Good news and bad from Georgia, where the state's Professional Standards Commission recently announced that teachers needn't earn an education degree but can be certified if they pass both the state's certification exam and a standardized content knowledge test called the "principles of learning and teaching." While teachers certified through this alternative process will still have to undergo a year of mentoring and on-the-job training, they will not have to jump through any of the traditional ed-school hoops. Of course, for professors whose salary depends on the existence of these hoops, this freedom to teach is a troubling development. Not surprisingly, therefore, the dean of Georgia State's College of Education asserts that the new alternative certification process "will put unqualified teachers in classrooms. We're talking about a very difficult job with no training." Unfortunately, the Commission rejected a proposal to allow candidates without teaching backgrounds to become school principals (a major recommendation of the Fordham-Broad Foundation publication Better Leaders for America's Schools: A Manifesto, at http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=1).
"Teacher certification process simplified," by Dana Tofig, Atlanta Journal Constitution, February 13, 2004