The issues reported in the Denver Post this weekend related to drug licenses at the University of Colorado’s Dental School as well as Mark Sass’ recent blog, remind me of how little we compare teaching to other professions or occupations. I have studied state-level regulation of several industries, and occupational regulation is one of the most fascinating areas. (See this link for my favorite review of my regulation book).
Occupational regulation is often cited as an extreme example of the “Chicago School” idea that public policy benefits mainly private actors. Professions often either “capture” the state legislative process, getting essentially self-regulation or easy regulation that makes it hard for competitors to enter their domain, or they tend to dominate the regulatory boards or agencies that are supposed to oversee their ongoing occupational practice. (The political logic here is simple – the large numbers of consumers each have very low stakes in how hair stylists, for example, are regulated, while those hair sylists care a great deal and thus organize to influence the political or regulatory process). Some 800 occupations are regulated by at least one of the United States today.
(On a local note, Colorado’s Department of Regulatory Affairs, until recently headed by Rico Munn, has a long history of being one of the better state agencies in the country for regulating professions).
One result of occupational regulation is that very few professionals lose their licenses, or face other disciplinary actions, via oversight boards, often because these boards are dominated by members of that same profession. For example, less than 1% of MDs and other health care professionals typically face disciplinary actions, compared to much higher rates of malpractice allegations (these lawsuit allegations could be over-inflated, of course, but it is hard to believe that only 1% of professionals are creating problems). Either these professionals see it in their self interest to protect each other or they are truly serving the public interest quite well.
So, how does this relate to K12 teachers? First, some differences. In most of these other professions the entry barriers to joining the field are really high to get into the professional schools and into the profession itself (students need extremely high GPAs and test scores to get into medical or dental school – the UC Denver dental school accepts only 52 students from over 1,500 applications). As a result, these students receive a lot of very expensive professional training (and sometimes they go hugely into debt to pay for it) and they later earn quite high salaries, partly to compensate. Teaching, in part because so many teachers are needed, does not require anything like these hurdles to enter.
But, there are similarities. As highly trained as some of these professional are, over time their skills and motivation can certainly erode. While most professions have some “continuing education” or professional development requirements, almost none require a re-licensing process that meaningfully tests their skills or achievements. Hence, we get stories like the nearly blind surgeon, a few years ago, who operated on the wrong body part.
What does this comparison tell us? Other, more prestigious professions than teaching, have difficulty policing their own occupations in any meaningful way, whether they have professional unions or not. Professionals are reluctant to make or support claims against others in their field, either in solidarity, or because most people one works with over time become, if not friends, at least real people with real lives, and families, that you become somewhat familiar with. And, current public policy approaches don’t help all that much in providing ongoing feedback (yes, with the Internet it is now possible to get more consumer information about professional quality care, and make competitive decisions partly on that basis (if your insurance plan allows), but it is still far from easy).
Thus, there seems to be no weeding out of the bottom 10% or more of professionals in these occupations, just as this does not happen for tenured teachers. Any model of teaching quality and evaluation that suggests weeding out a certain percentage, especially at a later stage in a teacher’s career, seems to me likely to face enormous obstacles.
While not perfect, this thought leads me back to a model of much higher initial standards, before tenure is earned. And, yes, I am part of the tenured higher education professoriate, and there are some who believe that to be a stifling model. (I’ll happily engage in that discussion in another venue – tenure at a quality higher education institution is difficult to earn and only comes after about 5-6 years of no paid rigorous graduate school, followed by 7 years of relatively low paid assistant professor-dom – if people want to change the higher education tenure rules, they’ll need to change the entry process into the profession, as well).
But, the dozen or so years involved in the higher education tenure process, just like the lengthy professional education of many medical professionals, does allow ample opportunities for a system to screen for the appropriate ability, skills, and dispositions. The 3 years of probationary teaching experience in Colorado’s K12 system, after perhaps only a BA preparation, does not allow anything near that same level of scrutiny (especially when we know that teachers, on average, tend to reach their peak in moving student achievement only after about 5 years experience).
While there are current proposals to require later career teachers to retain their tenure, based upon their students’ achievement, this comparison suggests that implementing such proposals will be very difficult, just as in other fields. But, making the original tenure decision more challenging, and more meaningful, would begin to raise the professional standards of K12 teaching, to be more comparable.
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While Colorado’s public higher education system faces severe financial cuts, combining a previously low level of funding with further deep cuts, we are by no means the only state facing a crisis. Our neighbors in Nevada have recently been highlighted in national reports.
