School choice is a necessary step toward reforming education in the United States. Parents have been locked down for far too long by state regulations that force them to send their tax dollars and students to a public school determined by a zip code — regardless of that school’s academic performance.
Resolving this particular injustice is important, but it is not the only issue in the public education system that must be corrected.
Every year, individuals seeking to become teachers are bogged down by dozens of state regulations that make it needlessly difficult to step foot in a classroom. Most states force them to wade through a frustrating slog of endless hoops and useless red tape just so they can obtain and keep their teacher licensure. On top of that, teachers are required each year to sit through a number of useless professional developments, most of which are infused with leftist ideology, and waste their time and the property taxes of the local community.
I have sat through more than 100 of these, both as a teacher and school administrator, listening to the condescending lectures from academics who are paid tens of thousands of dollars by our public schools to tell me that I should be more pro-LGBT in my science classroom, or that history teachers should abandon teaching history to focus more on helping students make up a reading or math deficiency.
College degrees are similarly worthless in this space but are nevertheless required to teach. Teacher education programs today are little more than a vessel for progressive political posturing with a thin veneer of academic language. Master’s degrees are the same expensive waste of time — with one exception. In order to be considered for an administrative position, you must obtain a very specific master’s degree: educational leadership.
These hyperpolitical programs, in which education students are taught to use critical race theory and the same pseudo-academic drivel that hasn’t worked since it was introduced in the 1920s, are a requirement to lead our public schools. That means the pool of available candidates for principals and superintendents is restricted to those able to pass the Left’s woke tests.
None of these programs or requirements, be they degrees, licenses, or professional developments, have ever successfully predetermined whether a teacher will be remotely competent at their job.
I took every test, obtained every license, and purchased three education degrees, yet none of these things contributed in any measurable way to my teacher-of-the-year awards or the successes of my students.
While directing science for Indianapolis Public Schools, I observed that some of the most institutionally qualified teachers were wasting their students’ potential with a level of incompetence that rivaled the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
In contrast, some teachers granted emergency licensure by the Department of Education (as a last resort to stopgap the teacher shortage) have shown considerable grace under pressure and a finesse that suggests they’ve been teaching far longer than a few weeks.
Based on these observations, it is unfathomable that states are maintaining impractical hurdles that, at best, allow poor educators to preen from the ivory tower of perceived authority.
But, of course, any effort to deregulate the education system is met with firm opposition from the groups that benefit the most from it. For example, teachers unions have lambasted Florida and Indiana for reducing the requirements to teach in their public classrooms, claiming that the standards of learning will fall as a result. There has yet to be a single shred of evidence that supports this fearmongering sentiment.
The unions’ argument also assumes local school boards won’t be able to set decent standards for hiring staff. Assuming a bad teacher makes it through the application process and multiple interviews and is somehow able to fake their way through the typical observation period, the teacher’s ineptitude would still be evident within a few weeks.
It’s really not that hard to be a good teacher. Private schools have shown for years that the quality of teachers rests in their ability to perform their job — not on how many tests they pass or professional development sessions they complete.
Educational freedom should exist for both students and teachers. If my school thinks I’m qualified to take on the role of principal, the state should have no say in the matter. I shouldn’t need a fancy receipt from a university to demonstrate competence. Families deserve the right to take their students to the school that fit them best, and teachers like myself deserve the same right to work at any educational institution that will have me.
Tony Kinnett is the executive director of Chalkboard Review, an education publication for teachers with heterodox perspectives. He has bylines in National Review, the Federalist, the Daily Caller, and American Mind. Twitter: @TheTonus.
