Shrinking Student-to-Teacher Ratios Poses Difficult Choices

California seems intent on taking one step forward and two steps backward in meeting the challenge of overcrowded classrooms with the recently announced plans to reduce class size and redefine the requirements to teach in public schools.

One hopeful development of this past year was the passage of a state Assembly bill that provided funding to reduce class size in grades K-3. This in itself is a wonderful idea. Countless studies have demonstrated that smaller class size has a positive effect on student achievement. For example, a report from Eastern Michigan University shows that elementary students in smaller classes are less likely to be held back a grade or pose discipline problems and that minority students benefit substantially. Even the age group targeted for class-size reduction makes sense. It is during these early and formative years of a child’s education that students acquire the basic reading and computational skills that are the foundation of their future learning.

If you are getting ready to rejoice, save your streamers and confetti because the law contains a fatal flaw. However laudable its goal, the state simply does not have the trained educators to staff classes at the mandated 20-1 level. To reduce classes from their current statewide average of just under 40, California will need 20,000 new teachers per year but awards credentials to only 5,000. To address this issue, the Legislature has made it possible for districts to hire untrained individuals to masquerade as teachers for several years while they receive training.

Some schools and districts already have shown concern about the process.

Burbank postponed implementing the class-size reduction legislation until January and will employ only licensed individuals as tenure track instructors. Glendale entered the game in the fall and hired only individuals with credentials, but the Los Angeles Unified School District estimates that more than 50% of all new hires will be untrained!

In every district, taxpayers, parents, students and professional educators have a right to expect that those who serve as teachers are qualified to be in the classroom from their first day of service, not several years in the future.

The newly enacted law will further erode the quality of education in California schools because it may allow individuals and districts to circumvent the traditional teacher credentialing process. Assemblyman Bernie Richter (R-Chico) sponsored the legislation permitting districts to hire virtually anyone who has a bachelor’s degree and passes the California Basic Educational Skills Test--with the emphasis on basic--to “intern” as a full-time teacher while taking some ill-defined teacher-training classes. Although the term “intern” has earned respect by its use in medical education, Richter’s measure makes a mockery of the apprenticeship process. Even the most unseasoned medical intern has had years of training before being put in charge of patients.

The idea behind this law is that more people will rise to the challenge of teaching if only they are relieved of the onerous task of having to learn how to teach. Merely having attended school, our legislators appear to believe, is all the education a teacher needs. What an insult to teachers and students! No matter how well-meaning or enthusiastic, inexperienced individuals cannot do the same job as trained educators. Being able to read and do math, for instance, does not adequately prepare an individual for teaching reading and arithmetic. Effective teaching requires both experience and training. The medical profession would not permit individuals to perform appendectomies just because they have had one. Educators shouldn’t lower their standards either.

This is not to say that the process for licensing teachers does not need to be reformed. Today a bureaucratic nightmare takes the place of well-considered prerequisites for prospective teachers. We must examine legitimate alternatives to the present exhaustive requirements, streamline the multiyear licensing procedure, and more readily grant California credentials to well-trained educators from out of state. But reform is a laborious, time-consuming and politically sensitive process.

Likewise, the problem of overcrowded classrooms can’t be solved quickly. It requires a proactive view. We should have started earlier, telling undergraduates that we would guarantee them a teaching position if they would complete the required training. Money now spent on unqualified teachers should have been used to increase the number of teacher’s aides until the pool of qualified teachers grew. To increase that pool, we should look to generous scholarships for those who want to get the necessary teacher training and innovative programs, such as USC’s Latino Teacher Initiative, a project to help teacher’s aides earn a credential from the university’s rigorous program.

Teacher shortages can only really be solved by hiring qualified professionals, not baby-sitters who may or may not pick up what they need to know along the way. Only when each student has the kind of support that professional educators provide can the celebration begin.