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From: TAH1916
Subject: [aenj] Do Teachers Know Their Subjects?
Date: Fri, Jan 14, 2000, 2:08 AM

NAEA TEACHER PREPARATION POLICY WATCH

NATIONAL ART EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
Office of the Executive Director
Phone 703-860-8000 Fax 703-860-2960
Home Pageóhttp://www.naea-reston.org
E-mail: naea

DO TEACHERS KNOW THEIR SUBJECTS?

Quality Counts 2000, the fourth annual 50-state report by Education
Week,
looks at one of the most critical questions in education: Do teachers
know
their subject? The answer, based on the most exhaustive survey of
state
teacher policies to date: Not enough.

To guarantee that teachers have basic cognitive skills, 39 states
require
prospective educators to pass a basic- skills test. But acing such
tests is
hardly a feat: In general, critics maintain, they measure verbal and
mathematical achievement at about the 10th grade level. And many
states set
their passing scores so low that virtually anyone can succeed. Even
so, 36
states provide loopholes that allow at least some people to enter the
classroom even if they fail such exams.

When it comes to guaranteeing teachersí subject-matter knowledge,
states
have
been most vigilant about high school teachers, generally taking steps
along
two lines:

ï Thirty-nine require high school teachers to have a major, a minor,
or the
equivalent number of college credits in the subjects they teach.

ï Twenty-nine require beginning high school teachers to pass tests in
their
academic disciplines.

Yet all but New Jersey turn around and waive those requirements,
either by
granting licenses to individual teachers who have not met them or by
permitting districts to hire such candidates.

States are far less stringent about whether middle school teachers
know
their
subjects. Only 17 states expect middle school teachers to obtain
secondary-level licenses in the academic subjects they plan to teach.
The
rest permit middle school teachers to earn an elementary school
certificate.
Only nine states require all prospective middle school teachers to
pass
tests
in their academic disciplines.

As a result, a substantial chunk of U.S. teachers lack a solid
grounding in
the subjects they teach. According to the National Center for
Education
Statistics, 66 percent of high school teachers have either an
undergraduate
or graduate major in an academic field, compared with 44 percent of
middle
school teachers and only 22 percent of elementary teachers.

Elementary educators also tend to be less academically able than their
middle
or high school counterparts, and than other college graduates, as
measured
by
college-admissions tests.

The same is true for college students majoring in education, instead
of in
academic disciplines. In 1992-93, 30 percent of college students
graduating
with education majors scored in the bottom quartile on their
college-entrance
exams, compared with 18 percent of humanities majors and 14 percent of
those
majoring in math, computer science, or the natural sciences.

Education Weekís analysis of longitudinal data for Quality Counts
looked at
every major decision point in the pipeline: It identified which
students
chose a major in education, decided to student-teach, entered the
classroom,
and remained in the profession at the end of four years. In general,
the
less
academically able candidates, as measured by SAT and ACT scores, were
the
ones still teaching after three years.

For more information about the Quality Counts 2000 Report see
www.edweek.org/sreports/qc00/

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