Posted on 11/07/2003 10:25:43 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
AUSTIN -- A much-criticized plan to allow individuals without formal education training to teach high school classes narrowly won tentative approval Friday night from the state Board for Educator Certification.
The 5-4 vote followed five hours of emotional debate and left some teachers in the audience in tears. The proposal next goes before the state Board of Education.
"It waters down certification standards significantly," said Lauren Whelan, a government affairs attorney with the Association of Texas Professional Educators. "It's a slap in the face to current teachers who have taken the time to get this training."
Board member Adele Quintana, a teacher in the Dumas Independent School District, said the board was forgetting its mission to ensure the highest quality teachers.
"Our mission is not to put warm bodies in the classroom," Quintana said.
Among those supporting the rule was James Windham, a citizen board member from Houston. He noted there already are a number of alternate routes to preparing and certifying educators.
"We need to allow these districts the leeway to manage their human resources," said Windham.
Teachers and college education officials strongly objected to the rule, saying it could lead to untrained teachers in classrooms.
But the Texas Association of School Boards and the Texas Association of School Administrators supported the rule, saying it is needed to address a chronic teacher shortage.
The Texas Association of Business also backed the rule.
"Texas' recent high-tech layoffs offer a pool of highly qualified teachers who could offer students a wealth of knowledge along with practical real-life experience, particularly in the areas of science and math," TAB President Bill Hammond said in a statement.
The traditional route to becoming a teacher in Texas is to obtain a college degree that includes education classes.
People with a college degree but no formal education training also can enter the classroom through an alternative certification program that allows them to teach while they are taking education courses. The courses cost several thousand dollars.
The temporary teacher certificate plan approved Friday would allow people to receive a two-year certificate to teach grades eight through 12 if their degree is related to the subject they would teach and they pass state teacher exams. All teachers must pass the exams.
School districts would be required to provide the new teachers with training, mentoring and professional development. After two years, they could be granted a standard certificate if they had received good reviews.
The rule now goes to the state Board of Education, which has 90 days to review it. The board could kill the rule with a two-thirds vote, but is not scheduled to meet again during the 90-day period.
Holly Eaton, director of professional development for the Texas Classroom Teachers Association, said the educator certification board considered a similar proposal four years ago, but it was rejected by the elected State Board of Education.
After two state Board of Education members voiced concern about the plan at their meeting Friday, Chairwoman Geraldine Miller said she would consider calling a special meeting. If the state Board of Education does not reject the rule, it would come back to the educator certification board next spring for final approval.
Teachers unions successfully fought legislation this year and in 2001 that would have created a similar program.
Richard Kouri, a lobbyist for the Texas State Teachers Association, said the rule would create "recession migrant teachers."
"When the economy heads south, they'd check into a classroom for a while and then move on," said Kouri.
Kouri said the state should be raising teacher pay and improving working conditions to lure back the many teachers who have left the profession.
Others complained that parents would not be notified when their children were being taught by someone with a temporary certificate.
Sarah Winkler, a member of the Alief Independent School District Board of Trustees, addressed criticism that districts would be forced to bear the cost of teacher training. She said the program would be optional and would likely only be used when a district cannot fill a specific position.
"We want to expand the pool of certified teachers," said Winkler. "The traditional program and the (alternative certification program) are not providing all the teachers we need."
Karen Soehnge, of the school administrators' association, said the state is short 45,000 teachers every year. Math, science and foreign language teachers are the hardest to find.
If they care about the children, they should be thrilled.
Teachers unions successfully fought legislation this year and in 2001 that would have created a similar program.
This is a crack in the dam holding back education. Teachers'unions, the DNC stronghold, have a stranglehold on public education. This vote signals a positive change.
Wrong. They mean UNINDOCTRINATED 'teachers'.
Any person rational, intelligent, and organized enough to get an advanced degree in a subject is more than capable of organizing the educational materials and presenting them to students.
Even if it's Chemistry, it's not rocket science.
Oh yeah. We've got a Nobel prize winner in Physics teaching science to your kids but he's obviously not qualified to teach the subject because he's only got a 'temporary certificate'.
Oh puuuullleeezzzeee!
Bush is a liar.
Iraq is all about oil.
Clinton is the best prez we'e ever had.
Clinton's groping is a personal affair.
Arnold should be prosecuted.
And on and on.
This was a social studies teacher and her social bent is similar to the bent one!!!! In order to lead properly the electorate must be mallable, (read ignorant). Yep, the teacher's unions are in league with the devil!
After Educrat to English translation:
"It weakens our stranglehold on supply and demand for teacher labor, as well as endangering our absolute ability to make sure all teachers have had their proper socilist indoctrination courses. Worse yet, without the threat of having to sit through the mind numbing re-education courses, taught by leftover 60's socialists, people with a mind of their own might be more drawn to the profession and could end up teaching the next generation of sheeple drones, er, ah, citizens. The horror!"
Homeschool moms , some with nothing but a high school education, are better teachers. Why not use the best people to get the job done right?
The reason teachers need certification is because the NEA wanted the colleges full and a government supported monopoly once they left. It doesn't mean they're any good at teaching.
I read once that the reason most teach in America is because they failed to get the degrees they originally went to college for. It's the only job they could get.
Others become government school teachers because they only work an average of 6 months a year, recieve a whole years paycheck with mega bennies, get the entire summer off, and can never be fired for anything. Pedophile teachers that are caught molesting students quietly get moved to another state with good recommendations! (2 got caught here. Both were males assulting male students. They were politically correct, but the parents didn't seee it that way.)
And their knowledge of the subject is vastly better. Today's teachers know theories and such but these new hire teachers know the subject. Which will pass on the most knowledge?
Wrong again. If they went to college and obtained any type of degree, they are already indoctrinated.
Take it from someone who knows. My daughter has a master's degree in environmental science and is currently looking into some of these "fast-track" teaching positions because her current job offers little future.
I hate to say this about my own, but she has been thoroughly indoctrinated with the liberals' view on environmental issues. In other areas, she leans a little to the right, but is mostly moderate.
I raised her better -- I really did - LOL.
They're trying to get academics back into the classroom? No wonder the teachers unions are crying. They'll lose their indoctrination privelages! They'll actually have to teach....ARG....reading and stuff! What about the socialist revolution?????
Just imagine what this will do to the grading curve when evaluation time rolls around.
Where is this happening?
Remind her that fossil fuels are a good thing. We're recycling dinosaurs!
In the U.S. Get a hold of a school calendar. Count the hours the students are actually in class. It comes out to 6 mo. per year. The rest are holidays, snow days, etc.
That doesn't even include the days the teachers use substitutes. AND, many have a teachers aid, because "they work too hard."
As in, teacher evaluations.
This reminds me of a thread the other day about a program sponsored by the RIAA where the kids were exposed to presentations discussng the moral/ethical issues involved in downloading music from the net. Many of the teachers were upset about the program because if the kids chose to write essays on the topic, they had the chance to win prizes like MP2 players, music, etc. To me, the teachers were missing the point, the real issue is how do the schools have the manpower and time to administer non-academic programs while complaining endlessly that they are underfunded? If they have time for non-essentials, all the essential stuff must already be taken care of. If on the other hand, they lack sufficient resources to do THE JOB WE ARE PAYING THEM FOR, where do they get off spending our dollars doing this kind of crap?????
I've known people who have a natural affinity for children and teaching and I've known brilliant, educated people who didn't know how to handle children, don't respect them and couldn't teach them if their life depended on it.
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