Kristof on Education

Nicholas Kristof's column in Sunday's New York Times argues for public schools in the US to lower the requirements for teacher certification. In order to keep the current teacher-to-student ratios, there needs to be a 35% increase in the number of people entering teaching.

Phillips Exeter Academy, one of the best private high schools in the nation, says that 85% of its faculty have advanced degrees but only a handful have teaching certificates.

Teach For America is another example Kristof uses to indicate how alternative routes into teaching not requiring normal certification can be successful. 17,000 applicants vied for 2,000 spots this past year with 12% of Yale seniors applying and 8% in both Harvard and Princeton's seniors.

Suppose Colin Powell tires of giving $100,000-a-pop speeches and wants to teach high school social studies. Suppose Meryl Streep has a hankering to teach drama.

Alas, they would be ''unqualified'' for a public school. Elite private schools would snap them up, of course, but public schools that are begging for teachers would have to turn them away because they don't have teacher certification.

That's an absurd snarl in our education bureaucracy. Let's relax the barriers so people can enter teaching more easily, either right out of college or later as a midcareer switch.

Sure, there are lots of other problems in the U.S. education system. But this is one of the easiest to solve.