Move to Outsource Teacher Licensing Process Draws Protest

Michael Winerip:

The idea that a handful of college instructors and student teachers in the school of education at the University of Massachusetts could slow the corporatization of public education in America is both quaint and ridiculous.

Sixty-seven of the 68 students studying to be teachers at the middle and high school levels at the Amherst campus are protesting a new national licensure procedure being developed by Stanford University with the education company Pearson.

The UMass students say that their professors and the classroom teachers who observe them for six months in real school settings can do a better job judging their skills than a corporation that has never seen them.

They have refused to send Pearson two 10-minute videos of themselves teaching, as well as a 40-page take-home test, requirements of an assessment that will soon be necessary for licensure in several states.

"This is something complex and we don't like seeing it taken out of human hands," said Barbara Madeloni, who runs the university's high school teacher training program. "We are putting a stick in the gears."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 11, 2012 1:39 AM
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