Bill won’t help schools
COMMENTARY
Jonathan Sampson

Just because someone is a good football player doesn’t mean he’ll be a good coach. Not everyone who can cook can run a restaurant.

It’s a well-understood fact. Somebody who knows how to do something isn’t necessarily the perfect person to teach it or lead it.

But a Texas House of Representatives’ bill sponsored by Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, does just that. If it passes, it would allow anyone with a college degree to take a test and become certified to teach in the state’s public schools.

Currently, people who have a college degree can get emergency certification and begin teaching in public schools, but they have to be working toward teacher certification. These standards recognize that additional training is needed for teachers to be effective in the classroom.

If this bill were to pass, it would basically end teacher education programs throughout the state. Why spend time learning to teach when you can just take the college subject courses and then go get a job?

Here’s the problem: Having knowledge and being able to effectively covey it to others are two separate things. There is a different level of communication needed to motivate students to learn and to control classroom dynamics.

It’s easy to find real-life examples of this truth. Almost every college student has had the one teacher who knew the subject in and out but couldn’t communicate it to others to save his or her life.

For me, it was a high school math class. I could tell the material made sense in my teacher’s mind, but somewhere between her head and mine, something went horribly awry. Day after day she would stand in front of the class scribbling equation after equation on the board, rarely turning around to see if the class was even in the room. In the end I was left with only a confused look and little understanding.

The fact is teaching is just as much a skill as is biology or any learned science. It takes work and thought to do it correctly.

Are all trained teachers perfect? No.

But that doesn’t mean the system should be done away with. After all, not every biologist will discover the next cure to a major disease.

Studies have found that student achievement gains are much more influenced by a student’s assigned teacher than other factors like class size and class composition, according to an article in December’s Educational Researcher. It goes on to say that at least 7 percent of the total variance in test-score gains can be attributed to differences in teachers.

So why would the legislators think cutting teacher education out of the process is a good idea?

They may feel content is important, which is a commendable focus. However, all education programs include subject-specific content. To be licensed in science, a future teacher would take classes in education and science, getting both the knowledge and the skills to effectively share the information.

Legislators must be careful not to take this bill lightly. It would greatly change the quality of education throughout the state.

After all, leading a class of students to deeper knowledge while keeping them engaged and interested isn’t easy.

When we truly grasp all teaching involves, it’s obvious that not every athlete is ready to coach, not every cook is cut out to lead and not every bill on education is in the best interest of the students of Texas.

Jonathan Sampson is a news-editorial journalism and sociology major from Commerce. He can be reached at (j.m.sampson@tcu.edu).