[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 25168]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                         TEACHER CERTIFICATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because occasionally I still 
read articles or hear news reports about a teacher shortage in this 
Nation. This is a government-induced, contrived or special interest 
produced shortage, because this is a problem that could be solved very 
simply and very quickly if we would do a few simple things.
  Many, many years ago, I taught American government and journalism at 
T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, the school that the 
famous movie ``Remember the Titans'' was made about. I have had many, 
many teachers in my family. My grandmother taught for 40 years. My 
older sister taught for 30 years. Nobody admires teachers, I suppose, 
more than I do. But I think some of the certification requirements are 
warped, are out of whack. It makes no sense, for instance, that people 
who have Ph.D.s or master's degrees and long experience and great 
success in a particular field cannot teach in most of the public 
schools of this Nation.

                              {time}  1815

  What spurred me to speak here tonight was an article that was in 
yesterday's Washington Post entitled ``Down to Basics on Teacher 
Certification.'' This article says:
  ``University of Virginia Professor Frederick M. Hess says states 
should dump their current teacher certification requirements and 
instead ask prospective educators three simple questions:
  1. Do you have a college degree?
  2. Can you pass a test in your subject area?
  3. Can you pass a criminal background check?
  If the answers are yes, yes and yes, you could apply for any teaching 
job in the state.
  To those who are picturing a crime-free yet clueless misfit at the 
front of their child's class, Hess says: Give school principals some 
credit. Allowing someone to apply for a job is not the same as 
guaranteeing them employment, he wrote in a recent paper for the 
Progressive Policy Institute.
  Currently, each state sets its own complex guidelines for 
certification. They require a degree from an education program. The 
problem is that nobody agrees on what these programs should be 
teaching, Hess writes, in `` `Tear Down This Wall,' the case for a 
radical overhaul for teacher certification.''
  That is what we need, Mr. Speaker, a radical overhaul of teacher 
certification. It makes no sense, if, say, a Ph.D. chemist who works at 
Oak Ridge in East Tennessee and who has spent, say, 30 years in that 
field and decides he would like to teach for a few years, he cannot be 
hired over some 22-year-old recent college graduate who has a 
bachelor's degree in chemistry, because that young person took a few 
education courses, and this Ph.D.-experienced chemist did not.
  It makes no sense, Mr. Speaker, that a person who has a Ph.D. in 
political science cannot go teach American government in most of the 
high schools, public high schools, in this country. Or you could name 
any other field.
  Let us say that we know that many private small colleges are 
struggling financially. Some of them close. Some of them cannot pay as 
well as the public school systems in this country. So let us say a 
person who has a Ph.D. in English and has taught 25 years at some small 
college wants to go teach in a public school. They should be able to.
  The school systems of this Nation, the school boards, should be 
allowed to say a degree in education is a plus and a factor in favor of 
someone being hired; but they should have the flexibility to hire 
somebody who has great experience in a field and has maybe even 
advanced degrees in a particular field, and they should not be 
disregarded or excluded from even being considered for teaching 
positions in this country just because they did not take an education 
course when they were in college.
  So I appeal to the Committee on Education and the Workforce members 
here and at the various State levels across this Nation to give our 
school boards and school systems more freedom and flexibility in who 
they can hire. I believe that we will get much more qualified teachers 
and wipe out this contrived, government-induced, pressure group-
produced teacher shortage in this Nation.

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