THE NEW YORK TIMES       EDITORIAL/OP ED   
 
 
Rookies in the Schools
By ARTHUR LEVINE


This month, in a report to Congress, Education
Secretary Rod Paige
stated accurately that teacher quality is a key
determinant of student
success. But his definition of a high-quality teacher
was alarming in
what it left out: it dismissed the need for any
knowledge of teaching
and child development — or even student teaching
experience.

Secretary Paige concluded that while states' licensure
of teachers
should require more verbal and subject-matter
competence, "burdensome
education requirements" should be eliminated.

This is a recommendation that all but guarantees that
our poor and
minority youngsters living in the inner cities will
continue to be left
behind. It is a promise to maintain the achievement
gap in academic
performance between rich and poor, urban and suburban,
and
black/Hispanic and white/Asian children. 

At one extreme in America's separate and unequal
public systems are
schools for affluent suburban children in places like
Scarsdale, N.Y.;
Lake Forest, Ill.; and Pacific Palisades, Calif. These
school systems
treat teaching as a profession, not to be practiced
until after careful
training. At the other extreme are the schools in our
inner cities, like
New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, largely for poor
and minority
children. They treat teaching as a trade — something
to be learned while
doing the job.

By buying homes in wealthy communities, parents in the
affluent suburbs
pay entrance fees of hundreds of thousands of dollars
to send their
children to the schools in the first group. These
schools, recognizing
that children's performance depends on effective
teachers, pay far
higher salaries than inner-city schools do. They also
expect much more
in teacher preparation. They ask their teachers to
exhibit not only
verbal ability and subject matter proficiency, but
also knowledge of
teaching. They want their teachers to know about
teaching methods,
classroom management, child development, differences
in how children
learn, curriculum design, assessment of student
performance, learning
disabilities, educational technology and much more.

In these school systems, the job of teacher is seen as
something akin to
the job of a doctor. It is not enough to have strong
basic intelligence
or mastery of basic science to be a doctor. We require
doctors to be
educated in medical theory, have substantial clinical
experience and
learn in internships.

In the inner-city schools, teachers typically come
with a rudimentary
level of knowledge and then learn how to handle a
classroom on the job.
Accordingly, salaries are low. The reality is that a
growing proportion
of the teachers being hired in these schools are
unable to meet their
states' certification requirements. They often lack
adequate preparation
and knowledge in their subject fields and may not have
any knowledge of
education.

Mr. Paige's emphasis on subject matter knowledge at
the expense of
professional preparation promises to perpetuate this
situation. He seems
to believe that the experience that affluent suburban
schools demand of
their teachers is unnecessary.

But our affluent schools will not be reducing their
standards for
teachers in response to any federal policy. They will
continue to demand
professionals who both know their subjects and know
how to teach. And
they will be able to attract and retain such teachers.

What Mr. Paige's recommendation means is that for poor
and minority
children we are willing to accept something far less
under the
definition of a "highly qualified teacher." This
teacher can be a rookie
with absolutely no prior experience teaching — or even
time in a
classroom. The research shows that such novice
teachers have very high
attrition rates in inner-city schools. Requiring no
professional
training should assure a continuing line of
inexperienced teachers
learning by trial and error and making their mistakes
with the children
who need the best teachers in the country.

Teachers who know only subject matter are not
qualified to enter our
classrooms, nor are teachers who know only pedagogy.
Our children need
teachers who know both. This kind of dual
qualification cannot be
reserved only for the affluent. 


Arthur Levine is president of Teachers College,
Columbia University.
  Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company 

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