Why the Rules Don't Work

Anyone who tries to get a teaching job in U.S. public schools confronts a thicket of state rules -- rules that say what college courses and how many credits are needed to get a state teaching certificate. The purpose is lofty; it is to ensure that teachers know their business.

Why, in practice, do the rules do precisely the opposite?

The best reply ever given to that question was published by Harvard's former President James B. Conant last week in The Education of American Teachers (McGraw-Hill; $5). The product of two years' fact finding in 22 states, Conant's answer is that the states' rules keep colleges from developing sound and imaginative ways of training teachers, that, in fact, many colleges fail to try. And in the end the states ignore their own rules when teachers certified in one field are allowed to teach in any other.

Dangerous Misunderstanding. Conant calls this "a national scandal," and he has a solution: take the wraps off the 1,150 colleges that train teachers in the U.S., give future teachers a real academic education, and make practice teaching, not fusty education courses, the key to certification. Only by this "radical" reform, says Conant, will U.S. classrooms get qualified teachers.

The first obstacle is the education "establishment" -- a complex of education professors and National Education Association groups that guide state edu cation departments in setting certification rules, which in turn dictate college curriculums. In recent years the establishment has tightened the rules -- nobly, it believes -- to stress subject matter and a trend toward five years of teacher training. But this is not necessarily an improvement, says Conant. The same education courses remain, while the establishment, with "frightening rigidity," endorses only "approved programs" --most of them academically anemic.

"Pathetic" is Conant's word for most required foundation courses. Tidbit surveys, such as philosophy of education, "leave the future teacher with the most dangerous of misunderstandings: that he knows what he is talking about when, in fact, he does not." Worse, Conant found in college after college that "members of a subject-matter department (English or chemistry, for example) were totally unfamiliar with what was going on in the schools and couldn't care less." The same went for supervision of practice teaching in "even the best institutions."

Opium Smokers. While certification rules distort college curriculums, the ultimate irony is that half-educated teachers are later thrown into fields not their own. This is how most states "solve" the teacher shortage. Conant "contemplates with horror" the fact that 34% of all seventh-and eighth-grade mathematics classes are taught by teachers whose college training covered less than two elementary courses in the subject. Concludes Conant: "The policy of certification based on the completion of state-specified course requirements is bankrupt."

Equally bankrupt is the widespread policy of giving teachers a raise every time they pass a course after hours--any course, including "Mickey Mouse" guts like driver education. "I just love taking courses," one teacher told Conant. "I could keep on taking courses all my life." Says Conant: "I felt as if I were talking to opium smokers."

Conant's prescription goes far beyond pep pills. It consists of urgent, major surgery. Among his 27 recommendations:

sb FUTURE TEACHERS. States should lure recruits from the top 30% of high school graduates by offering a free college education through loans that would be forgiven after four or five years of public school teaching.

sb TEACHER TRAINING. Colleges should be free to develop their own programs--with stress on practice teaching. They should join schools in state-financed programs run by "clinical professors of education" -- master teachers versed in academic subjects. Schools should train recruits in teams under "cooperating teachers" -- masters working with the clinical professors.

sb ASSIGNMENT. School boards should place teachers only in their own fields and furthermore should give them paid time off for graduate study and a sharp salary raise after four probationary years of on-the-job training. Further raises should be based on fulltime summer study toward graduate degrees.

sb CERTIFICATION. State licenses should require only a baccalaureate degree from "a legitimate college or university" --plus soundly supervised practice teaching and endorsement by the college. Once certified in one state, under the Conant doctrine, a teacher would be certified in all states.

Too Idealistic? In essence, Conant argues that colleges, given "freedom and responsibility," will in fact compete to graduate the best teachers possible-- pinning their reputations on the kind of teachers they produce. Will it work that way?

New York's able State Commissioner of Education James E. Allen praised the competition idea as "sound" but argued that "many institutions are not ready or willing to accept the responsibility." Max Rafferty, Superintendent of Public Instruction in California, called Conant's criticism "extremely well taken," but insisted that his state's recently upgraded certification rules are "excellent." Officials in other states also paid homage to Conant, but argued that the trend is all toward the profession's setting its own standards -- or more of the same situation.

Odds are that Conant's incisive book will spark lively debate, make the establishment uncomfortable, and produce a few small changes. But if it looks more like a brilliant analysis than a revolutionary manifesto, it is surely a distinguished public service.

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