Taking ideology out of teacher prep: Is testing teachers the answer?

Politicized teacher preparation is a real problem, writes Rick Hess. "I can still recall those long-ago days of 2023 when progressives insisted that training aspiring teachers to spot 'white supremacy culture' wasn’t political — that it was just sensible pedagogy."

Sidney Poitier played an inner-city London teacher in To Sir With Love.

However, the solution proposed by Oklahoma’s then-superintendent Ryan Walters -- a new anti-woke test for would-be teachers from New York and California -- is the wrong answer. Oklahoma’s test is "a quiz of rudimentary political knowledge, coupled with MAGA-aligned talking points on gender, religious liberty, and parents’ rights," Hess writes. It's a "stunt."

Since Walters has resigned to take an advocacy job, Oklahoma can "overhaul the test, ditching the ideological trolling and Mickey Mouse questions in favor of substantive questions about professional responsibility and civic knowledge," he writes.

Oklahoma’s test has a few useful questions, he writes, such as: “Should teachers be allowed to express their own political viewpoints in the classroom in order to persuade the students to adopt their point of view?” (No.)

It's a start. Hess also wants to revise teacher licensure to lower the barriers to the classroom. "Earning a license requires would-be educators to sit through a catalog of dubious education courses," he writes. Most have to go through a graduate school of education or an alternative credentialing program. In addition to being "ineffectual and ideological," the "model is bureaucratic, sclerotic, costly, and a big reason why America’s classrooms are filled with more than 300,000 long-term subs at any given time."

Quinta Brunson as a second-grade teacher in Philadelphia in Abbott Elementary

School leaders should have a chance to "hire would-be teachers based on experience and expertise, rather than on paper credentials," he writes. "This would enable policymakers to attract responsible professionals, bust up the ed-school stranglehold, and create room for teacher training that’s independent of the education blob." A meaningful test could be part of a streamlined licensure system, he writes. But not a political litmus test.

While fewer college students are majoring in education, "faster and cheaper alternative routes into the teaching profession have been booming," writes Chad Aldeman on The 74. How good are teachers who skip traditional teacher ed? It's complicated.

"Texas opened the door two decades ago to online, for-profit alternative licensure programs that did not require teachers to have any student teaching or classroom experience," he writes. Almost 20 percent of the state's teachers now have for-profit certifications.

These teachers have "higher turnover rates and are (slightly) less effective at raising math and reading scores" than traditionally trained teachers, concludes a new NBER paper. But, the for-profit teachers were significantly better than the unlicensed teachers Texas schools were hiring.

As the for-profits boosted the supply of teachers, the percentage of unlicensed teachers dropped from five percent to one percent, the study found. As a result, there was no effect on student achievement.

"The for-profit programs were significantly shorter and cheaper than the standard routes," Aldeman writes. That allowed a wider range of people to "find a way into the classroom," and increased the supply of black and male teachers.