I got distracted yesterday by the release of our high-achieving students study, but Tuesday's news out of California is still worth celebrating. A federal judge ruled that the U.S. Department of Education acted reasonably when determining that the Golden State's teacher internship program passes muster as an "alternate route to certification," and, as a result, that teachers engaged in that program can be considered "highly qualified" under the law. (See this Education Next article for background.)
The controversy stems from a poorly worded passage in No Child Left Behind that, on the one hand, explicitly states that teachers in alternate route programs can be considered "highly qualified," while, on the other hand, explicitly states that teachers must have "full state certification" before stepping foot in a classroom. What Congressional drafters didn't seem to understand was that most alt route programs give their candidates a "provisional" license so they can start teaching right away. So what did Congress intend?
I was involved in this scuffle back in my days in the Administration, and we were quite happy to interpret the confusing language in a way favorable to alternate routes. After all, we believed (and I still believe) that there's very little evidence that teacher certification matters in terms of boosting student achievement, so why put a stake through the heart of alternative route programs? (Had we ruled that the law mandated "full certification" with no exceptions for alt cert, we also would have put a stake through the heart of Teach For America, for its participants would be disqualified from teaching in poor [Title I] schools. Does anyone believe THAT was Congress's intent?)
And how refreshing that a federal judge would resist the temptation to regulate from the bench, deferring instead to the Executive Branch to play its proper role. If advocates of teacher certification mandates want to get their way, they will have to persuade Congress to change the law (or, I suppose, a new Administration to change its regulations). Here's hoping they fail on those fronts too.
