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From the Register:

Shortcuts to a teaching license are planned at the three state universities and a few Iowa private colleges.

The goal is to retrain educated workers who want to teach middle school and high school without forcing them to go to college full time for two years.

Iowa professionals have pushed for an easier way to transition to teaching, college officials said. State officials said alternative licensing programs produced a third of the nation’s new teachers.

“I really believe there is a market,” said George Maurer, director of the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners, which oversees teacher licensing. “A number of states have gone into this area.”

This is a plan that is long overdue.  The hoop-jumping required to be a “highly qualified teacher” in Iowa is ridiculously cumbersome.  The system, as it is now, virtually guarantees teachers with no experience outside the classroom.

Warrern Buffet couldn’t teach economics in HS, Bill Gates couldn’t teach computers, and John Wooden couldn’t coach HS basketball – all because they don’t have a teaching/coaching license! This program is a step closer to making such nonsense go away. School learning is good, but other experience should be valued a lot more.

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Tags: education

After the Iowa state legislature unexpectedly voted last week to stop funding all Phase One payments for districts across the state, several Iowa schools stand to lose substantial funding and face the possibility of being forced to renegotiate teacher contracts for next year.

Phase One money is a state funded program that helps districts supplement teacher salaries to increase teacher retention and help districts offer competitive salaries to beginning teachers. Some of the districts build the funding into the master contract salary scale and others pay out the salaries separately. Either way, area districts are looking at options for making up for the funding losses.

Established in 1988, Phase I funding was designed to help equalize teacher salaries among school districts, with smaller districts receiving a larger share of the funds.

On April 26, lawmakers voted to eliminate the program for fiscal year 2010, which begins July 1. Funding Phase I would have cost the state approximately $14 million.

Many teacher contracts stipulate that if Phase I funding became unavailable salaries could be reduced, resulting in immediate pay cuts for many Iowa teachers.

Tags: education

From the Register:

Cindy and James Dacus should know by early December the outcome of their months-long fight to restrict elementary students’ access to a book about two male penguins that raise a chick together.

Officials at Ankeny’s East Elementary School, where in late February the couple’s kindergartner found the book, “And Tango Makes Three,” denied the couple’s request to remove the book or move it to a parents-only section. The couple’s appeal to the school board is expected to be acted on next month.

“And Tango Makes Three” topped the American Library Association’s list of the 10 most challenged books in 2006 and 2007.

Point:

Nate Monson is project coordinator for Iowa Safe Schools, which promotes safe learning environments for all children, especially those who are gay, lesbian or transgender, as well as those whose parents are gay or lesbian couples.

Monson said putting a book such as “And Tango Makes Three” in a restricted area sends students the wrong message – that homosexuality is different and not OK. “Libraries are a place of diverse discussion, of all viewpoints,” he said. “That’s why we have libraries. It’s important to have literature such as this on the shelf.” [Emphasis added.]

It should go without saying that kindergarten is probably not the best place to have “diverse discussions,”  but apparently it actually needs to be said.    I’m not sure when Mr. Monson was last in a kindergarten classroom but he may be surprised to learn that these are not sophisticated houses of Socratic dialog.  Kindergartners are more interested in construction paper and Elmer’s glue than the big social injustices of the day.  And rightly so.

This, of course, is not an isolated incident.  For many nervous observers, the public school system seems more interested in creating activists rather than creating knowledge.  Its not difficult to find school policies that are explicitly hostile to traditional family values in the name of diversity.

Counterpoint:

Chuck Hurley, president of the Iowa Family Policy Center, which opposes gay marriage, said educators should heed parents’ concerns over what their children are exposed to in schools.

“If not, the parent needs to look for a school setting where the parents’ worldview will be respected,” he said.

“Thank God there’s some parents who have the care and love of their children to such a degree that they would stick their neck out in a PC world and ask that this agenda not be promoted in their child’s school,” he said.

Tags: culture, education, polk