[WoodenChair]

Why is it important that teachers are licensed? I work in a teaching college; there is no such thing as a "college professor license" yet I think my colleagues do a very good job teaching. If licensing teachers ensures quality, then our K-12 system should be great. However, as you know the K-!2 system in USA is a joke... yet our college system on average, without any "licensed teachers," is fairly world class.

[HarryHirsch]

there is no such thing as a "college professor license"

Our accreditating agency insists that that faculty members have got a degree (actually 18 credit hours at graduate level) in the subject they teach. If you are a foreigner it's a pain in the arse, because you need to produce an equivalency evaluation, even more so when your degree wasn't modular.

It causes complications when you teach an allied subject (say your degree certificate says you are a physicist and teach physical chemistry in the chemistry department) but it's easy to see why the accreditator insists: there was a time when there were too many unqualified people teaching.

The real trouble occurs when the institution mistakes certification for qualification, but that's a different story.

[WoodenChair]

There's a big difference between a private organization (accredited by another private organization) requiring someone have a degree and the government requiring someone have a license.

[HarryHirsch]

For practical purposes there's no difference at all, the outcome is the same. Someone puts down a list of requirements, and the school will comply - if they don't there's consequences.

If a school won't comply to licensing requirements they government will levy a fine. If a school fails accreditation students will run away, they rightly think that employers won't take their degree seriously. There also won't be federal student loans.

Sometimes professional bodies approve degrees. There are no consequences at all, except that the more capable students stay away from unrecognized degree programs. At my department they are actually moving away from adjuncts because the professional body requires that courses be taught by full-time lecturers or professors. Leadership has decided that the extra expenses for full-time faculty members with benefits are justified by the improved quality of students.

[WoodenChair]

There is a big difference because when you don't follow the government's rules, you get shutdown. When you don't follow an independent body's rules, you can keep operating you're just not accredited. There are many great non-accredited institutions that teach all manner of skill across this country, including excellent non-accredited colleges.

[scoggs]

Things like the No Child Left Behind Act don't necessitate a license, per say, but they do create license-obtaining-like qualifications to be met (for students, teachers, and school districts alike). The Act itself is preventing would-be good teachers from being certified / accepted into school districts to teach so in some sense the "licensing" of a teacher is holding back those teachers who look and go elsewhere to obtain a secure career. Where as in the past teaching was a solid and secure career for one to strive towards, in this day and age it is definitely not the same, at all.

[acjohnson55]

Who is being prevented from teaching? I taught high school with 5 weeks of training (Teach For America). I was provisionally licensed to teach under an emergency certification, which simply required that I be in training concurrently for a permanent certification. Every state is different, of course, but I don't know of a state where this legal framework doesn't exist. Teach For America places teachers in most states under this model.

Five weeks is not enough prep for most teachers. I know many awesome teachers for whom it worked out very well. For me, it didn't. But Teach For America is extremely selective in trying to identify people who will be successful with minimal training. That's what it takes to roughly match the performance of traditionally trained teachers. I don't think we need lower barriers to entry, especially without a similar level of accountability.

[WoodenChair]

Forget No-Child Left Behind, many (most?) state governments require K-12 teachers to have licenses.

[tkone]

Because for every argument against regulation you can provide I bet someone can provide an argument to show you why regulation is not only necessary, but provides a greater good than the lack of it.