Web Letter: Teachers Should Know Subjects, Learn Methods in Summer Workshops

Regarding the op-ed column “Improve requirements for teacher preparation” (Nov. 24) by Teresa Lubbers, commissioner of the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.

No doubt Lubbers is sincere about wanting to reform teacher preparation in colleges and universities. Who can argue with her proposition that “student learning is what matters most,” or that programs to train teachers “must be designed with accountabilities that measure and report their graduates’ impact on student achievement”? One might quibble that there is only one “accountability,” not multiples thereof; however, one word coinage does not nullify a noble sentiment.

A more serious problem is that learned academics have been making pronouncements like this about the schools of pedagogy for many decades. In the 1970s, “performance-based” teacher education was all the rhetorical rage. However, the reform clamor never changed practice in any perceptible way. The schools of education merrily continued producing teachers steeped in arcane theories of learning but deficient in subject-matter knowledge to transmit to their students.

Real reform would abolish the education degree and require teachers to have a well-rounded liberal arts education with a major in their chosen discipline, as do most private-school teachers. Beginning teachers could learn the schoolhouse nitty-gritty in summer workshops or under the wing of a savvy mentor.

ROBERT HOLLAND Senior Fellow for Education Policy The Heartland Institute Chicago