You have some good points, but as with most things, you can’t only look at test scores. We need qualitative assessments, too.

The alternative certification may have something to do with the gains, but I doubt it is the whole reason for them.

I’m not sure whether teacher certification is effective, but the data you present, although suggestive, does not prove it is ineffective, unless there is no significant difference among the students; an alternative explanation (which, in an ideal world, would be true) is that the certified teachers get students that are harder to teach, and so may be more effective and still not be able to improve the students’ rank.

The way I see it, the problem with measuring effectiveness is that we would need to measure three things:
- Knowledge of students
- The rate at which they can learn (sorta kinda IQ, but also related to current knowledge and environment)
- The rate at which they can become smarter (I don’t see ‘IQ’ as fixed)

Knowledge is (relatively) easy to measure, rate to learn is harder (IQ kinda works, but …), rate to become smarter is much harder (do we have any measures ?)

Unless we can measure those things (and the effects of the kids environment),comparisons are highly suspect.

Apparently, from what we can tell however, they did in fact do so. Further, those who continue to oppose reform despite this growing body of evidence…

I think the demographic changes on the way will strongly encourage states to follow the lead of states like Florida, and other changes as well.

Traditional certification requirements ought to be severely curtailed or eliminated. We’ve known that for decades. The situation has hardly changed since I went through the teacher training curriculum at the University of Missouri in the early sixties. But where would change come from? Can a politician seeking state office gain any votes by attacking traditional certification requirements? In my experience I can’t recall anyone ever trying that, though it would certainly attract my vote. I don’t know much about the politics of teacher certification, but I would guess that there is an “education establishment” with some political clout and savvy on one side, and a great mass of apathy on the other. John Q. Public, I suppose, passively accepts the general principle that occupational licensing laws are for the benefit of the public. End of story.

So your thoughts and data are certainly welcome, and I hope beneficial, but where do we go from here to affect needed change? I haven’t the slightest idea.

On the subject of racism, I’ll go this far with you: I’ll admit that an abnormally strong indifference to racial injustice could be a form of racism without actually involving a mental state as concrete as the mens rea I called for in my last comment. Perhaps we could extend my legal metaphor and distinguish between “first degree racism,” that is, racism with both mens rea and malice aforethought (i.e. conscious malice); “second degree racism,” that is, racism with mens rea but without malice aforethought (i.e. unconscious racism); and “raceslaughter,” that is, an abnormally strong indifference to racial injustice without the mens rea of concrete racism.