editoridly /pea king The Professionalization of Teaching: A Progress Report The full impact of the rising tide of "education reform" initiated by the reports and subsequent actions of the Carnegie Foundation and the Holmes Group ["A Call for Change in Teacher Education" (1985); "Improving Teacher Education" (1985); "Tomorrow's Teachers" (1986); "A Nation Prepared" (1986)l has not yet arrived; however, the implications can be clearly recognized. A number of states have already instituted or will institute profound reforms in their teacher certification processes, which will affect the character of the training of secondary-level science teachers as well as of elementary school teachers. For the most part, the philosophy of these new certification processes places stress on academic content areas rather than on the traditional "education courses". The general idea is to have potential teachers certified on the basis of a more-or-less conventional undergraduate degree with a major in the subject they intend to teach, for example, secondary school chemistry teachers will earn a degree that has "chemistry" in its title rather than "education". State-mandated education-oriented subjects and practice teaching would be taken as elective subjects. Two extreme kinds of certification programs are envisioned: a four-year program in which the education courses are taken as part of the subject-oriented undergraduate degree, and a more-or-less standard four-year undergraduate degree with the education requirements being taught in a fifth year. In some models the "fifth year" is an undergraduate year, whereas others incorporate it in a graduate program leading to an advanced degree. The debate within the education community over the pros and cons of moving the professional education of teachers to the post-baccalaureate level is not yet fully settled. Proponents of extended programs assert that four years is an insufficient period in which to provide prospective teachers with an extensive general education, an academic specialization, a rigorous professional education, and a significant clinical experience. Those opposed to extended programs
argue that the key issue should be quality, not quantity. They contend that sufficient time would be available in the four-year structure if irrelevant andlor duplicated material were eliminated. Would a move to graduate-level teacher preparation enhanre the prestige oftearher education and teaching? Pruponents generally view gradunte-level preparation as the key to true professionalism; they believe that a certificate requiring graduate preparation will make entry into the field more difficult. and therefore more desirable. Omonents ar.. gue that an increase in salaries, a change in the bureaucratic structure of schools, and improvement in working conditions must occur if teaching is to obtain a position of high status in society. How would the applicant pool be affected if teacher eduration is made a post-barralaureate experienre? Thuse favoring graduate-l&el preparation believe that the enhanced prestige of teacher education will attract strong students, and that "easy access" to undergraduate compounds the problems of quality. In contrast, those favoring an undereraduate nrenaration maintain this structure ~ r o . . vides a larger pool of candidates from which the strongest can be selected:. thevalso sueeest that the additional costsof . graduate programs will dissuade some students from entering teaching. This issue appears to he particularly important for minority teachers, a point that must somehow he reconciled with the fact that all recent reform reports have emphasized the urgency of recruiting minority teachers. Regardless of the details of the final teacher education . program, the nature of the staws' certification processes will surely change, and the National Teachers Certification I'roeram..which will be uoon ui shortlv. - , will tend to j,alidate the character of such changes. Teaching-both a t the primary and secondary level-will become more "professional".
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JJL
Volume 65
Number 3 March 1988
189
