Provo Daily Herald

License to Teach

October 1, 2007

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/239095/

From now until Nov. 6, the Daily Herald will focus regularly on Referendum 1, the voucher initiative that would help parents pay for private school as needed to provide the best education for their children. Voucher proponents say the plan will improve education for everyone; opponents say it leaves too many questions unanswered. In this space, we will explore the issue in detail.

Utahns for Public Schools makes this claim on its Web site:

"Private schools ... can hire teachers who don't hold a college degree or a state teaching license."

The suggestion is that students will be under the tutelage of nincompoops, which is not necessarily true (at least no more than in the public school system).

This begs several questions:

- Is it necessarily bad that a teacher doesn't have a license from Utah?

- Are unlicensed teachers always bad?

- Are the licensed teachers doing so well that no one can compete with them?

- Does a college degree guarantee quality in a teacher?

Consider America's most famous college dropout. What if Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, without question a man of great skills and accomplishments, suddenly decided to become a school teacher in a place where he could mountain bike and rock climb in his spare time. Would your child benefit from studying with him?

The same might be asked about his fellow digital moguls, Steve Jobs of Apple Computer and Larry Ellison of Oracle -- both college dropouts. These billionaires are known for their insights and successes. They might also have something to offer students.

If you had a time machine, you could install George Washington as principal. He never went to college at all. Consider classroom assignments for any number of people who had almost no formal schooling: Abraham Lincoln to lecture on political science, Thomas Edison to run the laboratory and Jane Austen to teach writing.

Of course, you don't have to be famous to teach well. Neither do you always need a teaching credential. The qualities that define a great teacher do not flow from a piece of paper.

We'll look at this point from another angle tomorrow.

Referendum 1 will be voted on Tuesday, Nov. 6. We urge all voters to make their voices heard on this vital issue.