The Fox Guarding the Hen House

Yesterday in Nevada, I again was subjected to the harsh conflict of interest that exists in Teacher Certification. Many states, like Nevada, have professional standards boards to approve changes to teacher certification that are made up of - SURPRISE - Ed School Deans and professors!! Woohoo. Now, normally they try to take the high ground and not appear blatant about protecting their monopoly - but yesterday was an extreme exception.

The chairman of this task force, Dr. Luft, Associate Dean of Education, University of Nevada Reno, stated that if he voted for approving ABCTE he would be "hung from the elms in the quad" at his school. Later in the discussion, he said that they couldn't vote for this as it would hurt the ed schools financially. Now if your conflict of interest is that deep, one would think you would recuse yourself from the proceeding, not preside over them.

If anybody wonders why alternative certification programs end up looking like regular certification programs, you only have to look at the make up of the state agencies charged with approving the programs. I don't want to be too subtle here so let me explain it in layman terms:

IF YOU PUT ED SCHOOLS IN CHARGE OF APPROVING PROGRAMS - THEY WILL ONLY APPROVE ED SCHOOL-LIKE PROGRAMS.

Duh.