Teacher Quality, Part One >>>>> The Mediocrity of Teaching Quality in the United States

When a teacher rises to the level of excellence in the United States, this occurs because of the intellectual drive and personal effort of the individual teacher.


Nothing in the training that a teacher receives in route to certification makes circumstances very likely that those people who preside over the classrooms of our students possess either the knowledge base or the pedagogical ability that should define a teacher.


The Low Quality of K-12 Teacher Preparation Programs


Mediocrity of K-12 education in the United States originates in departments, colleges, and schools of education wherein professors do not believe that systematically acquired and mentally stored knowledge of the liberal arts is important.


They believe, instead, in so-called “constructivist” approaches that begin with the knowledge base and life experiences of the student as a foundation for seeking information that is relevant to the particular young person. This so-called “progressive” approach to education is implemented upon the assumption that the systematic, sequential accumulation of knowledge in math, natural science, social science, history, literature, and the fine arts is not important. Only those topics that passionately drive a given student, for which a teacher serves as “facilitator” in accumulating this particularistic information, are important. As to accumulated knowledge from the human inheritance, one can always “look it up.”


But this view of education and the teacher is deeply flawed: 


Imagine going to a cardiologist with complaints about chest pains and being told that the doctor would have to take a moment to look up what is known about arterial blockage, because this was not covered in medical school.


Consider describing to an attorney an experience whereby police officers broke into one’s home without a search warrant and being told by this lawyer that this sounds like an interesting predicament that would have to be researched, because such instances were not part of the law school curriculum.


 Taught by such professors promulgating the “constructivist,“ “progressive” approach to knowledge and pedagogy, our K-5 teachers, especially, enter our classrooms woefully underprepared. Those who teach at the grades 6-12 level are a bit better trained, because most get bachelor’s degrees in legitimate disciplines (e. g., physics, math, history, economics, English literature, fine arts). But low licensure requirements mean that those who enter our middle schools and high schools are not always truly masters of their fields. Graduate programs for teachers, in the meantime, provide programs for easily attained master’s degrees that are financial spigots for universities.


Teacher unions act in ways to protect such unprepared teachers. Most central school district and school building administrators are too busy protecting their sinecures of substantial remuneration to contest teacher union power, and thus the status quo prevails.


Our children walk across stages to receive diplomas in name only. Most could not tell you the difference between debt and deficit; the Roman and Byzantine Empires; Newtonian and Einstein’s physics; Ego and Superego; or the literary styles of Fitzgerald and Hemingway. And they could not tell you the essential differences, as we recall our nominal focus on Black History in this February of 2016, in the approaches to the African American dilemma in the early 20th century as espoused by Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Dubois, and Marcus Garvey.


Constructivist ideology and systemic flaws operate in highly similar ways from state to state, so that teacher preparation programs and institutions of K-12 education maintain the status quo of mediocrity in Minnesota and throughout the nation:


The Standard Teacher Training Program


There is a rough similarity among the major teacher preparation programs offered by colleges and universities in the Twin Cities. Programs that train large contingents of prospective teachers include the University of Minnesota/ Twin Cities, Augsburg College, and the universities of Concordia, Hamline, St. Catherine, and St. Thomas.


At most of these institutions, prospective elementary school teachers major in elementary education; those who aspire to teach in secondary schools (middle school or high school) typically get a major in a relevant field such as history, political science, math, biology, or English while also taking a certain number of education courses to attain certification. But at some of the institutions that train teachers through the traditional route, getting a major in secondary education, with a specialty in one of the relevant disciplines, is also possible.


Once the college or university certification program is complete, prospective teachers must take exams that include a basic skills exam, a content-focused pedagogic exam, and a mathematics exam. Upon passing these exams, licensure is granted. The license is permanent, given the teacher’s ongoing demonstration of professional development through certified participation in teacher-in-service days, workshops, conferences, and the like; and with the option to pursue an advanced degree, typically a master’s of education in teaching elementary education or teaching a subject area such as math, social studies, science, or English.


Hamline University in St. Paul is unique among the metro area institutions offering teacher preparation programs in requiring its aspiring elementary school teachers to get a degree in a discipline other than education. At Hamline, both prospective elementary and secondary teachers get majors in subjects such as economics, psychology, chemistry, math, or English literature while also getting a co- major in education. There is a certain similarity in the required courses for elementary and secondary aspirants, with both taking courses such as Educational Psychology, Diversity and Education, Theory to Practice, Schools and Society, and Exceptionality. A key difference is that those training to become secondary teachers take a course in Teaching Literacy in the Secondary School, while those preparing to be elementary teachers additionally take courses in Teaching Social Studies [Mathematics, Science] in the Elementary School.


In the other institutions, any route similar to the one pursued at Hamline would come through the attainment of a double major, but this is not required. The required education courses are similar from institution to institution:


Elementary level aspirants at the University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development, for example, take courses called Social Studies [Language Arts, Mathematics, Science] Instruction in the Elementary Grades that parallel those given for Hamline. Courses at the University of Minnesota also include Schools and Society and those that incorporate matters of educational psychology, exceptionality [individual differences], and diversity. For both elementary and secondary teaching aspirants, a semester of student teaching is required, and courses include additional hours in the field, visiting and assisting in classrooms.


The indicated courses that aspiring teachers must take are academically insubstantial.  The fact that these sorts of courses constitute the core of the training for prospective elementary (K-5) teachers is deeply disturbing.  One may look in vain on the transcripts of these teacher aspirants for evidence of sufficient education in legitimate subject areas, so that their knowledge of mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, fine arts, and world languages is typically deficient in the extreme.


And the training of secondary (grades 6-12) teachers is also inadequate: 


Prospective teachers at grades 6-12 do tend to get legitimate subject area bachelor's degrees, but there is a low bar set for grade point averages in the hiring of teachers.


Further, teachers overwhelmingly do not get legitimate master's degrees, as my next article posted on this blog will carefully explain.