"We Want Teachers Who Are Educated"

The "education major" is doomed in California. In what Thomas W. Braden, president of the state board of education, calls a deathblow to "educationese," the state is drastically upgrading its teacher certification requirements. Ultimately, California will turn down all applicants whose sole or chief training is in the methodology of teaching. Instead, it will demand degrees in academic subjects, stressing substance over technique.

So sweeping is the change, says Braden, that if used to gauge California's current teachers, the new standards would disqualify 20% of high school teachers, 75% of junior college instructors, and 90% of elementary school teachers. "Professional education" is no longer an acceptable major. Would-be administrators will have to major in academic fields, from science to humanities. New teachers must minor or major in those fields, although they may also take degrees in nonacademic subjects such as home economics or industrial art. All must have a working knowledge of a foreign language.

Extra Schooling. A fifth year of college will be required of all school teachers, although elementary teachers can take it while working. In contrast to past practice, schools will not let teachers teach outside their academic fields--will no longer plunk an English teacher in French class to save money, for example. The so-called "Einstein Clause" is in full force; able artists or writers are welcome to teach in California public schools even if they never had a day's formal education.

"What we want," says Board President Braden, "is teachers who are educated in the whole sense, people with the initial experience of thorough knowledge of some field. Most education majors are not really educated. They have never really delved into a subject as far as they could." Such talk has won Braden solid support from the state legislature, and fierce opposition "from the great education complex. Their feelings are hurt." As well they might be: thousands of California public school people are being told in effect that they are not good enough.

Stolen Thunder. The change profoundly affects California's 46 teacher-training institutions, which have to get more academic or practically go out of business. Also affected: many education schools in other states, which supply nearly one-third of California's new teachers. California itself may be in for initial trouble: a shortage of teachers able to meet the new standards.

California's reform fits the conservative principles of the state's self-styled education "reformer," Max Rafferty, the back-to-basics new superintendent of public instruction, but he had nothing to do with bringing it about. It is mainly the long-planned work of Tom Braden, 45, a wartime OSS-CIA man who went on to become an English professor at Dartmouth, his alma mater, and is now editor-publisher of the Blade-Tribune in Oceanside. Rafferty rooters recently flooded Sacramento in a vain effort to stop Braden's reappointment to the state board of education, apparently because Braden opposed Rafferty's election last November. Net effect: Braden has stolen a good deal of Rafferty's thunder.

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