School Boards, Administrators Join WEAC in Supporting New Teacher Licensing Rules
Sent to Legislature for review
From the Department of Public Instruction
After years of development and months of fine tuning, education groups
representing teachers, administrators, and school board members are
supporting the Department of Public Instruction’s administrative
rules, which dramatically change the way teachers are licensed.
“I am pleased there is so much support for changes to Wisconsin’s
educator licensing system,” said State Superintendent John T. Benson.
“We were guided by one principle: ‘The best teachers produce
the best graduates.’
We already set rigorous standards for student learning, and now we
want to apply the same rigor to standards defining what teachers should
know and be able to do.”
The proposed rules — which were sent to the Legislature on Monday,
November 1 — move certification of new teachers away from the current
evaluation of college courses and credits to a system in which prospective
teachers demonstrate their knowledge and skills through testing and
a portfolio of their work.
The testing and portfolio are based on the state’s Standards for
Teacher Development and Licensure. In addition to changing the way new
teachers enter the field, the proposed rules create three career stages
— initial, professional, and master educator — in which planned
professional development is central to re-licensure.
“When Wisconsin discontinued lifetime licensure in 1983, we advocated
that those in the education profession needed to engage in lifelong
learning and improvement,” said Benson. “These levels of licensure
offer a planned and supportive approach to career development through
mentorship of initial educators and peer review for license renewal.”
“We know that many teachers leave the profession because they
lack support or feel isolated,” said Terry Craney, president of
the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest
teachers’ union. “Some districts already have mentoring programs
for new teachers, and others have or are developing plans for peer support
for career educators. We support these rules because they promote high
expectations for teachers; expectations that will keep Wisconsin teachers
the best in the country.”
“The rules submitted to the Legislature are an improvement over
the current rules and much better than earlier drafts of the proposal,”
said Ken Cole, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School
Boards (WASB). “We appreciate the state superintendent’s responsiveness
to our concerns that the rules place greater emphasis on student learning
and that districts have greater flexibility in meeting the rules’
requirements. For these reasons, WASB supports these rules.”
“We support these new rules. They are clearly heading us down
the right path, focusing on enhancing the quality of teaching in the
classroom,” said Miles Turner, executive director of the Wisconsin
Association of School District Administrators and a representative of
the School Administrators Alliance. “We appreciate Superintendent
Benson’s willingness to create a review committee to advise him
on implementing the new rules as well as a task force to review the
impact of these new rules on school administrators.”
“The bottom line for these rules is that we must set high standards
for our teachers if we want to maintain and improve Wisconsin’s
solid educational achievements,” Benson said. “It is not enough
to do a good job teaching the college-bound. Our schools must help all
students attain educational success. The best teachers produce the best
graduates.
“Much of what we have already done for student standards and assessment
and now the proposed licensing reform was part of the National Education
Summit, which I had an opportunity to attend with the governor in October
in Palisades, N.Y.,” Benson noted.
“These proposed rules are designed to advance the teaching profession
through shared responsibilities of the DPI, our state’s colleges
and universities, and local school districts. The proposed rules are
very similar to the recommendations coming out of the Education Summit,
and I think the governor should be pleased that once again Wisconsin
is leading the nation.”
Posted November 2, 1999