Setting higher goals doesn't automatically lead to better results; you've got to put in the work to achieve those goals or they are meaningless. We've set lofty goals for Indiana education, including higher graduation rates and drastic increases in student achievement and preparedness for college or the workforce. To reach our goals, we need to reassess the way we educate children, and in turn, we need to reassess the way we prepare and train teachers.
Recently, the Department of Education proposed changing educator licensing rules to attract successful professionals to careers in education and to ensure future teachers have deep content knowledge of their subjects.
Traditionally, the job of preparing teachers and recertifying them throughout their careers has been left to the schools of education at Indiana's colleges and universities. Our proposed licensing changes will affect the way schools of education approach teacher education. While this may discomfort these institutions, Indiana's students and their teachers will benefit most from our suggested reforms.
To guarantee new teachers will be experts in the subjects they teach, we've recommended requiring teaching candidates to dedicate more undergraduate coursework to content knowledge.
Future middle and high school teachers would combine a major in a core subject with a minor in education. Future elementary teachers may continue to major in education but must also obtain a minor in a core subject.
This greater emphasis on content mastery won't come at the expense of pedagogy, the science of teaching. Pedagogy will remain a requirement for all Indiana teachers. However, by putting greater emphasis on content knowledge, we can ensure future teachers, particularly middle and high school teachers, are experts in the subjects they teach.
We're not the first to recommend these changes; Purdue University already requires a content major for all education graduates who will be teaching specific subject areas.
In discussions with teachers, we found most are frustrated by renewal requirements that force them to take costly university classes every five years but don't necessarily make them better teachers.
Under our recommendations, teachers will still have the option to use college credit for license renewal, but they may also use the student-targeted professional development outlined by their school administrator to meet the requirements for license renewal. Teachers already dedicate much of their time to these valuable local training activities. They should count toward renewal.
Our proposed changes also address the impending teacher shortage Indiana faces. Fifty-four percent of Indiana teachers are age 50 or older. This will create a high demand for teachers, particularly in math and science, where we're losing more math and science teachers than we're graduating out of schools of education. To meet this demand, we must encourage talented people from other careers to enter the teaching profession.
Our current policies make it unduly difficult for these professionals to transition into the classroom. Knowledgeable people shouldn't have to quit their jobs and pay thousands of dollars to schools of education to gain an initial teachers license.
Our proposal would let professionals use the college degrees they already have, learn essential pedagogy by earning a minor in education and test for licensure.
In total, these proposed changes to Indiana's teacher licensing regulations set higher standards for our new teachers. They provide educators the right kind of preparation and ongoing professional development, and they give school administrations and boards the flexibility and authority they need to make the best decisions to benefit students.
These changes create an opportunity for higher education institutions to better serve teaching candidates and, ultimately, the students they will teach.
The beneficiaries will be Indiana's children.
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