The American Board for the Certification of Teacher Excellence announced last week that Florida will join Idaho and Pennsylvania as the third state to accept the American Board's Passport to Teaching as a new route to full certification for the state's public school teachers. Passport is available to mid-career changers, recent college graduates, and teachers seeking certification. It allows candidates with a bachelor's degree to take an exam of professional teaching knowledge and a rigorous subject area knowledge test instead of languishing in traditional pedagogy courses. American Board certification is one of a growing number of "alternative paths" that teaching candidates can take to enter the classroom, and is threatening the monopoly that education schools and national education accrediting organizations have over defining what it means for a teacher to be "highly qualified" and fully certified. Not surprisingly, the nation's largest ed school accrediting agency, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, blasted Florida's decision. "This is a very scary proposition for our nation's children," Jane Liebrand, vice president for communications at NCATE, complained. "In our view, this shortcut will not produce a successful teacher." Given the results from the recent evaluation of Teach for America (see below), which show that highly educated and motivated teachers with little or no professional education training do as well or better than their traditionally certified peers, the evidence seems to suggest otherwise.
"Florida adopts American Board Certification; helping state to meet call for 'highly qualified teachers," press release, American Board for the Certification of Teacher Excellence, June 16, 2004
"Educators divided over fast-track certification," by Kimberly Miller, Palm Beach Post, June 22, 2004