New bill provokes controversy
Published 12:12 pm Saturday, February 19, 2011
Two alternative teacher licensing bills were recently passed by the Minnesota House and Senate, which would essentially help people who want to become teachers have a shorter training period than current law states.
The bill’s proponents say it will close the achievement gap by allowing mid-career professionals a faster way to get into the classroom. In Albert Lea, the bill could help administrators have a larger pool of candidates in areas like math, science and English language learning.
“It’s an OK thing to look at,” Albert Lea Area Schools Superintendent Mike Funk said. “Alternative licensure creates more opportunities for people in the long run.”
Funk said he’s most concerned about what’s best for the students, and if that’s having people who are proficient in a skill getting into the classroom, then he’s for it.
Education Minnesota, the largest union of teachers in the state, has taken a stance against some parts of the bill, specifically the amount of supervision for teachers who are alternatively licensed. Education Minnesota President Tom Dooher said students deserve a more responsible approach to alternative pathways into teaching.
“We believe it’s only reasonable that a teacher have a college degree in the field they’re teaching, and that alternatively licensed teachers be supervised to make sure our students are getting instruction from a qualified professional,” Dooher said.
“The bill passed Feb. 3 does not include either of those provisions.”
Other opposers of the bill say the language would allow alternatively trained teachers from other states, where standards could be lower, into Minnesota schools.
Gov. Mark Dayton has criticized the bills saying they don’t do enough to guarantee those teachers would be well-qualified. Dayton worried the bills wouldn’t ensure that teachers licensed through the proposed alternative program would have the necessary “deep knowledge” in the subjects they taught.
“The simple fact is that teachers can’t teach what they don’t know,” Dayton wrote in a letter to Sen. Gen Olson, R-Minnetrista, the Senate sponsor of the legislation.
Dayton also criticized the plan because it wouldn’t require the nonprofit groups that might start teacher licensing programs to partner with colleges and universities, which he called essential to maintaining quality.
The House and Senate have approved versions of the alternative licensing bill and it is now up to Olson to decide if she wants to send it to Dayton or to a conference committee for more work.
The bill requires teaching candidates to have a bachelor’s degree and pass various tests — including in their subject area — but it doesn’t require a specific amount of coursework in what they will teach.
Olson agreed that most teachers licensed through the alternate route would work in some of the state’s toughest schools, where, she said, content knowledge was less important than attitude and persistence.
“They are going into schools where the kids are barely ready for remedial (work),” she said. More important, she said, is “the notion of high expectations. Really believing that all kids can learn.”
Olson said she hopes her bill will make expansion in the state easier for Teach for America — which trains new college graduates to teach in low-performing schools — and similar groups. The lack of an alternative teacher licensing program cost Minnesota points in the competition last year for millions in grant money in the federal Race to the Top competition.
— The Associated Press contributed to this story.