Department Plans Standards, Longer Test for Teachers
Elementary teachers would have a more limited choice of courses and would face a longer test to be certified under a proposal Tuesday to the State Board of Education.
The proposal would represent the first time the state had set standards for education programs for teachers, as opposed to leaving those programs to universities, officials said.
The new standards would essentially require all new teachers to have some coursework in all of the subjects they will be expected to teach, and the test will allow the state to determine whether they have the knowledge to be able to teach the various subjects, said Flora Jenkins, director of the Office of Professional Development.
"Folded within those standards are the content standards," Ms. Jenkins said. Teachers "must be prepared to meet the demands of a more rigorous core curriculum."
The proposal will make for some difficulties for some prospective teachers, said Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan. "This will be a challenge for us to accept in career changers," he said, noting that many of those people are from professions that required experience in higher-level subjects. "But some people are so immersed in content that they do not understand what it's like to teach kids."
Among the changes new teachers will see are limits on the majors they can use toward an elementary education certificate.
"It can't be just a black box of content," said Catherine Smith with the Office of Professional Preparation Services. "It's got to have some math, some science."
But there are also some limits on that math and science, Ms. Smith said. A mathematics major for elementary education would have to focus on elementary-level mathematics, not on the higher mathematics.
The standards also would not allow majors in such areas as business to not be certified because that subject would not have ready application in an elementary classroom.
The new test will be designed to allow answers to be broken into sub areas to at least allow teachers to see where they may be weak and need additional knowledge, officials said.
The standards are expected to come back before the board for final approval in January.
SCIENCE STANDARDS: The board did approve Tuesday new grade level content expectations for elementary and middle school science. Officials planned to launch the new standards at an event January 28 at Michigan State University as well as at workshops around the state.
As with prior content standards, the science expectations indicate what students should be expected to know at each grade K-7. The standards are designed to prepare students for the new high school graduation requirements.
HISTORY STANDARDS: The board also unanimously approved a new history curriculum for fourth grade that moves Michigan history to that grade. Though the board voted unanimously for the change, educators were not unanimous in their views. While historical societies favored the proposal, arguing it would open the door for a more in-depth exploration of the state's history, some history teachers told the board the move would come at the expense of some national history they argued was needed to put the Michigan history in perspective.
EDUCATION YES: The state's accreditation program will run in pilot mode for one more year because of changes that had to be made to the system to accommodate the new Michigan Merit Exam in high school and some other changes in standards since the last iteration.
Last school year the system was piloted to test new school quality measures outside test results.
