It is an oft-quoted truism that teachers cannot teach what they do not know. In the past half century, most states have tolerated a weak licensing system for prospective teachers. This weak system has been accompanied by an increasingly emptier curriculum for most of our students, depriving them of the knowledge and skills they need for this country’s experiment in self-government and for their careers in a highly industrialized country.
It is reasonable to believe that an academically stronger licensing system for teachers would raise the academic quality of our teaching force, strengthen the school curriculum, and, in turn, increase student achievement. And it is reasonable to believe that is what happened in the Bay State. But that doesn’t seem to be what the US Department of Education wants, to judge by the policies it has required all Common Core states to implement since 2010.
While the first step in strengthening public education in this country is the development of strong academic standards in all major subjects, something we do not have in any state since 2011, the second should be the tightening up of the academic screws, so to speak, of every state’s teacher licensing system, not, as is now the case, the development of costly national K-12 student tests that may be as poor in quality as the standards on which they are based. Instead of content-poor licensure tests, as most states have, states could adopt. at relatively no cost to themselves (and with no consultant or royalty fees for me), the Massachusetts licensure tests of subject matter knowledge that helped to propel the “Massachusetts education miracle.” They can apply easily to whatever K-12 standards states now have.