Just What New Teachers Need: More Barriers to Entry

The free market is like an old girlfriend from my Republican youth that I just can't shake: I know she's bad for me, she'll only use me and abuse me, but every now and then, my heart aches for her. (Mrs. Madville Times knows she has nothing to worry about.)

Slatternly wench that the free market is, she still has her charm. I thought about her -- ack! this personification is not healthy! -- it this afternoon at the SD Speech Communication Association convention in Mitchell while chatting with an up and coming student teacher and potential debate coach (now there's and area where we see an acute teacher shortage!). This perceptive young man sees very clearly how, among its numerous other faults, the No Child Left Behind Act was written by big-city bureaucrats with no conception of how schools work in rural South Dakota. For instance, NCLB assumes that schools will hire teachers who are "highly qualified" in their major field of study. But we don't need specialists in specific fields; our smaller schools need teachers who have certifications in a number of subject areas. Small schools need English teachers who can teach both literature and speech and occasionally pick up a section of Spanish or even algebra. They need science teachers who not only majored in physics but can also effectively teach biology and chemistry.

The young man I spoke with is an excellent candidate for working in a South Dakota school. He's finishing a triple major and is planning to student-teach in both speech and social studies. He says when he's done with his undergrad program, he'll have seven different areas on his teaching certificate. Schools will be chomping at the bit to get this bright lad.

Problem is, to get those seven certifications, it's not enough that this young man complete his challenging university program of three majors with good grades and survive two semesters of student-teaching. It's not enough that his professors in the College of Education certify that he has learned how to label all his lesson plans with state standards and deal with all the other administrivia his principal and superintendent will put require of him. It's not even enough that the hiring committees at the schools where he applies will grill him in his interview and subject his teaching to close scrutiny in his three-year probationary period once hired.

No. Before he gets the South Dakota teaching certificate that permits him the privilege of seeking the lowest teacher pay in the nation, NCLB requires him to obtain "highly qualified" status in all seven of his subject areas. He can obtain that status by taking seven praxis tests. no sweat -- this prospective teacher loves tests. Problem is, the state makes him pay $120 just to sit at the test site and then another $70 for each test he takes. In addition, the state only lets teaching candidates take two tests per sitting, and there are only three test dates all year. So, if I understood this young man right, he has to pay hundreds of dollars and take seven tests that will stretch out over more than a year just to get a teaching certificate that he has already earned through an exceptionally rigorous and multidisciplinary university education and two internships. He loses money on the deal, plus he loses time: there will be certain teaching jobs he won't be able to apply for until he's taken that last praxis test perhaps as much as a year after completing his coursework.

I remember my HS economic teacher, Mr. Reitzel (a raging Dem who bore a strange resemblance to GOP Senator Karl Mundt), saying one of the key characteristics of the free market is "easy in, easy out." The free market supposedly works best when we minimize the barriers to engaging in or withdrawing from activity in the marketplace. When teachers have to pay these huge fees just for the chance to apply for jobs, we hang one more sign on the schoolhouse door saying, "Applicants with a lick of fiscal sense need not apply."

Of course, the flaming liberal in me said, "Oh! But if the government is charging such high fees, it must be putting that money to good use! Maybe it's helping kids!" (You know us liberals, always trying to help those darn kids.)

No such luck. The young man told me the money goes mostly to -- ah ha! -- the testing corporations. He said there are just three big companies that run such tests. NCLB requirements create a captive market for those companies, who can then proceed to charge those luckless souls up the wazoo for those tests. And that money then leaves the state for yet another big corporation instead of staying in-state where it could help the local economy and tax coffers.

Ugh! So NCLB, in imposing these new-teacher tests, leaves unrequited both my newfound faith in liberal principles and that old, unhealthy lust for the free market. Just one more reason Congress should refuse to reauthorize No Child Left Behind this month. Just keep working on Iraq, the farm bill, toy safety, the budget, you name it! And let NCLB die the death it deserves. No one in South Dakota will miss it... especially not our young teachers in training who don't need expensive tests to prove their abilities.