For Immediate Release: June 11, 2003

Certified or Qualified? Calls for Alternative Internship Programs

San Francisco, CA – California’s process for credentialing teachers cultivates mediocrity, elevates political correctness over academic content, discourages qualified candidates, and harms the prospects of students, according to Certified or Qualified? How California’s Teacher Credentialing Process Harms Educational Quality , released today by the Pacific Research Institute.

“The credential requirements are not performance verified,” said co-authors Matt Cox and Pamela Riley.

“There is no consensus on how to train good teachers or ensure that they have mastered essential skills. Even proponents of the existing system cannot define a clear set of skills that make for a good teacher,” the authors said.

Certified or Qualified? shows how education school courses substitute political correctness for intellectual rigor and indoctrinate candidates with failed “student centered” methods.

“These failed methods leave students to somehow construct knowledge for themselves and reduce the teacher to a mere facilitator,” said Cox and Riley.

The study notes that both the California Legislative Analyst and the Little Hoover Commission, the state’s government watchdog agency, have characterized the credentialing process as overly complex and cumbersome.

The authors approve new paths toward a credential wedded to the state’s rigorous K-12 academic standards.

Policy changes recommended by the authors include:

• Streamlined entry into teacher training programs.

• Expanding alternative credentialing programs that decrease reliance on fifth-year training programs.

• Allowing teachers who agree to enter a formal induction and assessment program the option of skipping the fifth-year training program.

• A requirement that all teacher preparation programs track and report on placement of their graduates.

• A requirement that teacher preparation programs publicize test scores.

Certified or Qualified? outlines alternative “internship” plans that will train at least 8,500 new teachers by the end of 2003. More than 600 school districts and 37 universities participate in internship projects.

“These changes would save the state millions of dollars, but what is at stake here is the education of our children,” said the authors.

“California’s children need teachers who are not merely credentialed but truly qualified to deliver a quality education,” they conclude.

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About PRI
For more than two decades, the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRI) has championed individual liberty through free markets. PRI is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting the principles of limited government, individual freedom, and personal responsibility.