When the Department of Education recently reported to Congress on the state of teacher quality and teacher training in America, Secretary Paige concluded that teacher licensure today depends too heavily on training in pedagogy, and recommended that pathways into teaching be created for individuals who lack coursework in education (http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=54#802). In Saturday's New York Times, Arthur Levine, the president of Teachers College, argues that eliminating "burdensome education requirements" will "all but guarantee that our poor and minority youngsters living in the inner cities will continue to be left behind." Levine contrasts schools in affluent suburbs, where teachers arrive with much training under their belts, prepared to succeed in the classroom, with schools in inner cities, where, he says, teaching is viewed as a trade to be learned on the job. What Levine doesn't explain is that study after study has failed to find any evidence that teacher training provided by a school of education leads to more effective teaching. Of course, the extent of professional training is not the only dimension along which teachers differ between inner city and suburban schools; the former are less likely to have passed a test of basic skills, to have majored in the subject they teach, or to have attended a selective college. Given research that suggests that the academic skills and subject knowledge of prospective teachers better predict teaching success than the extent of ed school training, the Department of Education is right to turn the nation's attention from the latter to the former in its quest for better teachers. For more see "Rookies in the Schools," by Arthur Levine, The New York Times, June 29, 2002.
