The existing teaching industry is not effectively mediated by market forces. Guilds (in the forms of unions) and government (in the form of certification requirements) act as a barrier to entry, preventing genuine market competition from working its happy magic. Any additional allocation of resources to education simply flows to the rent-seekers who control access (in this case the teacher’s unions and their political causes) rather than to the end users. Thus the spiraling spending on education, with absolutely zero correlation to performance. Under the current regime, if you add more teachers, regardless of competence, the net amount of education will not increase. The rent-seekers have no motivation to provide good performance; good performance does not justify them in asking for more resources for their tiny empires.
This may be changing. The colleges of education have become so openly rotten that even legislatures can’t bear the stench. New teacher certification tests are getting acceptance - anyone with a degree can take the test and if they pass, be certified to teach.
This is totally healthy and will be a boon to schools. It’s a difficult slog for a smart person to sit through a graduate program in education - it’s pablum, and bogus pablum at that. If these tests catch on, we could be seeing a much higher caliber of person entering the world of public school teaching.
