Let charter schools certify teachers
For many students in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, great teachers are hard to come by. This is no knock on the dedicated educators who commit to working in underserved communities. Rather, it reflects the reality that schools in high-need areas have a hard time filling teaching positions, especially in subjects such as math, science and special education.
In response to this challenge, the State University of New York, which authorizes public charter schools here, has proposed a new pathway to a teaching credential.
It’s a brilliant idea that deserves approval by SUNY’s board of trustees.
The new rule would allow highperforming charter schools to train and certify their own teachers. These teachers would then be certified to work in any SUNY-authorized charter school.
SUNY’s Charter Schools Institute would provide oversight of the new programs, and the requirements would be stiff. Only schools that meet high standards — demonstrated by having their charter renewed or achieving at least 75% of their performance benchmarks — would be eligible to offer a certification program.
Approved programs would have to include at least 30 hours of coursework and 100 hours of field experience supervised by professional teachers. Certification to teach students with disabilities or English language learners would require additional field work. And all candidates would be required to have a bachelor’s degree and take state-mandated training on issues including preventing school violence and discrimination.
Charter schools wouldn’t be starting from scratch, because many already run their own teacher training programs. This has been a necessity because charters bring a variety of different approaches to helping students learn; as a result, they need to instruct both new and experienced teachers in the particular methods used in their school.
The best of these schools are helping students achieve lifechanging results. As the Charter Schools Institute notes, of the 167 charter schools it authorizes, “over 82% . . . outperformed their local district in (English Language Arts) and over 87% outperformed their local district in math.”
The vast majority of New York charter schools serve large numbers of students of color, which means that charter schools are finally delivering the high-quality education that disadvantaged students and their parents have been yearning for.
In fact, it’s fair to say that no other public institution has done as much to promote equality and advancement for black and Hispanic children than charter schools.
To take just one example, students in Success Academy schools have ranked in the top 1% of New York students in math and top 3% in English for the past three years. During that time, the network has trained thousands of teachers, providing new and returning teachers with the equivalent of 13 weeks of training and development every year.
Other high-flying New York charter school networks, such as Democracy Prep, Uncommon Schools and Achievement First, offer their own teacher-training programs as well. It’s common sense that this training should lead to certification. Contrary to the claims of union bosses and the education bureaucracy, allowing high-quality charter schools to train their own teachers wouldn’t diminish the quality of teaching or put unqualified people in the classroom. Rather, it would meet a critical need for students while refocusing teacher training.
Currently, certification to teach in a New York public school requires a master’s degree that can take up to two years to complete. This dissuades exceptional teaching candidates from diverse backgrounds — particularly those transitioning from other careers — from pursuing their goal of being a teacher.
Furthermore, most graduate schools of education focus heavily on pedagogy — the theoretical concepts about how teaching and learning happen. Charter schools, on the other hand, use experienced teachers to guide aspiring teachers in real classrooms with real students.
If SUNY’s trustees approve this new path to teacher certification, it would be an option only for charter school teachers. But we hope that successful charter school innovations can eventually be embraced by the larger public school system. This is a remarkable opportunity to multiply the great work being done in some of the best schools in the country.