These Reforms Can Help Curb Radical Teachers
“We, the undersigned educators, refuse to lie to young people about U.S. history and current events — regardless of the law.” In 2021, thousands of teachers vowed to continue teaching discriminatory and bigoted ideologies such as Critical Race Theory (CRT), no matter what laws got passed.
Education reformers have begun to achieve substantial victories. Seven states already have restricted teaching CRT. Texas’ reform law also includes restrictions on Action Civics, the vocational training for radical activism. Policymakers in another sixteen states already have introduced bills or administrative actions to inhibit CRT. But these laws won’t succeed so long as school administrators and teachers continue to sabotage education reform in the classroom.
One vital reform is academic transparency bills, to allow parents and policymakers to keep teachers accountable. But education reform can’t stop in the schools. Education reformers must include education schools and education licensure in their reform agenda.
Radical activists use education schools and licensure requirements as their central means to gain power over America’s classrooms.
Radical activists long ago seized control of education schools and began to insert ever more radical ideology and pedagogy into teacher training. The radicalized education schools propagandize would-be teachers and they screen out would-be teachers who refuse to assent to radical dogma.
The radical activists also use education licensure requirements to force teachers and education administrators to receive degrees from education schools.
This requirement ensures that our schools’ education administrators and teachers are committed to radical ideology. More recently, states such as Illinois and Minnesota have moved to impose explicitly politicized education licensure requirements.
Of course the body of radical teachers created by politicized education schools and licensure requirements sabotage education reform laws wherever they can. Education reform cannot succeed while radical activists educate and select our teachers.
We have a solution.
The National Association of Scholars, California Policy Center, Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, Goldwater Institute, The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, the John Locke Foundation, and the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, are jointly releasing the Model Education Licensure Code.
The Model Education Licensure Code provides three model bills state policymakers can use to reform education schools and the education licensure process—the Education Licensure Nondiscrimination Act, the Education Licensure Review Act, and the Education Licensure Certificate Act.
Policymakers can adapt these model bills for each state to fit their own education licensure system.
The three model bills work together to eliminate the radical establishment’s power to select America’s teachers.
The Education Licensure Nondiscrimination Act forbids a broad range of the different means the radical establishment uses to politicize the education of our teachers. Above all, it prevents any education licensure requirement for teachers and administrators to practice or affirm a belief in discriminatory concepts. Moreover, it bars State Boards of Education from approving an education preparation program for teachers or administrators that requires practice or affirmation of discriminatory concepts.
The Education Licensure Review Act gives state policymakers the power to veto politicized licensure requirements imposed by state education department administrators. State policymakers ought to be able to review and veto state education licensure criteria. Administrators will act more responsibly when they know that policymakers can veto their work.
The Education Licensure Certificate Act, building on work done by states such as Arizona, establishes a standard path toward licensure that bypasses requirements for an undergraduate degree and minimizes education-school requirements. The education licensure process needs to give would-be teachers a way to avoid radical activists’ propaganda classes. Simplifying education licensure also will attract more of the best and brightest Americans to pursue careers in teaching.
These three reforms together will work to make it possible for a new generation of liberty-minded teachers to enter the classroom. This new generation will support education reform policy with a good heart.
We must reform education schools and education licensure, or radical activists sworn to block education reform will stand in the schoolhouse door forever.
Peter Wood is President of the National Association of Scholars.
David Randall is Director of Research at the National Association of Scholars.
