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Ironically, the slide occurred at a time when teachers were getting far more training than ever before. In the early 1900s, few elementary school teachers went to college; most were trained at two-year normal schools. Now a bachelor's degree from college is a general requirement for teaching. Today's teaching incompetence reflects the lax standards in many of the education programs at the 1,150 colleges around the country that train teachers. It also reflects on colleges generally, since teachers take more than half their courses in traditional departments like English, history and mathematics.
Research by W. Timothy Weaver, an associate professor of education at Boston University, seems to confirm a long-standing charge that one of the easiest U.S. college majors is education. Weaver found the high school seniors who planned to major in education well below the average for all college-bound seniors—34 points below average in verbal scores on the 1976 Scholastic Aptitude Test, 43 points below average in math. Teaching majors score lower in English than majors in almost every other field.
Evidence that many graduates of teacher-training programs cannot read, write or do sums adequately has led educators like Robert L. Egbert, president of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, to urge higher standards on his colleagues. The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education has become warier about issuing its seal of approval, which is largely honorific, since state boards of education issue their own, often easygoing approval for teacher-training programs. Nevertheless, with an awakened interest in "consumer protection" for parents and pupils, the council denied accreditation to teacher-training programs at 31% of colleges reviewed in 1979, compared with 10% in 1973. Says Salem, Ore., School Superintendent William Kendrick: "For too long, we've believed that if you hold a teaching certificate you can do the job."
Many teachers favor rigorous teaching standards, including the use of compulsory minimum-competency tests—at least for candidates starting out in their careers. They are dismayed by the public's disapproval. Says Linda Kovaric, 32, a teacher at Olympic Continuation High School in Santa Monica, Calif.: "The administration tells you you're doing a crummy job, parents tell you you're doing a crummy job, kids even tell you you're doing a crummy job. A lot of teachers these days feel and look like soldiers who returned from Viet Nam. You see the same glazed look in their eyes."