A Solution to Arizona's Teacher Shortage: We Don't Need no Stinking Teachers

If you are thinking about moving to Arizona to either start a family or continue the education of your little ones, here is a useful piece of information: the Grand Canyon State no longer requires teachers to have a degree in teaching, nor any education classes at all nor even a college education.  If you have five years of experience in a “relevant” field you can teach those kiddos anything from how to read to advanced algebra.

            If you stretch this out you can now have a dentist, an airplane pilot, a lawyer or a tax accountant that does not have a degree or formal training in any of those fields but says he/she has five years of “relevant” experience.  By the way, the word “relevant” is not, at any time or in any way, defined.   

            The move was designed to help solve the chronic, serious shortage of teachers in Arizona.  Here are a few facts that might explain part of Arizona’s problem, though it does not come close to explaining their current solution.  The average per-student expenditure on education in the United States is $11,787.  Vermont has the highest per-student figure at $23,557.  Arizona is near the bottom with $7,566.  Teachers’ salaries in Arizona are also in the bottom 20 percent of states. 

But evidently none of that is the real problem.  The Arizona state legislature has decided that they don’t have enough teachers because of all those pesky requirements for training in education.  In fact, they have decided that teachers have too much education.  Arizona needs people in those classrooms who don’t have a clue how to teach.  That will solve all the state’s problems.  How better to solve ignorance than with more ignorance.   

Right?  Wrong?  Where has the state legislature gone astray? 

            Let me explain.  In fact, let me quote from an award-winning educator.

“Factors influencing the opportunity to learn are the presence of a curriculum, the presence of a teacher, and the presence of a student.  Given these factors, the only other variable is the quality of each factor.  A high level of quality in one (let’s say teacher ability) can offset a low level of quality in another (for example, curriculum).  To get superlative results from the opportunity to learn put a high level of quality in each of the three components.  To get unsatisfactory results, put a low level of quality in each one.  To get negative results, leave one of the factors out completely.  It is these three factors: teacher, curriculum and student, who make up the opportunity to learn.  And it is the opportunity to learn that can influence, positively or negatively, your child’s placement on the bell curve of academic success.”

Parents have tremendous control over the quality of only one of those factors—the child.  Through the election of the local board of education they have some control over the curriculum, salaries and benefits that attract the most competitive teachers, and policies that encourage good teaching.  But parents have virtually no control over the training of the teachers that are hired.  That is especially true when the state legislature decides to undermine education by solving a shortage by watering down teacher requirements.

The state’s message in this legislation is quite simple; the education of children is not important.  The requirements for certification as a veterinarian in Arizona are more stringent than those for teachers.  Clearly animals are worth more to the state than human children.  These actions say nothing more nor less than exactly that. 

Rise up, Arizona, you are not keeping the faith.