Teacher Licensing --- Benefits Teachers, Not Our Children
If teacher licensing produced competent teachers, why would public-school authorities fight so hard against merit pay? The answer seems obvious-is it possible that the public-school system produces teachers, principals, or administrators who might not "merit" their pay, and might lose their jobs under merit-pay rules?
If licensing doesn't work, what is the alternative? The answer is, no licensing. If anyone could teach without a license, like home-schooling parents or private-school teachers, then millions of new, competent, creative teachers would flood the market. These new, unlicensed teachers would compete with one another and drive the price of education down, much as competition drives down the price of computers. They would, thankfully, also put public schools out of business, since millions of parents and free-market schools would now hire these new competent, low-cost teachers.
Without licensing laws, anyone with a special skill or knowledge could simply put an ad in the Yellow Pages or their local newspaper and advertise themselves as a tutor in English, math, biology, history, or computer skills. Retired cooks, engineers, authors, plumbers, musicians, biologists, or businessmen who love teaching could easily open a small school in their homes. If there were no license laws, these talented new teachers would not have to worry about school authorities stopping them from teaching because they didn't have a license.
How would parents be sure they were not hiring a charlatan if there were no licensing laws? The same way they judge their doctor, accountant, or car-mechanic-by results, reputation, and by being careful consumers. Naturally, parents would make occasional mistakes in judgment because they are human. However, they would quickly become careful consumers because they would now be spending their hard-earned money for teachers. It is amazing how fast we learn to judge the work of others when we have to pay for their services. Also, if a parent does make mistakes in judging an unlicensed teacher, by watching her child's progress she will soon catch her error. At that point, she can quickly fire the teacher or school and find a better one. Can a parent do that with her children's public-school teacher or school?
The worst nightmare for public-school authorities is a true free market of teachers with no licensing requirements. Fierce competition by millions of new, unlicensed, competent, highly-skilled people, might put public schools out of business and threaten teachers' tenured jobs. That is one unspoken reason why school authorities fiercely defend licensing laws-real competition terrifies them. That is also one of the best reasons to eliminate teacher licensing.
The only way to insure good teachers is to let parents decide who will teach their children, not bureaucrats. Millions of parents making individual decisions about who should teach their children, will bring forth the best teachers. Fierce competition and an education free market would raise all boats in the teaching profession. Teachers who want to succeed in their profession would have to prove to parent-customers or private-school owners that they have what it takes. They would have to prove by results that they know how to teach and motivate children to read, write, and learn.
Joel Turtel
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