OPINION: FVCC's proposal for education degree questioned
FVCC is exploring the possibility of a joint bachelors degree in education with the College of Education at the University of Montana. I question the wisdom of this.
These comments are no reflection on the quality and importance of FVCC. It has been our great good fortune to have had the people among us who have developed this quality institution. What these comments criticize is a bachelor’s degree in education.
The BA in education is, historically, an add-on to the old 19th-century, two-year normal school requirement which was based on the assumption that elementary school teachers didn’t need much education. Textbook publishers would tell them what and how to teach. This is the 21st century.
Some states have eliminated the undergraduate degree in education. I am familiar only with the California action. The California changes included eliminating undergraduate degrees in education. The fight was bitter, but after the changes settled in, few people in the schools of education across the state wanted to go back to an undergraduate degree in education. Most feel that elementary school teachers are now better prepared than before, and the prestige of education becoming an exclusively graduate program may be part of the reason. But education people are true believers and are always working to increase their programs. (At UM a master’s degree requiring 71 units! Wow! Every academic area ought to have it so good!)
The California legislature passed the Teacher Preparation and Licensing Law of 1970. As a consequence, bachelor degrees in education no longer exist. To be eligible to apply for a elementary school teaching credential a student must either have completed a bachelor’s degree or be in the course of completing a degree “in a subject commonly taught in the public schools” (pretty much science, math, social studies, language arts). Public universities were also required to develop a degree in liberal studies which would satisfy the degree requirement. (The resulting degree has a broad base in the arts and sciences with a major emphasis and a minor emphasis.)
Students whose major or major emphasis is in math or science have little trouble finding elementary school teaching jobs. Imagine an elementary school that has one teacher with a major in math, another with a major in biology, another history, another English, all working learning, and educating together.
Under the California law the following teacher education program for a teaching credential cannot exceed 30 semester units including student teaching.
Montana law (MCA 20-4-106 (b)) specifies that the issuance of a standard certificate requires a bachelor’s degree and a “teacher education program.” It does not mandate that the bachelor’s degree be in education and it does not prevent the teacher education program from being the extension beyond a degree in liberal studies or most any field in the arts and/or math and science.
Under such a program the preparation of elementary school teachers is enhanced, and our elementary schools would be staffed with teachers who have a broad and firm grounding in the subjects commonly taught in the public schools.
As much as a joint BA in education might add the illusion of prestige to FVCC and make teaching available to more students, it is not a move in the right direction when it comes to improving the quality of instruction in elementary schools. It may be quite possible to have an agreement with the Montana Department of Education that would allow FVCC (in collaboration with University College of Education and Human Sciences) to provide a “teacher education program” to satisfy MCA 20-4-106 (b). Prerequisite: a bachelor’s degree in a subject commonly taught in the public schools. It might also be possible for such a program to mesh with Americorps. Students at FVCC might be given provisional admission to the program before they continue for a BA or BS at the university.
O’Neil is a resident of Kalispell.