mistake any increase in graduation rates as a sign of improvement in the quality of our schools. A more telling statistic will be the increase in discipline problems, crime, and insecurity. Like much of the legislation we see today, the law of unintended consequences will prevail. This legislation is a mistake, a distraction, a palliative. The only thing that should be compulsory in education is having our leaders get to work building an education system that works.

Is A Degree in Teaching Becoming Obselete?

In my last blog I proposed significant changes to the graduation test used by the State of New Jersey and the Core Curriculum Content Standards that are the putative foundation on which the HSPA is built. In making my case the issue of teachers came up, specifically the need for our State to attract “the best and the brightest” among or college graduates. It was then that I realized that some potentially divisive issues may arise if we treat collegians with education majors differently from those with degrees in disciplines like math, economics, and engineering for example. Now the more I think about it, the more I realize that a possible solution, albeit a controversial one, would be to eliminate the undergraduate degree in teaching. It is time to open up discussion on whether college students interested in a career in teaching should be required to earn a degree in a “specialized” major, and more importantly, if we should eliminate the B.S. in Education for the purposes of teaching.

A WestEd study by Frederick Hess titled “Finding the Teachers We Need,” which drew on studies by the author, the US Department of Education, McKinsey, and several other reputable sources, noted that “Undergraduate education majors typically have lower SAT scores than students who hold other kinds of majors and who consider teaching, and those who leave the profession in their first few years have higher scores than those who remain in teaching. Some estimates find that 44 percent of middle school students take at least one class with a teacher who doesn’t have even a minor in the subject being taught, and almost a quarter of secondary school students take at least one class with a teacher who doesn’t have even a college minor in the subject, a figure that climbs to 32 percent in high-poverty schools.”  According to the NCES (National Council on Education Statistics) study, which surveyed high school teachers during the 2007-2008 school year, “fewer than half of chemistry and physics teachers majored in those subjects, and a quarter of math teachers don't hold math degrees. The problem extends to history, where less than two thirds of teachers hold a history degree.” These statistics are even worse in our inner city schools where the need for knowledgeable, passionate, and resourceful educators is even more profound.

Compounding matters is the fact that public education is doing a poor job retaining college graduates that do enter the profession with “specialized” degrees. A recent study in the Scientific American noted that 25,000 STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) teachers left the profession last year, citing inadequate pay, a lack of professionalism, and poor supervisory support.

The problem, as I see it, is that if we as a nation are committed to getting and retaining “the best and brightest” in the classroom, especially in our inner cities, then we are going to have to incentivize the hiring process through a combination of merit pay, loan forbearance, improved clinical supervision, and greater freedom for teachers to design curriculum and have a say in establishing the culture of learning at school. To do this we are going to be targeting those college students NOT in undergraduate teaching programs, and older professionals interested in career change. We would be effectively creating two classes of prospective teachers. This could have long term consequences in the schools as the potential for disparate treatment by stakeholders, and disparate outcomes in merit pay become evident.

Moreover, there is no evidence that new teachers entering the profession with degrees in Education perform better, or are more likely to stay in teaching, than those entering the profession through non-traditional paths and with non-teaching degrees. There is simply no strong rationale for drawing teachers from those who went to college to receive a degree in teaching rather than those with degrees in accounting, economics, statistics, botany, or anything else.

Now this doesn’t mean that we should just be throwing new teachers into the classroom completely unprepared. Maybe we can explore the idea of requiring all college students anticipating a career in teaching earn a minor in education and receive support through an intensive program combining observation, mentoring, clinical supervision, and opportunities for collaboration. For those entering teaching without any background in education, existing alternate certification paths are in place to provide those aforementioned needs in addition to providing supplementary college coursework.

Most teachers learn what works “on the job,” through a combination of trial and error, professional development, and effective support from supervisors and peers. I will admit to a certain bias in this debate, as I was part of New Jersey’s first “class” of alternate route teachers in 1987. I enjoyed what I believe to be a wonderful support network, from my classes at Glassboro State, to my mentor teachers, to my supervisor Walt Belfield, who “Madeline Huntered” me every day for a month and provided exceptional directional supervision.  There is no reason that all new teachers can’t have a similar experience.

If our goal is to attract an “army” of high quality teachers, then we must be open to discussing the way in which we select, prepare, and retain them. I think there is a pretty strong consensus for what is needed to build a high quality professional corps of teachers, and it does not include increasing the number of college students with teaching degrees. It is time to discuss whether a degree in teaching has become obsolete.