Why Do We Send Teachers for Re-Education?

COMMENTARY Education

Why Do We Send Teachers for Re-Education?

Sep 23, 2022 1 min read
COMMENTARY BY
Lindsey M. Burke, PhD

Director, Center for Education Policy

Lindsey Burke researches and writes on federal and state education issues.
States should end teacher-certification requirements and allow professionals with content-matter expertise to put their skills to work in the classroom. Johner Images / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

Research demonstrates little if any connection between teacher certification conferred by colleges of education and a teacher’s effect on student academic outcomes.

Colleges of education mold social-justice warriors, sending them into K-12 schools where they’ll be greeted by a chief diversity officer.

Ending licensure requirements would address purported teacher shortages, with the added benefit of weakening the power of ineffective and woke colleges of education.

Daniel Buck is right: Schools of education have long suffered from academic mediocrity (“Woke Activism Is Flooding American Classrooms,” Cross Country, Aug. 20). Research demonstrates little if any connection between teacher certification conferred by colleges of education and a teacher’s effect on student academic outcomes.

Yet states maintain teacher-certification requirements. In so doing, they push aspiring teachers into colleges of education that are captive to the Marxist tenets of critical theory, frequently assigning Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” while lecturing about postcolonial theory, queer theory, “QuantCrit” and intersectionality, rather than foundational pedagogical concepts, lesson-plan design and classroom management.

As the American Enterprise Institute’s Rick Hess and I recently found, among the colleges of education that produce the most teachers, an estimated 40% of faculty list diversity as a research interest. Between a quarter and a third of the faculty who study race do so as critical theorists.

Rather than make sure graduates are well-grounded in teaching methods, colleges of education mold social-justice warriors, sending them into K-12 schools where they’ll be greeted by a chief diversity officer.

States should end teacher-certification requirements and allow professionals with content-matter expertise to put their skills to work in the classroom. Gov. Ron DeSantis recently began allowing veterans and active service members to hold temporary teaching certificates. More states should follow Florida’s lead. Ending licensure requirements would address purported teacher shortages, with the added benefit of weakening the power of ineffective and woke colleges of education.

This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal on 08/24/2022

Exclusive Offers

5 Shocking Cases of Election Fraud

Read real stories of fraudulent ballots, harvesting schemes, and more in this new eBook.

The Heritage Guide to the Constitution

Receive a clause-by-clause analysis of the Constitution with input from more than 100 scholars and legal experts.

The Real Costs of America’s Border Crisis

Learn the facts and help others understand just how bad illegal immigration is for America.