In October 2001, the Abell Foundation released a study on teacher certification which included a comprehensive review of all studies that investigate whether certified teachers are more effective than teachers without traditional state certification (and a related question, whether formal teacher training from a school of education is correlated with greater student achievement). The study, Teacher Certification Reconsidered: Stumbling for Quality, by Kate Walsh, found that nearly all of the 150 studies commonly cited in support of teacher certification and formal teacher training have serious flaws. In the absence of solid evidence that certified teachers are superior to non-certified teachers, Walsh argued, there is little reason to insist that only people trained in state-approved teacher education programs be allowed to teach. A few weeks after the Abell Foundation report was released, Linda Darling-Hammond of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (and one of the leading advocates for stiffer certification requirements) published a 71-page response in which she charged that Walsh ignored and misrepresented the findings of a number of studies that she reviewed. This week, the Abell Foundation released a rejoinder to Linda Darling-Hammond's response. In the rejoinder, Kate Walsh and University of Missouri economist Michael Podgursky refute each of Darling-Hammond's specific charges and assertions and analyze all studies over which there was disagreement. There is also a short list of corrections. The Abell rejoinder (as well as the original study) can be found at http://www.abell.org/ . The Darling-Hammond response is at http://www.nctaf.org/whatsnew/abell_response.pdf.
For an ed school professor's analysis of the rhetoric used by both sides in the debate over reforming teacher training, see "Sticks, Stones and Ideology: The Discourse of Reform in Teacher Education," by Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Mary Kim Fries, Educational Researcher, November 2001.