Ed prof: teacher certification 'has next to no effect on teacher performance'

Robert Maranto is the 21st Century Chair in Leadership at the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. He also serves on the Fayetteville school board. He previously worked for the Brookings Institution and for the Clinton administration. 

"In contrast to other professions, studies show that certification has next to no effect on teacher performance," he wrote last month in The Wall Street Journal.

Instead it’s is a rote exercise providing the mere appearance of professionalism. There’s a reason the prep schools attended by Barack Obama (Punahou), both Presidents Bush (Phillips Academy), Chelsea Clinton ( Sidwell Friends ) and John Kerry (St. Paul’s) hire uncertified teachers. That certification is the main qualification for public-school teachers shows how differently the country’s elites treat your kids and mine.