Walker’s recently announced proposal to establish an alternative route to teacher licensing has some education specialists concerned it would harm the state’s education system.
The alternative path Walker is proposing would allow teachers with “real life experience to pass a competency test to gain a teacher license,” he said in a statement announcing the proposal. Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, said in a statement he thought the legislation would improve quality of K-12 education statewide.
“It is one thing to teach the theory behind a particular subject, but it is a totally different perspective to have lived and breathed that topic for 20 or 30 years and correlate the real-world with the theoretical,” Kremer said. “This may really stimulate some of our youth to the opportunities that are available in Wisconsin.”
Michael Apple, a professor of curriculum and instruction and education policy studies at the University of Wisconsin, said research has shown teachers without the classroom experience required for a traditional certification tend not to do as well.
Apple said there will be a sense that the respect teachers have earned from working hard in schools will be diminished. He said this is concerning, especially because teachers are being asked to do more than ever before in terms of social support and understanding diverse cultures.
“You have to see it in context of Gov. Walker’s attack on teachers,” Apple said. “With Act 10 and other kinds of political reforms that he’s engaged, it’s clear that he has no great love for teachers in an organized way.”
Walker has said Act 10 helped school districts save money while also increasing the quality of public education in districts that took advantage of his reforms.
Speaking to school district administrators last week, Walker said his proposal would give administrators the option of whether they want to hire teachers who would go through the alternative licensing path, the Associated Press reported.
Peter Trabert Goff, a UW assistant professor of educational policy, said alternatively-certified teachers tend to make up a small part of the workforce in schools. But the types of schools that get alternatively-certified teachers tend to be high-need and low-income, he said.
Goff said there are alternative certification programs across the country, and he himself was an alternatively-certified teacher in Chicago. However, this program would give an unprecedented lack of support to teachers passing the competency exam.
“I haven’t seen anything that’s this laissez-faire,” Goff said.
With no support coming from the government, Goff said principals and administrators would be expected to take on the brunt of the work preparing these individuals for the classroom — a task Goff said is asking too much.
Goff said that across the state, principals are feeling pressure from increased legislative requirements, especially in low-income schools where these teachers would most likely be found.
“Just providing the support for traditionally-certified teachers is tough, let alone somebody who has no classroom experience whatsoever,” Goff said.
Apple said he is worried about what this means for the UW Department of Education and teacher education programs across the state.
The proposal means there would likely be less money going into teacher education at UW because teaching would be viewed with a lack of professionalism, he said.
“So if the sense is ‘anybody can teach provided they have a degree in something and they take a one or two hour test,’ that will have a profound effect on teacher education as a whole,” Apple said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
