professionalism and the public good - amazon web...

Professionalism and thePublic Good

A Brief History ofTeacher Certification

byDavid L. Angus

edited byJeffrey Mirel

Table of Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .iii

Editor’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Teacher Certification and Training in the Nineteenth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Teacher Certification and the Educational Trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

The War and Post-war Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

Professionalism and the Public Good: A Brief History of Teacher Certification i

The surest path to better schools is better teachers, yet today’s system for preparing and licensing

teachers is manifestly not up to that challenge. Nor, regrettably, are most contemporary proposals

for revitalizing that system. Instead of seeking new ways of training teachers and different

pathways into the K-12 classroom, most of the influential groups in education are urging “more of

the same”: ever heavier regulation by states, more time spent in ever-more-homogeneous education

schools by prospective teachers, and a crackdown on alternatives and exceptions. Unfortunately,

but perhaps not surprisingly, this is the policy course that many states are following—and

influential forces at the national level are egging them on.

Where did this whole regimen come from? we at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation found

ourselves asking. How did America fall into the belief that state governments should “certify”

teachers for our public schools? When and why did the practice start? It struck us that “teacher

certification” is now so familiar a phrase that many people utter it without knowing why the

country headed down this path in the first place. We wanted to know more. We needed an

historian–and not just any historian. We sought one who knew something about teacher preparation.

At the urging of our colleagues Diane Ravitch and Jeffrey Mirel, both distinguished education

historians in their own right, we turned to David Angus, the eminent scholar of education history,

to tackle this topic for us. Professor Angus had written extensively on the origins of urban schools

and on the transformation of the high school, and he was interested in exploring the emergence of

state authority over the issuance of teaching credentials. Though he was not well, Professor Angus

generously agreed to write a paper on this subject for the Foundation. He commenced work on the

project in the summer of 1998 and bravely continued working on it even as his health declined. He

was approaching the completion of this project at the time of his death in August 1999. It is thus

the concluding work of a fine scholar and an ardent educator. We are grateful beyond words for the

extraordinary effort that David Angus made on our—and now your—behalf.

The manuscript that Professor Angus left was well advanced but not finished. Parts needed to be

filled in and the whole draft needed an editorial once-over. We were fortunate indeed when

Professionalism and the Public Good: A Brief History of Teacher Certification iii

Foreword

Professor Jeffrey Mirel agreed to shoulder this task. Jeff was exceptionally busy at the time—owing

not least to his work on another project for this Foundation—but that did not deter him. A former

student and colleague of David Angus’s (and co-author with him of The Failed Promise of the

American High School, 1890-1995, published in 1999), Jeff undertook the completion and editing

of this paper, and has also crafted an epilogue for it, as a labor of love and respect for his mentor and friend.

(To be sure, this is a topic that, Jeff, too, was keen to illuminate.)

We are very pleased, therefore, to provide this fine work of history by two terrific scholars. The late

David Angus was Professor of Education at the University of Michigan for thirty-three years, and

Jeffrey Mirel has just moved to Ann Arbor from Emory University to take over Professor Angus’

position.

The knowledgeable reader is apt to finish this study with a sense of déjà vu. It turns out that nearly

all the criticisms made of teacher preparation today—as well as nearly all the reform proposals

being advanced from various quarters—are far from new. They were being voiced decades ago.

Indeed, the central arguments of the teacher quality debate appear to have changed little over the

last century. The central theme of this paper—the education profession’s relentless efforts to gain

control over the licensing of teachers—is a major theme in today’s debate as well. The most

important lesson imparted by this paper, however, is that our present system of teacher training and

licensure was not inevitable. It is not enshrined in the Constitution. It is nowhere to be found in the

Bible. It is, in fact, a policy structure that could be altered. The Angus-Mirel paper subtly points the

way toward reforms that could improve the preparation of today’s teachers.

As you will see, the story begins in the nineteenth century, when schooling and teacher preparation

followed two wholly different patterns, one mostly in rural areas, the other in cities and towns.

During this period, even as professional educators advanced the notion that all teachers should be

prepared through formal training programs, Americans were skeptical. Those in rural communities

especially tended to believe that good teachers were born rather than made, and that they needed

only a little bit of formal pedagogical training. For the most part, educators were not thought to

possess a body of important, arcane knowledge, and nineteenth century Americans generally

resisted the idea that experts should decide key questions about schooling.

iv David L. Angus

In the first three decades of the twentieth century, however, professional educators gained greater

control over the nation’s schools and the licensing of teachers. Local communities gradually lost

the ability to determine for themselves who would teach in their classrooms. As far as the

professionals in the “education trust” were concerned, the wishes of ordinary citizens were

irrelevant. Gradually, formal, university-based education requirements for teachers replaced the old

certification exams, which the professional education establishment belittled as a back door route

that allowed poorly qualified persons to infiltrate the nation’s classrooms.

After World War II, professors in other parts of the university besides schools of education, soon

joined by teachers’ organizations, sought a larger role in the determination of policy for teacher

preparation and certification. School quality became a big issue in the years after Sputnik, and

some blamed the colleges of education. In the late 1950s, the system of teacher preparation came

under attack for its low standards of entry and exit, its Mickey Mouse courses, overemphasis on

pedagogy rather than subject mastery, the lack of a coherent professional knowledge base, and the

absence of reliable evidence that teacher training has a relationship to effective classroom teaching.

By the mid-70s, the ideas of the education establishment were rejected by much of the public and

even by many within the profession. This skepticism runs broad and deep today.

While Dr. Angus’s study does not offer policy recommendations, the history he recounts seems to

point in a clear direction. The certification saga is a story of attempts by the teacher education

establishment to gain monopoly control over the preparation and licensure of all teachers. That

establishment has won enormous victories. As a result, a large majority of today’s teachers studied

education both as undergraduates and as graduates. And therein lies the seed of a worthy reform:

what the country needs is teachers who are broadly and deeply educated, not people who mostly

studied education. In his epilogue, Jeffrey Mirel suggests that, at the dawn of the twenty-first

century, we should be seeking new ways to define the problem of teacher preparation and devising

innovative programs for supplying teachers to the nation’s public school classrooms. We hope that

outside-the-box thinking about teacher training and licensure will become more widely accepted as

the century proceeds. This outstanding paper by Messrs. Angus and Mirel should help establish the

basis for such acceptance.

Readers interested in contacting Professor Mirel may write to him at 2331 School of Education

Professionalism and the Public Good: A Brief History of Teacher Certification v

Building, 610 E. University, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1259, call him at 734-

615-8983, or e-mail him at [email protected].

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation is a private foundation that supports research, publications,

and action projects in elementary/secondary education reform at the national level and in the

Dayton area. Further information can be obtained at our web site (www.edexcellence.net) or by

writing us at 1627 K Street, NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20006. (We can also be e-mailed

through our web site.) This report is available in full on the Foundation’s web site, and hard copies

can be obtained by calling 1-888-TBF-7474 (single copies are free). The Foundation is neither

connected with nor sponsored by Fordham University.

Chester E. Finn, Jr., PresidentThomas B. Fordham FoundationWashington, DCJanuary 2001

vi David L. Angus

David Angus had completed most of this study just prior to his death in August 1999. He left brief

notes about what he still hoped to accomplish and how he planned to wrap up the project. In

editing the manuscript, I have tried to follow his suggestions as closely as possible but have left out

several sections—particularly case studies of different states—that he intended to include as well as

sections that he had not completed. I have also not attempted to write the final section on the

1980s and 1990s that he had projected. It was unclear from David’s notes whether he actually

planned to trace the story through those decades, or what he was going to say about developments

in that period. Rather, I have written a short epilogue that suggests how he might have carried out

the final section.

I would like to thank Robert Bain, David Labaree, and Maris Vinovskis for their helpful comments

and suggestions on the manuscript. They, of course, are not responsible for any errors or

inaccuracies.

Jeffrey MirelUniversity of Michigan

Professionalism and the Public Good: A Brief History of Teacher Certification vii

Editor’s Note

As the twentieth century drew to a close,America’s public schools were under fire. Inthe last two decades of the century, criticismand reform have taken place side-by-side,unremittingly, making this one of the mostsustained periods of reform in Americaneducational history. While there have beennumerous targets of criticism—the "cafeteria-style" high school curriculum, low testresults, and the locus of control overeducational policy—the issue of the qualityand qualifications of the nation’s teachingcorps has loomed large. Many critics havebeen accused of "teacher-bashing," blaming theeducational failures of thenation on those who work inour schools and classrooms,and indeed there have beenperiods when this seemed toemerge as a main theme.Other reformers havesuggested ways to enlistteachers in the struggle forbetter schools, arguing that, without theirknowledge, help, and cooperation, nofundamental reform is possible. Some ofthese reforms have looked to restructure theoccupation of teaching in ways that wouldincrease incentives for effective teaching,such as career ladders or merit pay. Othershave tried to address issues of certification,teacher education, and teacher competencythrough systems of examinations of teachersor programs of professional development. Asubtext of many of these efforts has beenquestions about the power of educationalprofessionals (often identified with teachers’unions) and the degree to which demands forprofessional status and prerogatives representthe best interests and values of teachers or thesociety as a whole.

While the duration and intensity of the

current reform campaign in Americaneducation may be historically unprecedented,none of the actual questions regarding suchissues as teacher certification, teachertraining, testing, job assignments, or the roleand power of educational professionals isnew. Our national non-system of teachercertification, and the approaches to teachereducation which it both reflects andinfluences, have evolved over a long time, aperiod during which the important questionsof the late twentieth century had already beenraised in the context of their own time. My

purpose here is to lay out themain lines of development ofteacher certification inAmerica in such a way thatthese late twentieth centuryissues are seen in the fullercontext of our nationalexperience. I argue thatchanges in and debates aboutteacher certification haverevolved around four clusters

of questions. While our answers to thesequestions—often different answers indifferent states at different times—haveshifted and changed, the issues themselveshave a surprising constancy.

Debates revolve around four questions

First, there is perhaps the ultimatequestion, who should control the licensing ofteachers? In some professions, the agenciesthat control entry are made up wholly orlargely of members of that profession, thisdespite the fact that state governments alwayshave final constitutional authority forlicensing. States have delegated the actualcontrol of the process and standards to theprofession, itself, on grounds that it is in thepublic interest to do this and that the public is

Professionalism and the Public Good: A Brief History of Teacher Certification 1

Introduction

As the twentiethcentury drew to a closethe issue of the qualityand qualifications ofthe nation’s teaching

corps has loomed large.

best protected from incompetence byallowing the fullest expression of professionaljudgment. The question is whether teachingis one of the professions to which this logicshould be applied. For most of our history,the answer has been "no," and one of thestories that will be told here concerns effortsby the profession to convince statelegislatures and the public that it ought to be"yes."

Whether the profession or a public agencyshould control the process and standardsthrough which the competence of teachers isassured, a second set of questions has beenraised about the proper basis for making thatdecision in individual cases. Should it bebased on a score on an examination? Shouldit be based on successful completion of an"approved" training program? Should itinclude both? Looking across the twentiethcentury, one might think we have come fullcircle. At the opening of thecentury, examinations werefar and away the primarymeans of determining thecompetence of aspiringteachers. By mid-centurycertification examinationshad all but disappeared. Asthe century closed we wereplacing much more emphasison examinations again. Yet,over the same time, theeducation and trainingrequirements for teaching have risen almostunremittingly, the numbers and styles oftraining programs have proliferated, and wehave today a teaching force with the highestlevels of formal education in the world, withover 40 percent of public K-12 teachersholding at least a master's degree.1 (Many ofthese master’s degrees, however, are ineducation rather than in academic subjects.)Unfortunately, the academic performancelevels of our students do not take a similarranking and this has led to grave doubts aboutthe efficacy of our huge investment in teacher

education. The turn back to exams forteachers is certainly understandable in thiscontext, but whether it is an effective solutionto the competence issue remains highlydebatable.

It seems unlikely that we will abandon theeducation of teachers in programs designedfor that purpose. But we will surely want tomodify them in ways to make them moreeffective and, at the same time, moreattractive to talented students. The thirdcluster of questions, then, is what should bethe elements of a course of training forteachers? As the system has evolved, wehave traditionally identified three or fourmain elements: general academic education,subject area specialization, and professionalcourses followed by a student teaching orintern experience. There have, of course,been alternatives suggested and tried atdifferent times, including alternatives that

eliminated the professionalcomponent almost altogether.But the fact remains that, atpresent, the vast majority oflicenses to teach are based onevidence of completion ofsuch a program, with orwithout examination.Because determining therelative importance of thesevarious elements and theirinclusion in a certificationsystem always involves

conflicts—between classroom teachers andother elements of the profession, betweenprofessors of education and professors in theliberal arts and sciences, between statedepartment of education officials and thoseteaching in universities, between so-called"research universities" and former teacherscolleges—this issue has been one of the mostcontentious in the long development ofteacher certification.

Finally, there are questions about howdetailed and specific a licensing systemshould be. Should teachers be licensed to

2 David L. Angus

At the opening of thecentury, examinationswere far and away the

primary means ofdetermining the

competence of aspiringteachers.

teach physics or science? French or foreignlanguage? Trigonometry or mathematics?Should school nutritionists, dental hygienists,reading specialists be specifically licensed?Should school administrators be barred fromever asking a teacher or other employee to doanything for which they are not specificallylicensed? What role should teachercertification play indetermining the daily workassignments of schoolemployees? Educationreformers of the latetwentieth century are notthe first to have asked thesesorts of questions or topresume that they have theanswers.

Behind all thesequestions lies another, thatof the supply/demand ratioin teaching at any giventime. This factor influencesdecisions that we makeabout teacher certification in both obviousand not-so-obvious ways. Because of thelimited scope of this study, I have not tried totell a complete story of teacher supply anddemand. Nevertheless, the issue is dealt withas it arises in appropriate places, including acontext that we have all but forgotten,America’s rural schools and the specialproblems of small schools that they have

always brought to the fore.In my interpretation of the history of

teacher certification, the relentless efforts ofthe profession to exert more influence overthe licensing of teachers emerges as a maintheme. At each stage of its owndevelopment, and despite internal differencesand power struggles, the profession has

sought to get its interestsexpressed in regulation andlaw. It has also tried toportray its own efforts to dothis as non-political and inaccord with the larger publicgood. It seems inevitable thatthe public will remainskeptical of this notion,however sincere theprofession may be inexpressing it.

This study is designed toprovide historical backgroundand context for currentdebates about education

policy, indicate how we arrived at our presentprocess of teacher education and certification,identify recurring themes in that history, anddemonstrate that the current approach toteacher education was neither inevitable norimmutable. Still, it is important to note thatthis work is designed mainly to illuminate thepresent in light of the past rather than toidentify a distinct policy course for the future.


Teacher Certification and Training in the Nineteenth Century

In the late nineteenth century, a movementto centralize state authority over thecertification of teachers was well underway.Though only three states, New York, RhodeIsland, and Arizona (as a territory), had goneso far as to require that all new teaching

certificates be issued by state officials (ascontrasted to county or local officials), overthe next third of a century that number wouldrise to 38 states, and the main outlines oftoday’s system of teacher certification wouldbe in place.

In the history of teachercertification, the

relentless efforts of theprofession to exert more

influence over thelicensing of teachers,

with the publicremaining skeptical,

emerge as a main theme.

4 David L. Angus

The idea of licensing teachers was notnew in the late nineteenth century. Parentshave always had an interest in assuring thatthe people to whom they give up theirchildren for tutelage were of good moralcharacter and qualified for their tasks. Wecan find numerous historical references to theissuing of licenses to teach, some as early asRoman times. In colonial America, it wascommon for communities to require thatanyone proposing to teach be approved byone or more of the local ministers. Suchapproval was at least contingent upon "goodmoral character" and might bewithheld from those notholding the same religiousviews as the minister.2 Itseems that not much attentionwas paid to whether or notthe aspiring teacher knew thesubjects he was proposing toteach or had the requisiteskill, art, or experience to beeffective in the role ofteacher. But over the course of the nineteenthcentury, as the authority for licensing teacherspassed from ecclesiastical to civil authorities,the criteria for licensing expanded to include,first, knowledge of subject matter and later,knowledge of pedagogy, usually determinedby means of an examination.

In the 1830s and 1840s, as cities andstates moved toward replacing an informalcollection of tuition-supported and variouslysponsored charity schools with a system offree, common schools, the question ofsupplying and selecting teachers becamemore acute. To fully appreciate both thedifficulties encountered in doing this and thevarious solutions that emerged, it is importantto recognize that America was developing notone pattern of education but two: first was arural pattern consisting of thousands of one-teacher schools serving the children in smalldistricts and largely controlled by their farmerparents, and second was an urban pattern oflarge, multi-classroom schools offering

"graded" instruction organized into schoolsystems controlled by elected or appointedboards of education.3 Rural schoolsoperated on a calendar that reflected therhythms and labor needs of farm life andconsequently enrolled higher percentages ofchildren than the city schools, although formuch shorter school terms. City childrenentered school a bit later and left earlier,though over their school careers they receivedmore total weeks of schooling on averagethan their rural counterparts. By all accounts,teaching was much more difficult and salaries

much lower in the countryschools. These differences(and there were many others)framed the numerouscontroversies over where andhow teachers should betrained and licensed. Theyalso framed a long-runningbattle between professionaleducators who took theirmodel of the effective

teacher from the graded urban schools and thefarmer-educators who faced the practicalproblems of providing a modicum ofschooling for their children at costs theycould afford.4

Who licensed?

How and by whom were teacherslicensed? The vast majority of U.S. teachersin the second half of the nineteenth centuryreceived their first, and perhaps only,certificate to teach from local officials on thebasis of their performance on an exam. In theearly years, this exam might consist simply ofa few questions posed orally by a member ofthe district board, anxious to be sure that theprospective teacher knew at least as much asthe older children he or she would beinstructing. Later, as state education officialssought to exert more control over the countryschools, longer and more detailed writtenexaminations were offered to applicants at the

In the late nineteenthcentury, a movement to

centralize stateauthority over the

certification of teacherswas well underway.

township or county level, with passing scoresresulting in the issuance of certificates toteach within the area organizing theexamination for varying lengths of time.

Some certificates were issued directly bystate officials. In 1843, New York authorizedits state superintendent to setexaminations and issuecertificates that were validstate-wide. Indiana followedsuit in 1852, Pennsylvania in1854, and most other statesby the end of the century.5

After the emergence of statenormal schools and universitydepartments of education, thegraduates of these programsreceived their certificatesfrom a state official or thetrustees of these institutions. (Normal schoolswere teacher training institutions that, at leastin their early years, provided what wasessentially a high school education or basicfirst- and second-year college education toprospective teachers. These normal schoolseventually evolved into colleges of educationand, as we shall see, into comprehensiveuniversities.6 In some states, collegegraduates were issued certificates to teachwhether or not they had any formal training."By 1897, 28 states certified teachers on thebasis of graduation from a normal school oruniversity without further examination."7 Inother states, even graduates of normal schoolswere obliged to take a state or countyexamination. This is not surprising, giventhat much of the instruction provided bynormal schools was in basic subjects at alevel commonly associated with the grammaror high school grades.

Who trained teachers?

Schemes to provide formal training forteachers evolved slowly over the nineteenthcentury. By century’s end, teacher educationhad assumed four different, and in many ways

competing, forms: state and private normalschools; training programs connected withhigh schools or normal schools in large cities;"chairs of pedagogy" or teachers departmentsin colleges and universities; and institutesaimed largely at the training of teachers for

the rural schools. Theearliest form of teacherpreparation was in private orstate-subsidized academiesand seminaries. Coursesaimed at the preparation ofteachers were to be found insuch academies as early as1785, and beginning in 1823,the Rev. Samuel Halldeveloped a more substantialprogram for teacherpreparation and initiated this

program in several "teachers seminaries" inthe northeast region. In New York, the needfor "a supply of teachers for the commonschools" was one of the bases for state-subsidization of the private academies in the1820s and 1830s. By the mid-1830s,"departments" for teacher preparation couldbe found in academies in several states, manyof them receiving state subsidies.

By mid-century, private and semi-privateacademies and seminaries were giving way topublic high schools, and the future of teacherpreparation seemed to point toward a moreactive role for the state. Many high schoolshad a "normal" department that trainedteachers for the common schools. Thisfunction put them in direct competition withacademies and seminaries, and eventually ledto the decline of most teacher training at theacademies. Eventually, however, normalschools took over this function from highschools.

Massachusetts led the way toward statesupported and controlled normal schools.The first state normal school was establishedin Lexington in 1839 and two others wereopened by 1840. Between 1860 and 1900,the idea of training teachers in specialized,


The vast majority ofU.S. teachers receivedtheir first, and perhaps

only, certificate to teachfrom local officials on

the basis of theirperformance on an

exam.

tax-supported institutions spread fairly rapidlythroughout New England and into theMidwest. By the close of the nineteenthcentury, there were 127 state-supportednormal schools and a slightly larger numberof private normal schools. While all mayhave owed something to the pioneeringinstitutions in Massachusetts, over the secondhalf of the century important differencesdeveloped between eastern and westernnormal schools. The New England versionenrolled mainly young women who had noprior teaching experience. It tended to limitits offerings to "short" courses in educationalmethods, principles, and techniques andaimed at supplying teachers for elementaryschools. The students entering westernnormals were older, included a higherpercentage of men, and were likely to havetaught for awhile, holding teachingcertificates granted on the basis ofexaminations. The western curriculumincluded both academic courses andprofessional courses,organized into programs oftwo, three, or four yearsduration and designed toprepare young women to getbetter and more secureteaching jobs in towns andcities and young men to enterthe growing ranks of schooladministrators. It was this"collegiate" orientation of thewestern normal schools thatled the transformation of normal schools intoteachers colleges after the turn of the century.8

Different training regimens for urban and rural teachers

While teaching jobs in cities were usuallyseen as more desirable, the stunning growthrates of cities throughout the second half ofthe century meant that they also struggled tostaff their elementary schools with qualifiedteachers. One response to this was the

establishment of "normal" courses in thecity’s own high schools or in separate normalschools under the control of the board ofeducation, which was often empowered bystate law to issue its own teachingcertificates. These schools had higher entryrequirements than the state or private normalschools, generally admitting only studentswho had already completed two or three yearsof high school. They also were able toprovide much more observation and practicalexperience in their training programs. Urbanboards of education were able to control thesupply of teachers for the city schools byraising or lowering entrance requirements, byissuing certificates only to those who hadreceived their training in these schools, andeven by suspending the training programsduring brief periods of oversupply. This typeof teacher training lasted well into thetwentieth century, mostly becausecertification and training requirements in thelarge cities remained a notch or two more

exacting than state or countyrequirements.

The establishment of"chairs of pedagogy" in someMidwestern state universitieswas important because theseevolved into today’suniversity-based schools ofeducation, especially thosethat later made up theHolmes Group. Their initialpurpose was to provide a

course or two in the "science and art" ofteaching to university students who mightwish to enter teaching after graduation.These one-man departments of educationwere considered to be of collegiate grade,though they were established after a longperiod in which colleges and universitiessporadically offered teacher training innormal departments that were associated withpre-collegiate (high school level)departments. The University of Iowa openedsuch a department in 1855 and though its

6 David L. Angus

One-man departmentsof education in

Midwestern stateuniversities evolved

into today’s university-based schools of

education.

initial work was not at the collegiate level, itis said to have enrolled more than half of allthe students connected with the universitybetween 1858 and 1864. The University ofIowa eventually became one of the first,along with the University of Michigan, toestablish a collegiate-level chair of educationin the 1870s. The early pre-collegiate normaldepartments aimed at training elementaryteachers, while the later departments focusedon training teachers for thesecondary schools.Nevertheless, a number ofstate universities wereauthorized by legislatures togrant teaching certificates toany university graduatewanting to receive one, andthese certificates were oftenvalid for either secondary orelementary teaching.

Rural schools struggle to attract enough teachers

The number of teachersbeing graduated from thesethree forms of teachertraining fell far short ofmeeting the nation’s need forteachers in the nineteenth century, and it wasrural schools that had difficulty attractingthose with "proper" training. Theestablishment of state normal schools in theMidwest had been a difficult politicalstruggle, and, in order to gain legislativeassent, professional educators had bothvilified the ill-trained country school teachersand promised great improvements in thesupply of well-trained teachers.9 In the1870s, several Midwestern legislaturesreevaluated their normal schools and reducedtheir appropriations on grounds that thenormal schools were educating teachers wellbeyond the station of one-room schoolteacher and supplying almost none of thoseneeded. While state normal schools survived

these cutbacks and received increasingappropriations throughout the remainder ofthe century, legislatures turned to yet anotherform of training, the teacher institute, tosupply the country schools.

The first teacher institute is said to havebeen offered by Henry Barnard in 1839, but itdid not emerge as an important, state-supported form of teacher training until afterthe Civil War. For the most part, it was state-

subsidized but not state-controlled. Though the firstinstitutes were organized bystate superintendents, by the1870s the dominant form wasorganized by countysuperintendents. Some wereheld during the school yearfor short periods, but manymore were organized assummer programs lastingfrom a few days to a monthor more. These were mainlylocally-controlledinstitutions, responding to thepractical exigencies of rurallife. They were generallyself-supporting andinexpensive, and reflected thedominant view of the rural

population that good teachers were born notmade, hence needed only a modicum oftraining to sharpen and refine their naturalabilities. Professional educators despisedthese institutes, partly because they didn’tcontrol them and were seldom invited toparticipate, but also because they threatenedthe image of professionalism that theeducators were attempting to promote forteaching.10

The curriculum of teachers institutestypically consisted of reviews of the basicsubjects offered in the country schools, a fewopportunities to be tutored in more advancedsubjects, a few lectures on principles andmethods of good teaching given by successfulteachers chosen by the county superintendent,


In the nineteenthcentury, county

superintendents ranteacher training

institutes lasting from afew days to a month or

more. Professionaleducators despised

these institutes becausethey threatened the

image ofprofessionalism.

and the opportunity to prepare for the countyteachers examination that was often given asthe concluding event of the institute. Thevast majority of country school teachers,particularly in the Midwest, either had notraining at all or entered their careers throughthese doors. Many young people attendedinstitutes not because they intended to teachbut because the institute offered them theironly opportunity to extend their owneducation beyond what was offered in thecountry school. Fuller claims that "thecounty institutes were the rural youngpeople’s colleges," and the antagonismsbetween rural people and professionaleducators were such that "the statelegislatures made no move to turn them overto the educators."11

How much education did teachershave?

In 1870, of the 6,800,000 childrenenrolled in public schools in America, fully98 percent were enrolled below the highschool level. The country schools rarelyprovided instruction beyond rudimentaryknowledge of a few basic subjects, and whilecity school systems were stretching upwardinto grammar and high school grades, fewfamilies could forego the earnings of theirteenagers long enough to let them takeadvantage of these opportunities. At the turnof the century, the share of enrollments belowthe high school still surpassed 96 percent.These facts framed both the nature of the rolefor which the vast majority of teachersneeded to be licensed as well as the extent ofprior schooling that might be required ofthose wishing to become licensed to teach.The vast majority of would-be teacherspresenting themselves to be examined bylocal officials, enrolling in teachers institutes,or applying for admission to normal schoolsor departments in academies or colleges hadno more than an elementary education.

In the early part of the nineteenth century,

people described their own education not interms of grades or levels completed but interms of progress made in the two or threesubjects they had formally studied or even bythe number of pages completed in one oranother of the common texts of the times.Later, urban schools became progressivelymore graded, and the idea of gradedinstruction was to a small degree extended tothe country schools. Yet even in the mostcarefully graded city schools, the averagenumber of years completed by students in the1870s was only three and by century’s end nomore than five. It is not surprising, then, thatthose responsible for licensing teachers turnedto written examinations as the best device tobe sure that candidates knew the subjects theywere to teach. Changes in certificationrequirements were seen less as increasing thequantity of prior formal schooling than asincreasing the specificity of the subjects onwhich candidates should be examined and thedifficulty of the tests.

What knowledge was examined?

In New York, prior to 1840, state lawrequired only that "the literary qualifications"of prospective teachers be examined, but in1841 a new law specified that theexamination include "spelling, arithmetic,geography, history, and English grammar."Such specification was fairly common at mid-century, yet many states, such as Michigan,required only that candidates be examined inthe subjects usually taught in the primarygrades, their moral character, and their abilityto teach and govern school. In 1867,Michigan joined most other states in requiringthat applicants be examined in orthography,reading, writing, grammar, geography, andarithmetic and in establishing three levels ofcertificates, good for varying lengths of time,to be issued based on exam performance.This practice also became common.

Pennsylvania may have been the first stateto specify subjects, requiring in 1834 that

8 David L. Angus

teaching candidates be shown to becompetent in reading, writing, and arithmetic.By 1867, this list was expanded to includeorthography, geography, English grammar,history of the United States and, in the firstinstance of requiring what came to be knownas "professional knowledge," the theory andpractice of teaching. A historian of schoolingin Pennsylvania said that the purpose of thisinclusion was to encourage the study of theprinciples of the profession of teaching, sincevirtually no candidate at the time could havepassed an examination in this subject and fewsuperintendents could have given12 it.

Over the last third of the century, further"progress" consisted more ofstandardizing the content ofthese subject examinationsthan in further expanding thelist of subjects to be included.This standardization wasinseparable from the gradualcentralization discussedearlier, from town ortownship officials to countyofficials, from countyofficials to state officials, andfrom voluntary to requireduse of examination questionsprepared by the state. Yet,given the unremittingpressure on the part of professional educatorsfor firmer action by the states, increasedformal training requirements for teachers, anupgrading of prior education requirements forbeginning teachers, and their constant attackson teachers institutes and locally administeredexaminations, one might well ask why theywere not more successful.

The politics of education in thenineteenth century

Nineteenth century Americansdemonstrated a curious ambivalence aboutpolitics. On the one hand they thoroughlyenjoyed elections and selection of their own

representatives. On the other, they distrustedgovernment and even their own chosenrepresentatives, and adopted a number ofdevices, such as constitutional limits on thenumber of days the legislature could be insession, to protect themselves from legislativeactivity. Americans’ political imaginationsdid not stretch much beyond their localcommunities, what Robert Wiebe has called"island communities," where the solutions toproblems were expected to be worked out.13

In this climate, as David Tyack, ThomasJames, and Aaron Benavot have argued, statelegislatures were not so much instruments forthe discussion and adoption of general

policies as arenas in whichlegislators strove to protect orbenefit their localcommunities.14

Then, as now, thepreeminent political questionwas, "what should be thescope and range ofgovernment?" But educationhad a curious status. Theidea that the provision ofschooling was an appropriategovernment function waswidely accepted by mid-century. Questionsconcerning the ways in which

schooling should be organized and financed,however, remained contentious, andAmericans showed a firm determination notto allow such questions to be decided bydistant legislatures or "expert" educators.Local communities were willing to accept amodicum of state regulation in exchange fortheir fair share of state educationalappropriations, usually based on federal landgrants, but since these represented only asmall proportion of school funding incomparison to local property taxes and "ratebills" imposed on the parents ofschoolchildren, they tended to resist anyincrease in state authority.

Within this political framework,


Pennsylvania may havebeen the first state tospecify the subjects tobe covered by teacher

examinations, requiringin 1834 that teaching

candidates be shown tobe competent in

reading, writing, andarithmetic.

professional educators could find fewfootholds from which to leverageenhancements to their authority, howevermuch they were convinced that they hadbetter ideas about how children should beschooled. Relying as they had to onpersuasion, educators were handicapped bythe fact that, in contrast to doctors andlawyers, they were not perceived asrepresenting a body of important arcaneknowledge. The task of schooling children inthe rudiments of reading and ciphering wasseen as something that many adults could do,if some more effectively than others. Theidea was widespread that even this differencewas more a matter of innate talent than oftraining. Anyone taking a close look at thenormal schools of the day would likely havebeen reinforced in this view, as even the"professional knowledge" that formed a verysmall part of their curriculum could beperceived as little more than common sense.

Educators look to Europe

Professional educators were anxious todemonstrate that good teaching did indeedrequire a kind of specialized knowledge thatcould be transmitted through trainingprograms. Throughout the century, theylooked to Europe for the pedagogical theoriesand practices that might place teaching on afirm professional footing. An early exampleof this was the monitorial system developedby Joseph Lancaster in England in 1803. Aninstructional scheme whereby as many as fivehundred children could be instructed by asingle teacher through the use of rankedassistant teachers or monitors (the olderstudents) and employing a rigidly prescribedcurriculum, Lancasterian schools were thefirst public, common schools in New Yorkand Philadelphia, and were to be found inmany other cities and towns during the firstthird of the century. For a time, trainedLancasterian teachers were in great demand,assistant teachers could find employment in

schools of their own and the Lancaster systemevidenced many of the trappings of a full-fledged profession: scarce credentials, controlof entry, conferences, associations, and formaltraining.15

A mid-century example was "objectteaching" associated with the Swiss educatorJohann Pestalozzi and promoted in the UnitedStates largely by Edward Sheldon, head of thenormal school at Oswego, New York. From1863 to the mid-1880s, the Oswego NormalSchool sent graduates all over the country asapostles of the method. Out of 1,373graduates, 897 found places outside of NewYork, mostly as normal school teachers, criticteachers, and city school supervisors.16

Holding a certificate from Oswego was a realdistinction and many other normal schoolswere proud to have Oswego graduates ontheir faculty, lending credence to their ownefforts to introduce the Pestalozzian system toaspiring teachers.

Taking center stage in the 1890s was a setof instructional principles based on thephilosophy of the eminent German educatorJohann Herbart and dubbed "the neweducation." Herbartians believed thatteaching should be concentrated aroundstudies of literature, history, and geography,but over time Herbartian pedagogy (like otherformal methods) tended to becomemechanistic. The leading center ofHerbartianism was the Illinois Normal Schoolwhere Charles DeGarmo and Frank andCharles MacMurray held forth. (By the turnof the century, Herbartianism was challengedby Dewey and eventually replaced byprogressivism, which gained the allegiance ofpedagogical leaders.) To many outside theprofession, these European systems ofinstruction seemed more like education fadsthan the scientific breakthroughs they wereoften touted to be, and even within theprofession, none of them attained a unanimityof support that would have allowed it tobecome the basis for extended claims toprofessional recognition.17

10 David L. Angus

The case of New York state

There were as many approaches to thecertification of teachers as there were states.Since the state of New York was a leader inthis area, it offers a worthwhile illustration ofthe way these elements were interrelated.

From 1795 to 1812, qualifications forteaching were determined by towncommissioners, with emphasis placed onpersonal character. After 1812, examinationscame into general use with towncommissioners, supplemented by inspectors,empowered to carry out the exams and issuelicenses. In 1821, the Regents of the State ofNew York reported to the legislature that thestate should look to the academies for "asupply of teachers for the common schools"and should subsidize this function. In 1826,Governor Clinton recommended theestablishment of a seminary for teachers, andan 1827 act increased the literature fund "topromote the education of teachers." By 1831,academies in Canandaigua and St. Lawrencewere offering courses in the principles ofteaching. Other academies soon followed.An 1834 law, the first of its kind, providedfor the education "in separate departments" ofteachers for the common schools. In 1843,the office of county superintendent wascreated and the authority toexamine prospective teachersand issue licenses was sharedby town superintendents,county superintendents, andthe state superintendent.18

A year later, a fullysupported state normal schoolwas opened in Albany andthe state subsidy for trainingteachers in the academiesbegan to be withdrawn. By1849, so much controversy surrounded thisschool and its dynamic head that state supportfor teacher training in the academies wasrestored. Even so, in the major school law

passed that year by the legislature, only thegraduates of the Albany Normal School werelicensed to teach without further examination.The office of county superintendent wasabolished in 1847, leaving town officials andthe state superintendent to examine andlicense. In 1856, however, county levelschool officials were restored and the statesuperintendent was empowered to prescribethe rules under which examinations would begiven at the county level. In 1888, thesuperintendent was further empowered toactually prepare the questions for theexaminations, and in 1894, the authority toset the questions, score the exams, andestablish cut-off scores was fully vested in thestate superintendent. When the statesuperintendent was given authority over theteachers institutes in 1899, New York becamethe first state to have a uniform system ofcertification under state control, a trend thatwould soon spread.

Summary

Throughout the nineteenth century, the"citizen," not the professional educator, wasin control of the certification of teachers.Although the period saw the beginnings offormal training schemes of various sorts, aswell as their recognition in certification

practices, the idea promotedby career educators that itwas essential for all teachersto be trained in suchprograms made smallinroads. This was partlybecause of the relative powerof local communities overstate authorities in themanagement and regulationof schooling, but alsobecause of a deeply rooted

belief that teaching was something that mostadults could do.

An important factor contributing to thefailure of professional educators to realize


Throughout thenineteenth century, the

"citizen," not theprofessional educator,was in control of the

certification ofteachers.

their objectives in the area of teachereducation and certification was their contemptfor rural education and their inability topropose any practical reforms of countryschooling other than a complete reconstitutionof the governance and structure of thesesystems. This arrogant stance relative to theschooling that the vast majority of the nation'schildren were receiving remained powerful inthe next period of development. However,

during this era, the ability of professionaleducators to shape the nation's school systemswas greatly enhanced, and, at the same time,the professionals' underlying disdain for theordinary citizen's wishes and desires withrespect to the schooling of the nation'schildren became an even more pervasivetheme.

12 David L. Angus

Teacher Certification and theEducational Trust

State control of teacher certificationproceeded rapidly in the first third of thetwentieth century. This was accompanied, ofcourse, by expansion of state departments ofeducation and an increase in their authorityover rural schools. The period also sawconversion of normal schools into teacherscolleges, the raising of admissionrequirements to the level of high schoolcompletion, the decline of examinations andteachers institutes as primary means ofcertifying teachers for the country schools, avast multiplication of the number, types, andspecificity of the certificates issued, theexpansion of the one-man departments ofeducation in colleges and universities intofull-blown schools of education, theenlargement of graduate programs anddegrees in these schools, and perhaps aboveall, a coalescence of professional opinionaround a highly unified ideology of whatconstituted a good teacher and a goodpreparation program. This new ideology washome-grown, not derived from Europeansources, and the degree of its acceptancewithin the profession was far greater thanwith any of its nineteenth century forebears.

From 1900 to 1930, professionaleducators were far more successful in placing

their stamp on the whole pattern of Americaneducation. Two factors contributed to thissuccess: changes in the makeup and structureof the profession, and changes in the politicalclimate which made some legislators moreresponsive to ideas coming from professionalinterest groups. The key to the firstdevelopment lies in the rapid expansion ofthose small collegiate departments of"pedagogy" into schools or colleges ofeducation offering undergraduate andgraduate degrees in more and more areas ofspecialization, the most important of whichwas school administration. The gatekeepingcredential for membership in the educationprofession, certainly for positions ofleadership, became the graduate degreegranted by one of the more prestigious ofthese new schools. At the same time, manyof these schools downplayed their teachereducation function and a number of themdropped it entirely, opting to become strictlygraduate schools of education and thuswidening the gulf between the leadership ofthe profession and the classroom teacherswho made up the vast bulk of themembership.19 While in the nineteenthcentury the leadership of the educationprofession included college presidents and


faculty from a wide range of disciplines, inthe twentieth century leadership wasnarrowed to faculty in the education schoolsand to city and county superintendents, stateeducation officials, officers in stateassociations, and U.S. Bureau of Educationstaffers who often were graduates of theirprograms. David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansotrefer to this group as "administrativeprogressives" or members of the "educationaltrust."

By the turn of the twentieth century,leadership in American public educationhad gravitated from the part-timeeducational evangelists who had createdthe common-school system to a newbreed of professional managers who madeeducation a life-long career and who werereshaping the schools according to canonsof business efficiency and scientificexpertise. These new leaders—whom weshall call administrative progressives or(in a term of the time) the "educationaltrust"—believed that they lived at acritical juncture in the evolution ofAmerican society.20

The educational trust pursued two relatedgoals. One was to transform the Americaneducational system so that it was moreefficiently integrated with the vast economicchanges sweeping the country; the other wasto transform the system of school governanceso that education policy would be based onthe scientific expertise which only theyrepresented and would be buffered from thegritty local politics which often reflected thevalues of ethnic voting blocs. On both ofthese objectives, they found ready supportersamong the country’s business andprofessional elites. The organizational modelthey favored for schooling was bureaucraticand hierarchical, owing much to the emergingstructures of corporate capitalism.21 Thedaily lives, welfare, and problems of teacherswere of scant interest to them.

The rise of administrative progressives

The second factor contributing to thesuccess of professional educators during thefirst third of the twentieth century was achange in the political climate. One aspect ofthis was rapid urbanization, which gavelegislatures in many states a less agrariancast. Many people understood that theeconomy was undergoing a shift from anagricultural to an industrial base, and that thiswould bring different problems requiringdifferent solutions. Increasing respect for theauthority of science also would play a role indevising these solutions as would the growingpolitical power of corporate capital and thebusiness community generally.

Walter Dean Burnham has highlighted thefact that voter participation, party loyalty, andthe sharpness of competition betweenpolitical parties all declined after the turn ofthe twentieth century, and he attributes this toa general apathy or alienation on the part ofethnic and working class voters thataccompanied the consolidation of businesscontrol over public policy. Somewhat incontrast to this is Robert Wiebe’s suggestionthat, as social life moved beyond the confinesof the nineteenth century "islandcommunities" and people increasingly felt theinfluence of forces on their lives outside theircontrol, they were more willing to look tostate capitals and even to the federalgovernment to regulate or balance theseforces.22 The administrative progressiveswere able to exploit these anxieties byconfidently presenting scientifically-basedsolutions that appeared to be nonpolitical andthat seemed to promise minimal disruption tolong-established patterns of social life. Tyack,James, and Benevot provide us with a goodsummary.

In certain respects, the early twentiethcentury was an ideal time for theadministrative progressives to havecampaigned for the legal restructuring of

14 David L. Angus

education. The Progressive era was atime of transformation in state politics anda period of growth in the size and scopeof state government . . . older partyloyalties were eroding.Many Americans duringthe Progressive era wereuneasy about extremes ofwealth and poverty, fearedthat immigrant groupsmight be unassimilable,worried about the socialeffects of industrialism,and were especiallyconcerned about thewelfare of children andyouth. . . . [Theadministrativeprogressives] promisedthat if the risinggeneration were properly educated, theproblems besetting society might besolved without drastic disruption in thelives of adults.23

Progressives more successful in urban areas

The administrative progressives realizedearly on that to fundamentally transform thegovernance structure of public educationrequired that they shape action by statelegislatures. To impose the corporate modelof governance on urban districts called forchanges in city charters, and these were mostoften initiated in the state. The trust wasparticularly successful in transforming urbaneducation, since it was in the cities wherethey were able to form their strongest bondswith business and professional elites and"civic reform" organizations and could usetheir growing influence in state policydecisions.24

Their efforts to transform rural schoolingwere less successful. The administrativeprogressives often spoke and wrote about "therural school problem." They saw nothing to

like about these schools. The one-teachercountry schools were so antithetical to thehierarchical, bureaucratic model of schoolingthey promoted that the only "solution" to the

rural school problem thatthey ever proposed waselimination of such schoolsvia consolidation. The still-strong farm element in thelegislatures knew that itsconstituents opposed theelimination of their schools,and even when legislatorsmay have agreed with themain arguments of theprogressives, argumentsabout "better-trained"teachers and an expansivecurriculum, the laws thatwere passed on consolidation

and pupil transportation were deliberatelyambiguous and almost always gave localcommunities the vote on whether or not toconsolidate.25

Legislative success on at least some oftheir reform objectives encouragedprogressives to change state laws to achieveother objectives. One striking characteristicof the leadership of the education professionat this time was its high degree of consensusaround main ideas. Historians have alwaystended to focus on disagreements, yet behindapparent "struggles" over such things ascurricular philosophy, vocationalism, and therole of the federal government, there wasstriking consensus on basic principles. In themore "progressive" states, they were able toachieve a virtual transformation in therelation of the state to school and to build alegal structure that locked in their model ofgood schools.

Progressives target teachercertification

In no aspect of education was thisconsensus more evident than teacher

“The administrativeprogressives promised

that if the risinggeneration were

properly educated, theproblems besetting

society might be solvedwithout drastic

disruption in the livesof adults.”


certification. Administrative progressivesnever wavered from the view that a higherquality, more professional teaching corpscould only be produced by requiring moreand more training in colleges of education orthe collegiate normal schools; that their claimto scientific, arcane knowledge should belegitimated by issuing increasinglyspecialized certificates based on longer andlonger periods of formal training; that controlof entry should rest with the profession itself;that eliminating the local certificate (and theexamination on which it was often based) waskey; that state certificationlaws should be written onlyin broad strokes, leaving thedetails to a state bureaucracycontrolled by their members;and finally that neitherlegislatures nor stateeducation departments shouldexercise close supervisoryauthority over the curriculumand organization of teachereducation programs and thatinstitutional autonomy shouldbe the watchword.

Just how successful werethe administrativeprogressives in achievingthese goals? Fortunately, there is a great dealof information available on how teachercertification changed over these years. State-level changes in the practice of certifyingteachers were followed closely by the U.S.Office of Education, which issuedincreasingly detailed reports for the years1898, 1903, 1911, 1921, 1927, 1935, and1946.26 While these reports provided anaccurate summary of state practices, theywere far from neutral. Indeed, the staffpeople who prepared them wererepresentative of the emerging consensusamong professional educators.27 They heldthat all of the changes mentioned aboveconstituted "progress" in education andfostered the growth of professionalism itself.

If anything, they were concerned that thesechanges were not occurring as rapidly as theyshould, and their reports warned of thepossibility of backsliding by legislatures andstate education officials in periods whenteachers were in short supply.

One such period was during andimmediately following World War I, whichsaw a serious exodus from the teaching ranks,mostly by women moving into otheroccupations to take the place of men who hadgone into the armed forces. The shortageaffected urban school systems as much as

rural, and they were forced tohire undertrained people.After the war, successfulcampaigns were mounted ina number of cities to raiseteacher salaries. Accordingto Kathryn Cook of the U.S.Bureau of Education,between 1921 and 1927 theshortage turned into a slightsurplus and there was"unusual and satisfactoryprogress in raising thestandards of qualificationsdemanded of prospectiveteachers," because theattention of the public was

focused on the issues of teachers’ salaries andqualifications as never before. Cook maywell have exaggerated the role of publicawareness in this, as her own data showedthat the raising of standards as she definedthem also occurred during the shortage,between 1915 and 1921. In any case, thisadvance in requirements coincided withexpansion of the numbers of collegiate levelplaces for teacher training.28

State control

In reporting "progress" toward statecontrol of teacher certification, federalstaffers sorted states into five categories, asshown in Table 1.

Administrativeprogressives never

wavered from the viewthat a higher quality,more professional

teaching corps couldonly be produced byrequiring more and

more training incolleges of education.

16 David L. Angus

From a national perspective, there appearsto have been a simplifying and centralizing ofthe certification process. At the same time,however, there was an almost bewilderingincrease in the number and specificity of theteaching credentials being issued. Yet thiscontradiction is only apparent, as both trendswere clearly in the interests of the educationtrust: state control, because it was far easierto press for changes in certification standardswith a single agency, specialized credentialsbecause they gave legal sanction to themultiple degree programs that universitieswere developing. Recall also that the detailsof state teacher licensing were graduallybeing entrusted to offices within statedepartments of education that were staffed bythe graduates of these same programs.

From normal schools to teachers colleges

An equally dramatic development duringthe first third of the century was what DavidLabaree describes as institutional upwardmobility of the normal schools into teacherscolleges.29 In 1900, no more than fournormal schools were collegiate institutions

(i.e. requiring high school graduation forentrance and granting bachelor’s degrees).By 1930, there were nearly 150. Thisdevelopment was made possible, evennecessary, by the increase in high schoolenrollments over the same period, from about630,000 in 1900 to over 4.7 million in 1930.High school expansion had three effects. Itmade high school completion a reasonablerequirement for normal-school entrance; itrelieved the normal schools of providingelementary or high school level instruction;and it impelled them to move into the area oftraining high school teachers at a time whenuniversities had pushed the standard forcertification for high school teaching towardthe bachelor’s degree level.

The normal schools were keenly aware ofbeing in a competitive struggle with collegesand universities—for students, for the legalright to grant bachelor’s and graduatedegrees, and for the inside track in trainingteachers for the burgeoning high schools.The manifesto for this competition was aStatement of Policy for the Normal Schoolsissued by the National Education Association(NEA) in 1908, including resolutions callingfor normal schools to be considered "the

Table 1: Type and Number of State Systems of Teacher Certification, 1898-1937

1898 1911 1921 1926 1937

State systems (state issues all certificates) 3 15 26 36 41

State-controlled systems(state sets rules, conducts exams, county issues some certificates) 1 2 7 4 3

Semi-state systems (state sets rules, writes questions,county grades papers, issues certificates) 17 18 10 5 1

State-county systems(both issue certificates, county controls some certificates) 18 7 3 2 2

State-local system(full control by town committees) 2 2 2 2 1

(Source: Benjamin Frazier,Development of state programs for the certification of teachers,U.S. Office of Education, 1938)


state’s chief agent" for the training of teachersand warning that the universities should notdominate the high schools by trying to makethem college preparatory institutions insteadof serving as "the bestexpression of the wholepeople."30 This competitionwas most keenly joined in theMidwest, as most easternnormals had already cededthe training of high schoolteachers to the universities.Unable to convince theirlegislatures to restrict suchtraining to the universities,Midwest university facultyused the high schoolaccreditation standards of theNorth Central Association toset college graduation as the standard for highschool teachers. This forced the normalschools to transform themselves intocollegiate institutions and to standardize theirprograms.

Schools and colleges of education

The struggle between normal schools anduniversities occurred as the nineteenthcentury "chairs of pedagogy" were beingexpanded into schools of education and theseschools in turn were expanding theirprograms and degrees. In 1890, 114 of theroughly 400 colleges and universities in thecountry offered courses specifically forteachers, but only about a dozen hadcollegiate-grade departments of education,many of them one-person departments. By1933, directories listed over 100 colleges orschools of education, the vast majority ofthem offering graduate degrees. The numberof different courses offered had grown fromless than forty to several hundred.

Despite this competition between teacherscolleges and other colleges and universities,they were united in supporting three othertrends in teacher certification: the increase in

formal training requirements, the decline inthe use of examinations for certification, andthe proliferation of certificates andspecialties. They were also united in

opposing any increase in thecontrol of teacher educationprograms by state legislation,though this was on the risethroughout the period. Onthe question of the value of acollege degree and/orprofessional training, thestates presented a very mixedpicture. Some continued thenineteenth century practice ofgranting a life certificate toany graduate of the stateuniversity, regardless ofmajor; others issued life

certificates only to those graduates who hadtaken some professional education courses.In an increasing number of states, credithours and courses were actually specified inthe law, even though the administrativeprogressives opposed this practice. Overall,the trend was sharply toward increased formaleducation requirements to enter teaching.

Increase in formal training requirements

The formal requirements for initialteacher certification, as expressed in state law,had several components. One was theminimal amount of prior schooling. As lateas 1921, 30 states still had no definite priorschooling requirement for the initialcertificate. By 1930, this was down to 12states, while 31 required at least high schoolgraduation and some professional training.The Great Depression did not slow this trend,since an "oversupply" of teachers permittedmany states to continue to raise thisrequirement. By 1937, five states requiredfor their initial certificate four years ofcollege, eight required three years of collegeor normal school, 11 required two years of

The normal schoolswere keenly aware ofbeing in a competitivestruggle with collegesand universities for theinside track in training

teachers for theburgeoning high

schools.

18 David L. Angus

college or normal school, including someprofessional courses, eight states required oneyear and two states required high schoolgraduation and some professional preparation.Of the remaining 14 states, six required highschool graduation, not professional training,and eight had no definite requirement offormal education. Teachers actually hadhigher educational attainments than theserequirements suggest, however. In 1930-31,almost three-fourths of elementary teachershad two years of college or more while 60percent of junior high teachers and 87 percentof high school teachers had at least four yearsof college.31

Some legislatures specified the requiredamounts of professional training and studentteaching in credit hours orclock hours. In 1938, allstates required someprofessional training for oneor more of the certificatesthey offered, with the averagebeing about 12 credit hoursfor the elementary certificate.More than half the statesplaced specific requirementsinto statute, but Frazier saysthat already this practice wasdeclining in favor of delegating the authorityto set regulations to the State Board ofEducation.32 Numerous studies were doneabout the frequency of offerings orenrollments in various courses of professionaltraining programs.33 For elementary teachers,"the most frequent among a wide variety ofprofessional courses required were:elementary school methods, educationalmeasurements, history of education,educational psychology, classroommanagement, organization and managementof elementary schools, principles ofeducation, and the elementary schoolcurriculum." For high school teachers, therequired or recommended professionalcourses were educational psychology, studentteaching, principles of teaching, history of

education, special methods, andadministration and organization.34 By thistime, the first five of these had become thefive basic components of teacher preparationand they have shown enormous staying powerto this day, both being influenced by andinfluencing certification rules or legislation.Of course, the specifying of particular courseshad strong implications for the internalpolitics of schools of education, since noschool that trained teachers could afford toignore these requirements or fail to providethe faculty resources to meet them.

By the 1930s, states had also begun tospecify the amount of liberal or culturaleducation required for elementary teaching.In 1933, 12 states had such provisions. Only

Indiana prescribed thedistribution of specificsubjects. Requirements inspecific subjects were moreoften specified for secondarycertificates, but as late as1930, 27 states had noacademic requirements forthe highest grade of highschool certificate other thangraduation from a recognizedcollege. Sixteen states also

required the completion of majors andminors, defined in law as specific numbers ofhours of work. Then as now, much concernwas expressed by those who studied teachersand certification over the number ofsecondary teachers working outside theirmajors or minors. One study in 1933-34reported that only 29.74 percent of all highschool teachers in Kansas were teaching intheir major, and in the smaller schools, thefigure was only about 6 percent.35

Decline of certification by examination

In 1919, Vermont became the first state toabandon the examination and offercertificates solely on the basis of professional

Teachers colleges andother colleges and

universities were unitedin supporting theincrease in formal

training requirements.


training. In contrast, at this time Connecticutrequired an examination for all of itscertificates. By 1937, while all states issuedat least one credential on the basis ofinstitutional credits only, 28 states hadeliminated examinations altogether and reliedsolely on professional training forcertification. Only 20 states continued to useexaminations. The actual number ofcertificates issued on the basis ofexaminations had actually declined faster thanthese numbers indicate. The professionaleducation establishment was uniformlyopposed to certification examinations. Theycontinued to vilify them as a "back door" intoteaching through which people with inferiortraining and talents"infiltrated" the profession.This was, of course, also atheme of their long-standinghostility to rural schooling.

But just as they failed towipe out the country schools,they were also less successfulthan they wished ineliminating the examinationroute to initial certification.States with large ruralpopulations continued to usethe examination method forissuing elementarycertificates to rural teachers.36

What the education professionals managed todo instead was to get increases in the amountof formal schooling required as a prerequisiteto taking the certification examinations. Thiswas acceptable to supporters of rural schoolsbecause the average educational attainment ofthe population was rising fast enough tosustain these increases without producingshortages. Furthermore, many states began tophase in tougher requirements, setting futuredates by which they became effective. Thisprovided time for aspiring teachers to meetthe new norms and avoided shortages. But afurther reason for the decline of examinationswas simply that they were becoming complex

and difficult to administer. As the curriculumexpanded, particularly in secondary schools,the number of subjects included in theseexaminations rose as well. In some places,candidates using the examination route wereexamined in as many as 13 subjects, and the"class" or duration of validity of thecertificate was based on these test scores.37

The multiplication of certificates

Another trend that reflected the power instate politics of the educational trust was theincrease in the differentiation of certificates tosanctify the specializations that were growingin the education schools and teachers

colleges. Not surprisingly,the earliest differentiation toemerge clearly was betweenelementary and high schoolteaching. From the presentvantage point, it seemsastounding that certificateswere once issued thatpermitted their holders toteach in any school at anylevel, sometimes for life. Butduring the Progressive period,proliferation of specialcertificates occurred alongseveral paths. One was withrespect to school levels.

Following the differentiation betweenelementary and high school teaching, statesbegan to issue special certificates forkindergarten, evening school, junior high, andjunior college teaching. Special certificatesfor administrative or supervisory positions,often requiring graduate study, becamecommon, and later these were alsodifferentiated with respect to school level.

Among high school certificates, there wassubject area differentiation, but it was thenewer, vocationally-oriented subjects thatwere first recognized. States required specialtraining in such areas as industrial arts,agriculture, home economics, music, art, and

The professionaleducation establishment

vilified certificationexaminations as a back

door into teachingthrough which peoplewith inferior trainingand talents infiltrated

the profession.

20 David L. Angus

physical education well before theyrecognized academic specializations such asEnglish, math, or science. One reason forthis is related to the "rural school problem."A very large share of the nation’s highschools were three-teacher high schools, andthose who taught in such schools wereexpected to offer several subjects each.38 By1921, virtually all states were issuing speciallicenses for teachers of the specializedsubjects, partly because this was arequirement to receive federal funds from theSmith-Hughes Act of 1917. Usually, trainingrequirements were higher for each newspecialized certificate, but in some states theywere based on subject-specific examinations,with or without prerequisite training. By1927, specialization in some states hadextended to include those teaching classes foratypical children, adult education, classes forthe blind, school nurses, school librariansand, in the case of RhodeIsland, a professorialcertificate.

Because there was nocommon terminologybetween states in the namingof certificates, federal datacompilers had difficultydetermining the total numberof truly different certificatesissued across the nation, buta simple total of differenttitles issued by the states in1921 was 715, with NewJersey and Indiana leadingthe way with 30 differentcertificates apiece. By theearly 1930s, careful comparisons of thedifferent certificates issued in the statesestimated the total to be nearly 600 with thenumber issued by individual states rangingfrom three to 55, and averaging 20.39

Summary

In the first half of the twentieth century,the education profession achieved manyobjectives that it had been unable to achievein the nineteenth. Members of the educationtrust successfully used state law to impose ahierarchical, bureaucratic organizationalmodel of education on the nation's publicschools. One element of this model was asystem of teacher certification that deniedlocal communities the ability to set their ownstandards and determine who should teach intheir schools. At the same time, this modelempowered state departments of education toestablish standards for initial teachercertification and to rely on formal teachertraining programs to supply the candidates forthese licenses. These professional educatorswere more successful than their nineteenthcentury counterparts because they were far

better organized, were able touse the university professionalschools as a base ofoperations, formed coalitionswith business and professionalelites, and successfullyprojected an image of being"above" politics (i.e.,appearing to represent thepublic interest). Yet they weremore successful in some statesthan others. They were leasteffective in agrarian statesbecause they could offer noeffective solutions to theproblems of rural schools andbecause legislators and voters

in these states strongly supported retainingthe power of local schools. These statesgenerally rebuffed efforts by professionaleducators to eliminate small local schooldistricts and control the supply of teachers.

Members of theeducation trust usedstate law to impose a

system of teachercertification that deniedlocal communities theability to set their own

standards anddetermine who shouldteach in their schools.


The War and Post-war Years

World War II and the immediate post-waryears witnessed the most severe crisis inteacher supply and demand that the nationhad ever experienced, and all schools, not justrural schools, were affected. Teachers’salaries could not compete with the highwages being paid in jobs related more closelyto the war effort and patriotism also pulledmany away from their classrooms. BenjaminFrazier, the U.S. Office of Education’s seniorspecialist in teacher education, watched withalarm as the number of emergency certificatesissued by states rose from 2,305 in 1940-41to 69,423 in 1943-44.40 By war’s end, thenumber holding emergency certificates in thenation’s schools was estimated to be 108,932,about the same as the number of new teachershired annually in normal times. Frazierfeared that there would be rollbacks incertification requirements that had been wonover the years from the state legislatures. By1946, however, he reportedthat, despite some addedflexibility in theadministration of certificationprograms, no significantrollbacks in requirements forcertification had occurred,and he confidently predictedthat when the shortage easedafter the war, the marchtoward higher standardswould resume.41 In thisprediction, he was only partly correct. Theshortage continued well into the 1950s andemergency certificates were still being issuedin the 1960s, but the push for higherstandards did resume notwithstanding theshortage. Furthermore, the period sawsignificant shifts in power relationshipswithin the professional educationestablishment, with classroom teachersmaking a bid to become major players in the

determination of policy for both teachereducation and certification.

Between 1946 and 1953, 23 statesincreased their formal training requirementsfor the initial elementary certificate, 17 ofthem more than once. The standard wasrapidly becoming a minimum of a four-yearcollege degree for elementary teaching, with25 states now requiring this, compared toonly nine in 1940. Eleven states also raisedthe requirement for high school certification,with five states requiring five years of collegeand another 40 requiring at least four. Othertrends also continued, such as increasingauthority of state boards of education overcertification rules and procedures and thedisappearance of examinations. Between1946 and 1953, six states discontinued localissuance, leaving only three states,Massachusetts, Illinois, and Missouri sharingissuing authority with local officials, and a

total of 12 states stillauthorizing cities and/orcertain colleges anduniversities to issuecertificates, usually becausetheir requirements werehigher than the state’s. Whileseven states still issued somecredentials on the basis ofexamination, only Missouri,North Dakota, and Texas didso without prerequisite

formal training, continuing to use theexamination alone as a method for qualifyingteachers for the rural schools. The remainingfour states used examinations only for specialqualifications or as a selective device.42

The National Commission on TeacherEducation and Professional Standards

Arguably, the most important force

In the post-war years,classroom teachers

made a bid to becomemajor players in the

determination of policyfor teacher education

and certification.

22 David L. Angus

promoting these and other changes in teachercertification standards in the postwar yearswas an organization created by the NEA in1946 called the National Commission onTeacher Education and Professional Standards(TEPS). To grasp the meaning and purposesof this agency we must understand it first aspromoting a new set of power relationshipswithin the teaching profession. Throughoutthe previous four decades, as we have seen,the dominant voice of the profession had beenthe faculty of colleges of education. Theywere supported and joined by schooladministrators, faculty of the former normalschools, state department employees, and thestaff of the U.S. Office of Education, all ofwhom became known asmembers of the educationaltrust. During the Progressiveera, this educationalestablishment, whiletremendously effective inreshaping the governance ofeducation including thecertification of teachers, hadbecome more and moreremoved from the everydayworld of the classroomteacher.43 Of course, teachers continued to beincluded in the invocation of the idea of aprofession of education, and the educationschool faculty often acted as if they "spoke"for the classroom teacher.

At the end of World War II, the Americanteacher corps was grossly overworked,underpaid, and demoralized. From theirperspective, while the profession of educationmight have gained in power and prestige overthe previous half-century, the benefits had nottrickled down to them. They sensed noimprovement in the status of the classroomteacher and saw no signs that teaching wasabout to be treated as a full-scale profession.The creation of TEPS, with a permanent staffand budget and strong support from theNEA’s department of classroom teachers, waspart of an effort to create an independent

voice for the classroom teacher and wasintended to challenge the hegemony of theeducation trust and particularly the educationschool faculty over teacher education andcertification. TEPS was to spearhead what itreferred to as the "professional standardsmovement" to establish for teaching the same"control of entry" that other professionsenjoyed. At the same time, the idea was togive classroom teachers a more prominentvoice in all aspects of professional training.

In 1946, TEPS held the first of a series ofnational conferences on various aspects ofteacher education, including several that dealtwith certification issues. The TEPSconferences acknowledged that a primary

purpose of certification wasto protect the public fromincompetent teachers, butthey asserted that an equallyimportant purpose was toprotect the members of theprofession from unfaircompetition from untrainedpeople, a theme that madeconsiderable sense at a timewhen emergency certificateswere being issued by the tens

of thousands. While these conferences werebilled as broadening the conversation overteacher education and licensing issues—theterm "democratizing" was frequently used todescribe the power shift—in practice thismeant bringing the criticism of classroomteachers to bear on the faculty andadministrators of teachers colleges, as well asstate-level education staffers.

Expanding the power of teachers

The change model adopted by TEPS wasone in which national conferences on aspecific theme, followed by as many as adozen regional conferences, would hammerout specific proposals, policies, andpronouncements. These would be translatedinto action projects to be carried forth by a

During the Progressiveera, the educationalestablishment had

become more and moreremoved from the

everyday world of theclassroom teacher.


network of state TEPS Councils and/or NEAaffiliates. By 1961, it was reported that therewere affiliates of TEPS in every state. Theseorganizations were instrumental in pushingstates to adopt the bachelor’s degree as theminimal qualification for elementary teachersand trying to achieve a five-year standard forhigh school teachers and the elimination ofthe certification exam. As these objectiveswere nearly realized, TEPS and its affiliatespushed for more subtle changes incertification having as much to do with whowould exercise power as with raisingstandards. For example, animportant objective was toconvince state legislatures todelegate full authority overcertification requirements andprocedures to statedepartments of education,then, to induce state boards ofeducation to create advisorycouncils, to assist the statecertification officers. By1960, all but six states hadadopted some type ofadvisory council. In fivestates, the TEPS commission served in thiscapacity, in nine states the councils werecreated by law and in the remainder theywere voluntary. In every case, these advisorycouncils were more broadly representative ofthe various elements of the teachingprofession than previous bodies such as thedeans of education schools and normalschools. In some cases, they also includedrepresentatives of the general public.44

Another important agenda item for TEPSwas the "approved program" approach to stateoversight of teacher education programs. Formany years, state departments or boards ofeducation had been given the authority todetermine various elements of teachereducation programs, including specificcourses and hours, and to grant or withholdcertification of individual applicants on thebasis of whether these detailed standards had

been met. This came to be known as the"courses and hours" approach.

By the 1950s, the "approved program"approach was taking hold across the country.The state department would approve theteacher training institution, leaving the detailsto the faculty to determine. The certificationof individual applicants was granted on thebasis of their completion of an approvedprogram, designed by the institution, and therecommendation of that institution, verymuch a "rubber-stamp" procedure. Only incases of applicants from out-of-state were

transcripts scrutinized forwhether they met stateminimal "courses and hours"standards. While thispractice placed control ofteacher education programsin the hands of educationfaculty, it also made state-tostate reciprocity, anotherTEPS priority, more difficult.For TEPS and its affiliates,the answer to bothproblems—excessive controlof teacher training by

faculties of education and barriers to mobilitycreated by ineffective reciprocityagreements—lay in the creation of a newagency, the National Council for theAccreditation of Teacher Education(NCATE).

NCATE

From the beginning, TEPS leaders wereextremely critical of teacher training aspracticed in the universities and formernormal schools. In his keynote address to theregional conferences in 1950, RalphMacDonald, the first Executive Secretary ofTEPS, referred to the "deterioration ofteaching" and identified its underlying causeas the "low standards of preparation and ofadmission to teaching."45

"The teacher educationsystem of the United

States … is ahodgepodge of

programs which are inthe main a travestyupon professional

education."

24 David L. Angus

The teacher education system of theUnited States, with the exception of avery few states, is a hodgepodge ofprograms which are in the main a travestyupon professional education. . . . We evenprovide a better-planned and better-financed system of professional educationfor those who raise pigs than we do forthose who teach children.46

MacDonald estimated thatof the 1,200 teacher trainingprograms recognized by thestates, no more than 300"could stand up under a validset of criteria as institutionswhich are equipped inphilosophy, faculty, facilities,and curriculum for theprofessional preparation ofteachers."47

The creation of NCATEoccurred in two stages, each of whichbroadened the base of those in a position toinfluence teacher education. In 1948, theAmerican Association of Colleges forTeacher Education (AACTE) was formedfrom a merger of three organizations.48 In1952, AACTE, TEPS, and the NationalAssociation of State Directors of TeacherEducation and Certification (NASDTEC)cooperated in forming NCATE, to assumeresponsibility for the accreditation ofprograms. The original governing body,established in 1952, gave "equal allotment tothe three major interests—the practitioners inthe lower schools, as represented by theNEA...; the preparing schools, as representedby the AACTE...; and the state educationlegal authorities...."49 This makeup placedclassroom teachers in a much strongerposition to influence teacher preparationprograms, and many faculties of education,particularly in liberal arts colleges, resistedNCATE as an encroachment on theirprerogatives. By 1954, after the first of whatwould amount to four reorganizations to

reduce the influence of practitioners, theNCATE governing body was a 19 membercouncil consisting of seven collegiateappointments by the AACTE, sixrepresentatives of the teaching profession atlarge nominated by TEPS and approved bythe Executive Committee of the NEA (mainlyclassroom teachers), three collegiate members(liberal arts faculty) appointed by theNational Board on Accreditation, and one

representative each fromNASDTEC, the Council ofChief State School Officers,and the National SchoolBoards Association.

The promise of NCATEwas to lift the standards ofteacher education programsto a higher commondenominator, eventually toremove the program approvalprocess from state

departments and lodge it with a national bodythat could be controlled more readily by theeducationists themselves, and to become thebasis for a truly nationwide system ofreciprocity in teacher certification. By 1959,17 states had adopted some provision forrecognizing NCATE accreditation in theirreciprocity procedures. But the actualprocess of accrediting programs proceeded ata snail’s pace. In 1954, NCATE accepted 284institutions previously visited by AACTE andby 1961, they had added only 68 institutionsfor a total of 342 out of the more than 1100teacher education programs in the country.The rate of increase was only about 12 or 13per year.50 Between 1954 and the mid-1970s,the makeup of the NCATE Board wasreconstituted several times, each timereducing the influence of classroom teachers.

Educationists vs. critics ofAmerican education

The gains made by the professionalstandards movement of the 1950s are even

Educationists tried tolabel critics as

"vestigial elitists,""congenital

reactionaries" orsimply, "enemies of the

public schools."


more remarkable when placed against the factthat the decade was one of intense criticismof American education.51 Not only did thesecritics attack the quality of the educationsystem and the values that had shaped it, theyalso attacked the system of control whicheducationists had managed to put in placeover the previous half century, using suchterms as the "interlocking directorate" and the"educational establishment" to signify whatMortimer Smith called "a cohesive body ofbelievers with a clearly formulated set ofdogmas and doctrines."52 But in castingeducation as a unified profession, the criticsseemed ignorant of the internal powerstruggle being waged among various elementsof the "establishment."

Historians have tended to take the viewthat these critics were largelymarginalized and madeineffective by the very unitedfront of all elements of theteaching profession that theywere trying to call attentionto. And indeed some of thecritics were dismissed as red-baiters and ultra-right wingconspiracy theorists, others asoversensationalizingjournalists. But seriousscholars such as ArthurBestor, Robert Maynard Hutchins, and PaulWoodring could not be dismissed so easily.As educationists began to fear that a genuinecounter-revolution might be in the offing,they tried to label these critics as "vestigialelitists," "congenital reactionaries" or simply,"enemies of the public schools." During theearly phase of this controversy, the generalpublic seemed to regard it as mere sound andfury. With the Russian launching of Sputnikin 1957, however, the school quality debatewas transformed into a debate on nationalsecurity that took on considerably moreurgency. According to many critics, thehegemony of professional educators overvirtually all aspects of the educational system

had led to a loss of seriousness of purpose inAmerican public schools. Particularlyresponsive to the type of criticism associatedwith Hutchins and Bestor were academics inuniversity departments who, over the years,had been squeezed out of having anyinfluence on the school curriculum and onteacher education. Suddenly, with Sputnik,their sense of being marginalized received apublic hearing and the fundamental clash ofvalues between professional schools ofeducation and liberal arts departments cameto the forefront.

Classroom teachers aligned withliberal arts departments

Ironically, the classroom teachers,attempting to gain morecontrol over professionalentry through TEPS, wereable to use these critics totheir advantage. In 1958, atthe height of the nationaldebate, the leadership ofTEPS decided to hold adifferent kind of nationalconference. They once again"broadened the conversation"by inviting a large number oforganizations representing

academic disciplines to cosponsor and senddelegates to three national conferencesfollowing on the heels of Sputnik.53 Thepurpose of these conferences on "theeducation of teachers" was to provide a forumfor liberal arts faculty to air their grievances"inside the house" and they were "aimed atgetting the warring segments of Americaneducation to sit down together and talk senseabout how our teachers should be prepared."54

As G.K. Hodenfield, education writer for theAssociated Press, put it, "It was like askingthe Hatfields and the McCoys to sit down forSunday dinner—or like asking theRepublicans and Democrats to hold a jointconvention."55 If education faculty were

At TEPS conferences,speakers noted a lack

of scientific backing forwhat had become the

"essential" elements ofteacher education

programs.

26 David L. Angus

made uncomfortable and placed on thedefensive at these conferences, the classroomteacher delegates were all the more eager tosecond the criticisms.

By the time of these conferences, thecriticisms had become standardized into alitany: low standards of admission to and exitfrom teacher education programs, too many"mickey mouse" courses, overemphasis onprofessional education courses in relation toacademic or liberal arts courses,"educationist" control of state departments ofeducation and the certification function, thefield of education lacking a distinct"disciplinary" base, the weakness of thedoctorate in education and the commensurateintellectual weakness of the education faculty,and perhaps most important of all, theabsence of reliable scientific evidence thatany component of the teacher educationprograms has a predictable relationship toeffective classroom teaching. Given theeducation trust’s pretensionsto scientific authority for thereforms of the first halfcentury, it was indeedsurprising how often at theseTEPS conferences speakersnoted a lack of scientificbacking for what had becomethe "essential" elements ofteacher education programs.

It is not clear that muchcame of the effort to bring"subject" matter faculty intoconversations about teachereducation, though the conferences were saidto have opened "channels of communication"hitherto closed, increased understanding ofthe nature and scope of teacher education, andcreated "new cooperative machinery" onmany campuses. This generally took theform of creating, or in some cases reviving,campus-wide committees to review proposalsfor change in the teacher educationcurriculum, as well as the general educationand major and minor subject requirements.

Committees of this type were common andactive in the 1960s but atrophied in the1970s. The state affiliates of NEA or TEPS,following these conferences, were more likelyto include liberal arts faculty representation intheir proposals for state teacher educationadvisory committees. Whether as a result ofthese conferences or simply as an outcome ofthe "Great Debate" over education in this era,many states strengthened the academicrequirements for the granting of initialteaching certificates during the 1950s andearly 1960s.

Criticism from liberal arts faculty

If the TEPS efforts at outreach to liberalarts critics of teacher education had, at best,modest success, it is clear that criticism fromthis quarter continued into the 1960s, asillustrated by two books in particular, TheMiseducation of American Teachers, by

James Koerner and TheEducation of AmericanTeachersby James B.Conant, both published in1963. These books wereframed against the argumentsthat had been raging betweeneducation faculty and liberalarts and science faculty fornearly a decade and bothpurported to be based onserious study of the issues,including many interviewsand analyses of data. As

their titles suggest, Koerner’s book was themore unfailing in taking the side of theacademic faculty in this dispute and inbashing the teacher educators. Yet it wasConant’s book that was more disappointing toeducators and more radical in its proposal forreform. The reason it was disappointing hadto do with what the profession had come toexpect from his previous work. In 1959, atthe climax of a national debate over theAmerican high school curriculum in which

Educators wereoutraged by the

conclusion that the onlyportion of professional

education that wasclearly necessary was a

high quality studentteaching experience.


some critics were pushing to scrap thecomprehensive high school in favor of aEuropean-style system of elective secondaryschools, Conant’s TheAmerican High School Todayhad reaffirmed the soundnessof the nation’s basic approachto providing secondaryschooling to a masspopulation and had called forvery modest reforms of thesystem.56

In The Education ofAmerican Teachers, Conantdid dismiss many of thecriticisms of teachereducation and was highlycritical of academic faculty for their lack ofattentiveness to the question of how theirsubject teaching might be made moreeffective as part of a program to trainteachers. However, educators were outragedby his conclusion that the only portion ofprofessional education that was clearlynecessary was a high quality student teachingexperience. "For certification purposes,"Conant wrote,

the state should require only (a) that acandidate hold a baccalaureate degreefrom a legitimate college or university, (b)that he submit evidence of havingsuccessfully performed as a studentteacher under the direction of college andpublic school personnel in whom the statedepartment has confidence,...and...that hehold a specially endorsed teachingcertificate from a college or universitywhich, in issuing the official document,attests that the institution as a wholeconsiders the person adequately preparedto teach in a designated field and gradelevel.57

In the storm of critical articles whichfollowed, teacher educators made clear thatthey did not want to share as much of the

control of teacher education with academicfaculty as this implied, did not want to makepublic school personnel equal partners in the

training of teachers, and didnot want to give up theinstitutional supports forspecific components ofprofessional education thatthe "approved program"approach was providing.58

A number of otherthemes that emerged in thelong series of TEPSconferences and activitieshave echoed again in the1980s and 1990s. Forexample, one was the idea of

differentiating the occupation of teaching,creating such clearly differentiated (andcompensated) roles as interns, members ofspecialized teams, and master or supervisoryteachers.59 Other themes were the notion ofextending formal training to a fifth year, theneed to create routes into teaching asalternatives to standard teacher training, theneed to bring teacher education into closerrelation to the practical world of the careerteacher, to focus training more closely on the"competences" of effective teachers, and toinvolve teachers more closely in the design ofprograms.60

In the final analysis, however, TEPS wasmainly about the issue of the control of entryto the profession, and from this perspective,the high point of the professional standardsmovement was the report of the Project onNew Horizons in Teacher Education andProfessional Standards.61 The purpose of theProject was to review the aspirations andaccomplishments of TEPS over the previousdecade and, looking toward the future, to"develop definitive statements . . . that wouldserve as guidelines for action programs . . .toward the complete professionalization ofteaching."62 The Project was organizedaround five committees and five themes:professional standards, pre- and in-service

The TEPS reportargued that the

profession should havecomplete autonomywith respect to the

education, licensing,and conduct of its

members.

28 David L. Angus

teacher education, accreditation of teachereducation institutions, certification, andidentification, selection, and retention inteacher education. Though the reportcontained dozens of basic principles, policystatements and recommendations, the overalltheme was simple and clear: the professionshould have complete autonomy with respectto the education, licensing, and conduct of itsmembers.63

The profession, itself, if it is to beaccountable for its own, must beresponsible for accreditation ofpreparatory programs and certification ofprofessional personnel.It is recommended that every statelegislature establish a professionalstandards board of seven to elevenmembers as an adjunct to the office of thechief state school officer, but charged withresponsibility for accreditation and co-ordination of teacher education programsand certification of professionalpersonnel.64

This concept of a professional standardsboard went well beyond thenotion of state advisorycommittees that had beenpromoted by TEPS for years,both in the degree ofdominance by members ofthe profession (total) and bythe scope of control overentry into teaching whichthese boards were to wield(total). Was the professionsuccessful in establishingsuch boards, or even the more modestadvisory councils advocated in the 1950s?Let us consider the case of California.

Winning and losing in California65

Between the professional standardsmovement to gain greater control of entry, on

the one hand, and the attacks by critics of theteacher education curriculum and the nationalanxiety attack over Sputnik, on the other,considerable pressure came to bear on thecertification offices of state departments ofeducation. In the 1950s, no fewer than two-thirds of the states undertook comprehensivereviews of their teacher-certification system.66

In some, this was motivated by the critics’charge that too much time was being devotedto professional-education courses, and toolittle was required in basic academic subjects.In other states, where educationists werebetter organized, the triggering issue was theperceived need to reduce the number ofcredentials and increase the autonomy ofteacher education institutions with respect totheir curricula. But whoever had theinitiative, the outcome was never a completevictory for the teaching profession.California’s review process began in 1954,lasted for a decade, and went through fourphases.

At the time, California’s certificationsystem had several features that were stronglyfavored by the education profession. It hadadopted the fifth-year requirement for the

secondary school credential,the first state to do so (in1905). It was an early stateto require four years ofcollege for the initialelementary certificate (1930).It issued a "blanket"certificate for secondaryteaching, without subject areaendorsements on thecertificate, leavingenforcement of regulations

regarding subject qualifications up to localadministrators and accrediting agencies. Ithad extended its certification system to coverjunior college teachers. It utilized an"approved program approach" to the actualissuance of certificates to in-statecandidates.67 There was a state advisorycouncil, called the California Council on

In the 1950s, no fewerthan two-thirds of the

states undertookcomprehensive reviews

of their teacher-certification system.


Teacher Education, dominated byprofessionals, but also including some publicmembers. Still, California issued 57 differentspecialized credentials, including some fornon-professional school staff, a practice thathad once been favored by professionaleducators but now was thought to limit theprofessional discretion of supervisors andadministrators. In fact, it was the"multiplicity of credentials" that served as thechief motivation for credential systemrevision.

Revising the credentialing system

The initiative was taken by theSuperintendent of Public Instruction, whorequested that a committee ofthe California Council onTeacher Education (CCTA)undertake a study of thecredentialing structure withparticular emphasis on howthe number of credentialscould be reduced whileretaining the specializedprograms that were deemednecessary. This Committeeon the Revision of theCredential Structure inCalifornia (dubbedCommittee A) verified thatexcessive specialization wasindeed a problem and traced it to the fact thatthe certification system was attempting to dotoo much. Specifically, the system wasattempting to control professionalassignments through certification, and tocontrol quality by specifying the nature ofpreparation, but was unable to limit itself tothose positions calling for professionalpreparation. According to Committee A, thepurpose of certification should be to verifythat the candidate has been selected by anapproved professional institution andprepared for the profession in that institution.On its face, this was a bid for greater control

of entry by the profession than existed in anystate at the time. The Committee’s workwent through a series of iterations but itsanalysis of the problem and its proposal for amuch more limited approach to certificationsurvived its Final Report of June, 1957.Committee A also proposed that the 57 extantcredentials be replaced by just four: a generalteaching credential, a vocational teachingcredential, a pupil-personnel credential and anadministration-supervision credential. It saidthat all responsibility for staff assignmentshould be left to the local administrator.

Committee A generated such general andlively interest that it was decided to have aseries of regional meetings in the spring of1958 for discussion, criticism, and revisions

of its report. The Presidentof the CCTA appointed anew committee, theCommittee on CredentialRevision (Committee B), toclarify the proposals to bepresented at regionalmeetings and to draftwhatever revisions seemeddesirable. Some ofCommittee A’s proposals metwith opposition. Non-professional school personnelwere afraid that they wouldlose retirement and fringebenefits that were tied into

the credential structure. Subject-matterteachers in metropolitan areas and theCalifornia Federation of Teachers opposedplacing staff assignment in the hands of localadministrators. But according to LucienKinney, a Stanford professor of mathematicseducation who was both a participant in andcommentator on these events, no organizedopposition developed against the idea thatmajor responsibility for the design ofpreparatory programs should be left to thepreparing institutions themselves. Twoproposals developed by Committee B wentforward: that the four credentials be reduced

No organizedopposition developedagainst the idea that

major responsibility forthe design of

preparatory programsshould be left to thepreparing institutions

themselves.

30 David L. Angus

to three by combining the general andvocational teaching credential and that fiveyears of preparation be required for bothelementary and secondary teachers.

A civil service approach

Judging that consensus on the majorquestions had yet to be reached, theSuperintendent of Public Instructionappointed an in-house committee of the StateDepartment of Education to revise theproposals to try to meet moreof the objections that hadsurfaced in the regionalmeetings. This proposal,which differed in significantways from those ofCommittees A and B, wascirculated for comment at aseries of meetings in 1958.The Department proposalwas based on a ratherdifferent set of assumptionsabout certification, seeing it as anadministrative device to regularizeemployment practices, what Kinney called a"civil-service" approach, rather than a processof professional licensure. Accordingly, itproposed five credentials, restoring the non-professional services credential and adding adesignated subjects credential. Kinneydescribed this proposal as "essentially aregrouping of the 57 credentials under thefive major headings, using the device ofendorsement of credentials to indicatespecialization."68 The Department proposalwas presented to the State Board ofEducation, which approved both theprinciples and the structure after meeting withthe chairman of the Joint Interim Commissionof the Public Education System of the StateLegislature. This proposal became the basisfor Senate Bill 57, as introduced in 1961.

Though endorsed by the governor, the billgenerated much controversy. Both theCalifornia Teachers Association and the

California Federation of Teachers introducedbills more to their liking.69 New featureswere introduced and old features modified.Kinney’s assessment was that the legislationas passed was "relatively unrelated toprevious proposals and recommendations."70

The legislation retained five credentials,specified in detail with respect toauthorization and preparation. A staffmember of the State Department estimatedthat the new structure was the equivalent of75 to 100 distinct credentials rather than the

57 in place in 1953. The ideaof a fifth year of preparationfor elementary teachers wasincluded but with theprovision that it could becompleted within five yearsof initial employment. Thenumber of college creditsrequired in academic subjectswas increased and the numberin professional courses wasreduced. Moreover, because

eligibility for teaching assignments wasdefined by the legislation rather than beingleft to the discretion of administrators, localadministrative authority was even morerestricted than it had been in the 1953structure. It seems evident that the Californialegislature was, at this time, far moreresponsive to the critics of the educationestablishment than to the aspirations forgreater autonomy and control by theprofession itself.

It remained for the State Board ofEducation to work out the detailed rules andregulations for the state’s administrative code.This would have the effect of rewriting thecurricula of the state’s teacher preparationprograms. This process took two years andinvolved eight different committees. Whenthe Final Report of the coordinatingcommittee was submitted in the summer of1962, it was immediately reworked by yetanother committee of the State Department ofEducation to make the requirements even

Eligibility for teachingassignments was

defined by legislationrather than being left to

the discretion ofadministrators.


more specific so as to facilitate their handlingby clerical staff. After a two-day hearing, theState Board appointed yet one morecommittee from its own members to restudyand rework the requirements. The result wasa slight reduction in professional educationrequirements and thedropping of some highlyspecialized requirements inthe designated servicecredentials. The Final Reportof the State Board, followinga hearing, was adopted inMay, 1963.

The teacher traininginstitutions lost another battleduring this same period.California was then developing the nation’slargest system of junior colleges and it hadincluded junior college teachers in its teachercertification system. This part of the postsecondary system was still contested terrain,especially between the well organized K-12classroom teachers and the academicdepartment faculty of the state’s universitiesand colleges. Under the auspices of severalacademic organizations, a bill was introducedin 1961 to eliminate the professionaleducation component of the state’scertification of junior college teachers and tomake holding a masters or doctors degreesufficient for certification. In the struggleover the bill, it was modified so that juniorcollege faculty could begin their teachingcareers without the professional component,though they were required to complete itwithin a three-year period.

Setbacks for educationists

Armstrong and Stinnett’s 1964 summaryof the California certification revisionhighlighted the ways in which the outcomesran counter to TEPS policy. They includedthe shift from "blanket" to "endorsed"certificates, the granting of all regularcertificates for life (undercutting the NEA’s

efforts to control in-service education), therequirement of an academic major and minoron the part of elementary teachers and thedefinition of "academic" as the traditionalliberal arts subjects (thus eliminating theeducation major), the reduction in hours of

professional educationrequired, the limiting ofsecondary teaching to themajor and minor areas andincreasing the hours requiredfor each of these, and thereduction of the professionaleducation and student-teaching requirements forjunior college teachers. Onthe plus side for the

educationists, education requirements wereextended for such professional positions ascounselor, principal, and superintendent,though this gain was tempered by thereduction of required professional educationrequirements for each of these, the requiringof an academic major, and the permitting ofyears of experience to substitute for one yearof formal education.71

A scorecard would show that, for theprofession, the gains were slim and the lossesgreat. Though the profession seemed in fairlyfirm control at the beginning of the process,by the late 1950s an aroused public, a betterorganized academic faculty, and politicalparties able to see the possibility of politicalgains in the teacher certification issues all ledto a substantial defeat for the concept ofprofessional control that TEPS and the stateaffiliates were then promoting.

The professional standards movementdrowns in a sea of militancy

During the 1960s, whatever enthusiasmAmerica’s classroom teachers may have hadfor TEPS and its activities waned.72 Theprofessional standards movement became acasualty of the rising teacher militancy andaggressiveness that transformed the NEA by

By the late 1950s, theconcept of professionalcontrol that TEPS andthe state affiliates were

promoting had beendefeated.

32 David L. Angus

decade’s end. The election of a collectivebargaining agent for New York City teachersin 1962, won handily by the UnitedFederation of Teachers, and the subsequentstrike sent a wake-up call to the NEA and itsstate affiliates that, without fundamentalreform in both substantive policy and style,the larger organization could be swept asideby the American Federation of Teachers(AFT) and its allies in the labor unions. TheAFL-CIO, losing membership in the late1950s and facing a declining blue collar workforce, vigorously turned to organizing whitecollar workers and, in particular, publicemployees. Teachers were a natural target.

For the previous fifteen years, teachers,through TEPS, had stressed professionalismas the basis for greater autonomy,independence and the right tocontrol entry, drawinganalogies to medicine andlaw. Though they tried tomaintain this vocabulary, infact, their aspirations forhigher wages and betterworking conditions couldbest be pursued through thedevice of public employeebargaining laws and theassociated concepts of careerentry and job protectionthrough civil service laws. Even thisvocabulary shift was not enough to match themilitancy of labor union rhetoric, and somedemographic changes in the makeup of theteaching corps—more males, a youngeraverage age—lent strength to the willingnessof many teachers to accept the union model.73

While the NEA won its share ofbargaining agent elections after 1962,capturing more than half of school districts, itlost the larger cities to the AFT, whosemembership was growing at a considerablyfaster rate than the NEA. To remaincompetitive, the NEA adopted a series ofpolicy changes, including severing its last tiesto school administrators, since the laws held

that administrators could not participate in theelection of a collective bargaining agent forteachers. Throughout the decade, theconservative elements of the NEA, trying topreserve the professional aspirations ofteaching and to protect it from union "raids,"were able to maintain at least a linguisticdistinction. While the AFT used the termscollective bargaining and strikes, the NEAspoke of professional negotiations andprofessional sanctions.74 By the 1970s,however, even this distinction was abandonedand virtually the only element of differencebetween the "union approach" and the"professional approach" was the NEA’scommitment to remain independent fromaffiliation with organized labor.75

The significance of all this for teachercertification and education isnot hard to discern. Theadministrative mechanismsthat had been won by TEPSin the 1950s—advisorycouncils on which classroomteachers had a presence,TEPS representation onNCATE—remained in place,yet the increasingly militanttone of the teachers made itdifficult for other elements ofthe profession, such as

education school faculty and state departmentstaffers, to maintain a united front with them.This is not to say that unionized classroomteachers lost all interest in questions ofteacher education and certification or controlof entry. Rather, they expected to attain theirobjectives through the new and morepowerful tool of collective bargaining.Symbolizing this shift, the last national TEPSconference (1969) took as its theme,"negotiating for professionalization." Localbargaining teams attempted, sometimessuccessfully, to include in contracts minimalhiring standards, conditions under whichteachers could accept student teachers,control over in-service training budgets,

The NEA’s adoption ofcollective bargaining

and strikes as the toolsto buttress the

professional status ofteachers probably had

the opposite effect.


criteria for layoffs that included both seniorityand credentials, the conditions for teacherassignment, and other ideas that resulted infurther alienation from education schoolfaculties and local and state administrators.

Unified profession collapses

The NEA’s adoption of collectivebargaining and strikes as the tools to buttressthe professional status of teachers probablyhad the opposite effect. It ended the "politicsof consensus" (within the profession) that hadbeen the professional standards movement’smodus operandi for more than a decade. Itsharpened fundamental differences ininterests among the various elements of theprofession, notably education professors,liberal arts professors, and practicing K-12teachers, and encouraged each to seek its owninterests independent of the others. Finally, itbrought to the surface antagonisms betweenclassroom teachers and administrators, asunionized teachers grew hostile to such ideasas differentiated staffing, administratorcontrol of assignment, and professionalstandards boards, that had once been deemedstaples of a true profession, largely becauseteachers no longer trusted administrators tojudge them fairly and wanted no part ofjudging their fellow union members. By the1970s, the notion of a unified profession,which had energized NEA’s initiatives inteacher education and certification, and theconcept of an education establishment, whichhad animated the critics, were both dead,made irrelevant by the shift of classroomteachers from a professional model to a unionmodel.

This inattention to teacher preparationcarried over into the initial calls foreducational reform in the 1980s. Inspired inpart by the dire warnings and powerfullanguage of A Nation at Risk, in the early partof that decade the nation entered what hasbecome one of the longest running periods ofeducational ferment in American history. In

the flurry of activity that followed thepublication of A Nation at Risk, majorfoundations, schools and colleges ofeducation, state legislatures, and teachersunions recognized that any major efforts toimprove the quality of American educationneeded a strong teacher preparationcomponent.76 The efforts by these groupswould unleash new battles over the best wayto ensure that the nation had an adequatesupply of well educated teachers.

Summary

At mid-century, members of theeducational trust, secure in their positions inmajor research universities, teachers colleges,state education departments, and big citysuperintendencies were still powerful figuresin shaping virtually all policy decisionsincluding those involving the preparation ofteachers. Yet within two decades their powerwould be severely weakened, due to attacksagainst their influence over such issues, theideas that animated its members' policydecisions, and the lack of attention the trustpaid to practicing teachers. Notable amongthese attacks was the reassertion of a claim onteacher preparation by academics in theliberal arts. Decrying the anti-intellectualismthat seemed to lie at the heart of many ideasput forth by the trust, these critics attractedenormous attention and widespread support.A second wave of criticism came from withinthe NEA, as classroom teachers demanded alarger role in decisions involvingprofessionalism and preparation. Finally,political leaders resisted the demands ofprofessional educators for greater control overteacher preparation and certification.

Although none of the attacks in the 1950sand early 1960s ended the influence of theeducational establishment, they set the stagefor the new politics of education that hasemerged since 1975. By the mid-1970s, theclaims of scientific authority that hadbolstered the power of the trust had lost their

34 David L. Angus

magic and were no longer able to assureAmericans that all was well with theirschools. It was no longer credible for theeducational establishment to claim that itsideas were clearly aligned with the publicinterest or that its views represented allmembers of the profession. Adding to theeducational trust’s loss of authority was the

rise to power of the AFT and NEA, with bothgroups demanding and winning seats at anydiscussion affecting the lives of teachers.These changes ushered in new powerrelationships that altered the nature ofsubsequent debates about teacher preparationand certification.

Epilogue

In the last decade of the twentieth century,discussions about reforming the preparationof teachers were shaped both by changingpower relationships and by two importantreports that appeared in 1986. These reportsrepresented attempts by the profession toreform itself in ways that were responsive topublic concerns about education. Prepared bythe Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as aProfession and the Holmes Group (which wascomposed of education deans of leadingresearch universities), these reports called foreliminating undergraduate teacher education,requiring subject matter majors for all teachercandidates, and using masters degrees as "thenew entry level credential" for the profession.These groups based their appeal on the beliefthat there was a well-established knowledgebase for teaching and that the researchuniversities, in which much of thatknowledge was created, should take the leadin revitalizing teacher education. TheCarnegie and Holmes groups also urgedrestructuring the profession by adding careerladders and new, higher levels of certification.Many of the ideas and analogies animatingthese reports were drawn from the medicalmodel.77

In some ways, these reports reflected thecontinuing effort of education professionals togain greater influence over the licensing ofteachers. But this campaign for greaterinfluence is now occurring in a very different

social and political context. Three factorsthat began in the 1970s have intensified overthe last two decades and will have a powerfuleffect on how this campaign turns out. First,unlike the Progressive Era, when universitybased educationists dominated virtually alldiscussion of these issues, members of theeducation profession today are deeplydivided. Currently, professors of education,professors of liberal arts, and practicing K-12teachers (particularly unionized teachers)strenuously compete for power and influence.With these diverse groups all proclaimingdifferent visions of how new teachers shouldbe prepared, little consensus exists on the bestway to improve teacher education. Second,the public and many political leaders havegrown skeptical about the ability andcommitment of education professionals,particularly those in colleges and universities,to deliver on their claims that, if left alone,they will produce large numbers of well-prepared teachers. Third, the professionalmodel has itself become suspect. The veryprofessions that educators seek to emulate,notably lawyers and physicians, have becometargets for criticism based on fears that theirinterests conflict with those of the public. Askeptical public is less willing to giveprofessional educators the benefit of thedoubt about the effectiveness of currentprograms of teacher education. Simplyasserting that greater expertise and


professionalism will lead to improvededucation will not work this time around.Education professionals seeking to reformteacher preparation will need to approach thisprocess by recognizing the need to workclosely with other important groups (e.g.,parents, political, and community leaders)who do not necessarily share their vision ofwhat constitutes crucial changes.

The return of the examination

Nowhere is this need clearer than in therevival of another trend discussed in thisstudy, the efforts by state legislatures andschool districts to use tests to determinewhether teachers have mastered basicknowledge before they enter the classroom.Such testing has increased substantially in thepast decade. In 1987-88, approximately 35percent of public school districts required thatapplicants for teaching positions pass a statetest of basic skills. By 1993-94, thatpercentage had climbed to just under one-halfof all districts. In those sameyears, the percentage ofdistricts requiring applicantsto pass state tests of subjectmatter knowledge also rosefrom under a quarter toalmost 40 percent.78 As in thepast, educators, now led bythe NEA, have stronglyopposed such testing.79 Yetmany states have fought offlegal challenges to these examinations andcontinue to test aspiring teachers. Indeed,some states have moved beyond this policy torate teacher training institutions by theirgraduates’ pass rates.

This conflict between advocates forgreater professional control over entry to thefield and supporters of public and legislativeefforts to assess teacher quality underscoresthe point that, despite changing social andpolitical contexts, the themes discussed in thisstudy continue to structure debates about

teacher preparation. At the heart of theconflict (which for much of American historywas played out in the struggle betweenprofessional educators and the defenders ofrural schools) is a deep difference in values.Proponents of professionalism see aspects ofteaching in terms of universal values andideas while supporters of greater publiccontrol seek to protect the distinctiveness oftheir local communities. As we move into aperiod that will be marked by a projectedshortage of 2.2 million teachers, these themesof professionalism and accountability to thepublic will loom ever larger.

As the country looks for ways to addressits teacher shortage, answers will be soughtwith greater urgency to the four questions thatguided this study: 1) who should control thelicensing of teachers? 2) what should be thebasis for granting people a license to teach?3) what should be the elements of a course oftraining for teachers and how much of eachelement should be required? and 4) howdetailed, specific, and restrictive should a

licensing system be?As we have seen, the

positions articulated by majorplayers in this arena havechanged only slightly in thelast century. The HolmesGroup and the Carnegie TaskForce continue to push ideaslong associated with theleading colleges of education,especially as they call for a

stronger research base to guide teachereducation programs. Advocates of alternativepaths to certification that seek to bypass suchprograms often find support amongacademics in liberal arts departments who seemastery of subject matter as the one true basisfor an education credential. Political leadersresponding to public pressure continue toseek ways of assuring accountability fromeducators regardless of where their officesmight be on a university campus. Classroomteachers continue to seek ways to ensure that

Simply asserting thatgreater expertise andprofessionalism will

lead to improvededucation will not work

this time around.

36 David L. Angus

their practical wisdom gleaned from day-to-day experience gets equal weight indiscussions of how future teachers should beeducated.

These positions persist with suchresilience in large part because they rest onlegitimate ideas, values, and knowledge.Unfortunately, as this study has demonstrated,these positions are often at cross-purposes.The history of teacher preparation in America

has been shaped largely by a temporarytriumph of one position over others. For thetwenty-first century, it would seem incumbenton supporters of these old and familiarpositions to seek new, imaginative ways todefine the problem of preparing teachers forour schools and to create innovative programsfor supplying teachers who can ensure highquality education for all American children.


1 U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics, Digest of educationstatistics, 1998(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1999), p. 79.

2 These ideas find their later counterparts in such common certification requirements ascitizenship, the taking of a loyalty oath, and proof of good health. As late as 1938, two-thirds ofthe states had a requirement that candidates be of good moral character. Benjamin W. Frazier,Development of state programs for the certification of teachers, U.S. Office of Education,Bulletin, 1938, no. 12 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1938), pp. 68-69. Today,we are likely to limit our concerns to criminal background checks or whether a candidate has arecord of child or sexual abuse.

3 Village and town schools were an intermediate form exhibiting some features of each.4 Wayne E. Fuller, The old country school (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).5 Figures on the numbers of certificates issued under these two systems, where they existed side

by side, show far more taking the county exams than the state exams. Perhaps the county examswere considerably easier. Perhaps few people wished to teach outside the range of their ownresident county.

6 David Labaree, How to succeed in school without really learning(New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1998).

7 Katherine M. Cook, State laws and regulations governing teachers’ certificates, U.S. Bureau ofEducation, Bulletin, 1921, no. 22 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1921), p. 12.

8 Charles Athiel Harper, A century of public teacher education: The story of the state teacherscolleges as they evolved from the normal schools(Washington, DC: American Association ofTeachers Colleges, 1939), pp. 106-109.

9 The most effective organizations representing the embryonic education profession in thenineteenth century were the state educational associations in which classroom teachers made upthe bulk of the membership and men connected with colleges, universities, and normal schools oradministrators from large urban districts, took the leadership positions.

10 Fuller, The old country school.11 Fuller, The old country school, p. 172.12 Cook, State laws and regulations governing teachers’ certificates, (1921), p. 11.13 Robert H. Wiebe, The search for order(New York: Hill and Wang, 1967).14 David B. Tyack, Thomas James, and Aaron Benavot, Law and the shaping of public education,

1785-1954(Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1987).15 Carl F. Kaestle, editor, Joseph Lancaster and the monitorial school movement: A documentary

history (New York: Teachers College Press, 1973).16 Ellwood P. Cubberley, Public education in the United States: A study and interpretation of American

educational history(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1934), pp. 388-9.17 Ellwood P. Cubberley, Public school administration (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1929), pp.

454-55.

Notes

38 David L. Angus

18 Cook, State laws and regulations governing teachers’ certificates, pp. 6-13.19 Geraldine J. Clifford and James W. Guthrie, Ed school: A brief for professional education

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). 20 David B. Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot, Managers of virtue: Public school leadership in America,

1820-1980(New York: Basic Books, 1982), p. 106.21 It is important to note that this model differed from the essentially independent, fee-taking

system of organization developing in the other major professions. Perhaps there was no choicein the matter, but this difference set teaching down a path of development that guaranteed itwould diverge from other professions in important respects and would have to resort toanalogies to convince the public otherwise.

22 Walter D. Burnham, "The changing shape of the American political universe," American PoliticalScience Review59 (1965), pp. 23, 25. Wiebe, The search for order.

23 Tyack, James, and Benavot, Law and the shaping of public education, 1785-1954, p. 112.24 See, for example, Jeffrey Mirel, The rise and fall of an urban school system:Detroit, 1907-81

(Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1993). 25 Tyack, James, and Benavot, Law and the shaping of public education, 1785-1954, p. 121-122. 26 United States Commissioner of Education, "Legal provisions of various states relating to

teachers’ examinations and certificates," Report for the Year, 1897-98(Washington, DC:Government Printing Office, 1899). William R. Jackson, "The present status of the certificationof teachers in the United States," Report of the U.S. Commissioner of Education for the Year 1903(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1905). Harlan Updegraff, Teachers’ certificatesissued under general state laws and regulations, U.S. Bureau of Education,Bulletin, 1911, No.18 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911). Cook, State laws and regulationsgoverning teachers’ certificates (1921). Katherine M. Cook, State laws and regulationsgoverning teachers’ certificates, U.S. Bureau of Education,Bulletin, 1928, no. 6 (Washington,DC: Government Printing Office, 1928). Benjamin W. Frazier, Development of state programsfor the certification of teachers, U.S. Office of Education,Bulletin, 1938, no. 12 (Washington,DC: Government Printing Office, 1938). Benjamin W. Frazier, Summary of teacher certificationrequirements, U.S. Office of Education,Circular No. 223 (Washington, DC: Government PrintingOffice, May 1946).

27 Frazier’s report of 1938 is particularly valuable in this regard, because in his discussion of themain trends, he presents the views of several "juries" made up of such professional educators asfaculty or deans of education schools, big city superintendents, state department staffers, andstate superintendents. There are few serious disagreements among these juries on whatconstitutes a good state certification system.

28 Cook, Professional preparation of teachers for rural schools, U.S. Bureau of Education,Bulletin, 1928, no. 6 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1928), pp. 1-2.

29 Labaree, How to succeed in school without really learning, p. 144.30 Harper, A century of public teacher education, pp. 138-9.31 Frazier, Development of state programs for the certification of teachers.32 Frazier, Development of state programs for the certification of teachers, pp. 20, 62-63.


33 See, for example, Benjamin J. Burris, "The problem of certification in relation to teachertraining," American Association of Teacher Colleges, Yearbook 1926(1927), pp. 100-107. Seealso Calvin O. Davis, "The training and experience of the teachers in the high schools accreditedby the North Central Association," The School Review,v. 30 (May 1922), pp. 335-54. ElbridgeC. Grover, "The status of education as an academic subject in American colleges," EducationalResearch Bulletin(Ohio State University, January 1928), 7:12-15. R.W. Sites, "Recognition ofcollege training in education in the state certification of teachers in the United States,"Pennsylvania School Journal(January 1, 1914), pp. 228-38.

34 Frazier, Development of state programs for the certification of teachers, pp. 62-65.35 Frazier, Development of state programs for the certification of teachers, p. 62.36 For a very long period of time, Massachusetts was an outlier on its system of teacher

certification, holding on to the issuance of certificates by local authorities until the late 1950s.Though these local school committees were authorized to grant certificates on the basis ofexaminations, very few were issued on this basis. The common practice throughout thecommonwealth was to issue only on the basis of graduation from one of the state normal schools.

37 Katherine M. Cook, "Certification by examination—the open door to the teaching profession,"American School Board Journal(July 1920) 61: 29-30, 119. Robert C. Woellner and M. AurillaWood, Requirements for teaching certificates(Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1935).

38 The 1930-31 National Survey of the Education of Teachers reported that, among high schoolteachers about a third taught in only one field, a little more than half taught in two fields, andthe remainder taught in three or more fields. When the figures are limited to subjects, ratherthan fields, the number of teachers teaching more than one subject was considerably higher. Therelation of training to teaching assignment was actually a little better for junior high schoolteachers, since junior highs were more to be found in the cities and hence were larger schools onaverage.

39 Frazier, Development of state programs for the certification of teachers, p. 49.40 Benjamin W. Frazier, Relief of teacher shortages by state departments of education, U.S. Office

of Education,Circular No. 221 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1943).41 Benjamin W. Frazier, Summary of teacher certification requirements, U.S. Office of Education,

Circular No. 223 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, May 1946).42 Earl W. Armstrong and T.M. Stinnett, A manual on certification requirements for school

personnel in the United States(Washington, DC: The National Education Association, 1953).43 Some of the more prestigious education schools had dropped their teacher training programs and

become strictly graduate schools of education (Clifford and Guthrie, Ed school: A brief forprofessional education).

44 Earl W. Armstrong and T.M. Stinnett, A manual on certification requirements for schoolpersonnel in the United States(Washington, DC: The National Education Association, 1961).

45 National Commission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards (TEPS), 1946-1961,Journey to now: The first fifteen years of the professional standards movement in teaching asreflected in keynote addresses(Washington, DC: The National Education Association, 1961), p.29.

40 David L. Angus

46 National Commission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards, 1946-1961, Journey tonow, pp. 34-35.

47 National Commission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards, 1946-1961, Journey tonow, p. 35.

48 The organizations were the National Association of Colleges and Departments of Education, theNational Association of Teacher Education Institutions in Metropolitan Districts, and theAmerican Association of Teachers Colleges, a department of the NEA. National Commission onTeacher Education and Professional Standards, The education of teachers: Certification(Washington, DC: The National Education Association, 1961), pp. 166-167.

49 Timothy M. Stinnett and Geraldine E. Peshing, A manual of certification requirements for schoolpersonnel in the United States(Washington, DC: National Education Association, 1970), p. 4.

50 TEPS, The education of teachers: Certification.51 For a fuller account of these debates in the 1950s, see Diane Ravitch, The Troubled Crusade

(New York: Basic Books, 1983). 52 Mortimer Smith, And madly teach(New York: Henry Regnery, 1949), pp. 11-12. 53 National Commission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards, The education of

teachers: New perspectives(Washington, DC: The National Education Association, 1958).National Commission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards, The education ofteachers: Curriculum programs(Washington, DC: The National Education Association, 1959).These three conferences were backed by a greatly expanded list of cosponsors, nine nationalassociations representing membership from the subject fields and education and 60 nationalorganizations representing single subject fields. It was sufficiently important that the AssociatedPress education writer, G.K. Hodenfield attended all the sessions at the three conferences andlater wrote a book about them (See G.K. Hodenfield, The education of teacher:Conflict andconsensus(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1961).

54 Hodenfield, The education of teacher:Conflict and consensus, p. ix. 55 Hodenfield, The education of teacher:Conflict and consensus, p. 5.56 For a fuller discussion of this debate, see David L. Angus and Jeffrey E. Mirel, The failed

promise of the American high school, 1890-1995(New York: Teachers College Press, 1999).57 James Bryant Conant, The education of American teachers(New York: McGraw Hill, 1963), p. 60.58 See, for example, Robert M. Weiss, The Conant controversy in teacher education(New York:

Random House, 1969). 59 National Commission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards, Remaking the world of a

career teacher(Washington, DC: The National Education Association, 1966). NationalCommission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards, The teacher and his staff:Differentiating teaching roles(Washington, DC: The National Education Association, 1968).

60 National Commission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards, Teacher education: Thedecade ahead(Washington, DC: The National Education Association, 1955). NationalCommission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards, The education of teachers: Newperspectives. National Commission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards, Theeducation of teachers: Curriculum programs. National Commission on Teacher Education andProfessional Standards, Changes in teacher education: An appraisal(Washington, DC: TheNational Education Association, 1963).


61 Margaret Lindsey, ed., New horizons for the teaching profession(Washington, DC: NationalEducation Association, 1961).

62 Lindsey, New horizons for the teaching profession,pp. vii, ix.63 Early in the report, the New Horizons Task Force defined the teaching profession as consisting

of five component groups as follows: 1,400,000 teachers in public elementary and secondaryschools; 220,000 teachers in private elementary and secondary schools; 130,000 schooladministrators, supervisors, consultants, researchers, and other specialists in elementary andsecondary schools; 350,000 professional personnel in higher education institutions; and 25,000professional staff members in professional organizations, in government offices of education,and in private agencies with educational programs (Lindsey, New horizons for the teachingprofession, p. 5). The report was mindful that this was to be seen as a new concept of theprofession, and there was an implication that within the profession thus defined, power shouldbe distributed roughly in proportion to these numbers. Note that faculties of education, the coreof the profession as it functioned in the 1900 to 1945 period, were not even separately identified.

64 Lindsey, New horizons for the teaching profession,p. 213.65 This account is based largely on Lucien B. Kinney, Certification in Education(Englewood

Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964). Kinney strongly favored professional autonomy and control ofentry, was himself involved in the process described (though it is not clear in what capacity),and counted the outcome of certification revision in California as a defeat for those who sharedhis views. I have also utilized brief discussions of the California reform by W. Earl Armstrongand T.M. Stinnett, as well as James B. Conant. See Armstrong and Stinnett,A manual oncertification requirements for school personnel in the United States, 1961; Armstrong andStinnett,A manual on certification requirements for school personnel in the United States, 1964;Conant, The education of American teachers.

66 By 1961, only eight states had not done a thorough review of certification requirements.Armstrong and Stinnett, A manual on certification requirements for school personnel in theUnited States, 1961, pp. 3, 4.

67 The "approved program approach," as Conant rightly observed, was a highly ambiguous conceptsince states which utilized it differed greatly in the nature and extent of detail in the stateeducation department rules on which approval was based. California’s program approval wasbased on a fairly rigorous set of criteria in which the number of credit hours in each of severalareas of study (though not course titles) was specified. TEPS and its state affiliates favored theapproved program approach but sought to greatly reduce the specificity of the approval criteria,seeking to place more control over teacher education programs in the hands of at least somesegment of the education profession.

68 Kinney, Certification in education, p. 103.69 The CEA bill tried to get legal sanction for an advisory committee along the lines of the

California Council on Teacher Education. From the perspective of the profession, this was apart of the process of establishing professional control of entry similar to that in medicine andlaw. To those outside the profession, it appeared as nothing more than an unwarranted powergrab. See Conant, The education of American teachers, p. 17. The bill actually passed in thelegislature but was vetoed by the governor.

70 Kinney, Certification in education, p. 104.

71 Conant, The education of American teachers, pp. 24, 25.72 Many observers of this movement saw the vast majority of classroom teachers as apathetic and

uninformed about such matters as teacher education and certification. The many classroomteachers who attended TEPS conferences were active leaders in state affiliates of the NEA orother state teachers’ organizations.

73 Timothy M. Stinnett, Turmoil in teaching: a history of the organizational struggle for America’steachers(New York: Macmillan, 1968). Kinney, Certification in Education.

74 This is not to suggest that there were no real operational differences between these conceptsduring the decade (Stinnett, Turmoil in teaching).

75 Stinnett, Turmoil in teaching.76 Despite this flurry of reform activity and concerns about teacher education at this time, it is interesting

to note that the national goals adopted by President Bush and the nation's governors in 1989 did notaddress the issue of teacher preparation.

77 Labaree, How to succeed in school without really learning, pp. 129-30, 159.78 United States Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics, The

Condition of Education, 1999(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1999), p. 72. Seealso U.S. Department of Education, What’s happening in teacher testing? An analysis of stateteacher testing practices(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1987).

79 Mary H. Futrell and Sharon P. Robinson, "Testing teachers: An overview of NEA’s position,policy and involvement," Journal of Negro Education(1986) v. 55, pp. 397-404.

42 David L. Angus

professionalism and the public good - amazon web...

Documents