In the News E-Mail
CERExcerpt from "Would-be teachers get a rude
welcome," by Joanne Jacobs
The Denver Post, September 17, 1999
"...The nation needs to find 2 million or more new teachers in the next 10 years. California will need 260,000 to 300,000.
"But there's no agreement on how to train, evaluate or reward teachers, much less how to make teaching so fulfilling that smart people will accept penury with good cheer.
"President Clinton wants to provide federal money to hire new teachers, and to force schools to stop handing out emergency credentials to teachers who haven't been certified to teach the subject.
"That's the conventional approach, and it's wrong, says Chester E. Finn Jr., a Reagan-era education official who's now president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.
"Better Teachers, Better Schools, a recent Fordham report (www.edexcellence.net), concludes that students learn as well from teachers with emergency credentials as from teachers with the standard certification, when other factors are held equal. What counts is whether teachers know the subject well, not whether they've taken education courses.
"The report recommends raising the minimum passing scores on exams of subject-matter knowledge, and letting high scorers learn to teach under the guidance of a mentor teacher.
"Then evaluate teachers by analyzing their students' progress, paying the most effective teachers more. William Sanders of the University of Tennessee has developed a way to assess the "value added" by teachers, regardless of what sorts of students they're teaching.
"Sooner or later, the teacher shortage will force serious change in how people enter the profession and how they're compensated. We're not quite desperate enough yet, because the kids with the least competent teachers have the parents with the least clout."
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Joanne Jacobs is a member of the San Jose Mercury News editorial board.