Retired Educators Speak Out Against House Speaker’s Proposed Associate’s Degree For Teachers

Image Credit: Speaker Cameron Sexton / Facebook

Tennessee Conservative News Staff –

As Tennessee legislators work to address the teacher shortage across the state, not everyone is on board with House Speaker Cameron Sexton’s proposal to create a specialized associate’s degree program that would allow teachers to enter the classroom with just a two-year degree.

Sexton announced earlier this month that he would be proposing the new associate’s degree program for K-6 teachers.

Public school teachers are currently required to have a bachelor’s degree at a minimum and either be enrolled in or have completed a preparation program for educators. 

Some retired teachers are speaking out against the plan, saying it “shows a lack of respect for the profession.” 

Retired Knox County educator Candace Bannister also questioned the “lack of care” for students. 

“To want less for our children? How can you want less?” Bannister asked.

Sexton says the plan will help address the state’s current teacher shortage. He noted that there are currently around 2,000 vacant teacher positions.

Some argue that lowering the standards required to enter the classroom is not the way to improve education. 

“It is the most important job that we’ll ever do, and it truly is a hard, hard job, and you need all the education and information at your disposal,” said former Anderson County teacher Dewayne Emmert.

Sexton, however, argues that standards would not be lowered; instead, the degree program would become more specialized. With his plan, teachers would still have to complete an internship and pass the Praxis teacher certification exam.

Tennessee Conservative social media and website article comments on recent stories about this program are mixed:

Steve Smith: “Great decision and opportunity”

Sherri Baker: “This is not the solution! K-6 are the most informative years!”

Joe Brock: “Why would you think it takes a college level degree to implement simple class curriculum, it’s obviously designed to have a third grade educated individual teaching, because that is all it’s worth for the past couple of decades.”

Bryan Jarosemich: “Lowering standards is not innovating. If TN were truly serious about education, we would pay teachers more.”

KarenB: “Oh this is genius (please note my sarcasm)….dumb down the caliber of teachers to address a shortage problem??? Why not look at the reason we have a shortage problem?? And its not money…….People don’t want to be teachers today because we have swayed so far from actually educating our children and anyone that truly cares about kids and education know the system is messed up. We have a failing education system so what does the genius Speaker do? Put ill prepared teachers in the most crucial education years of a students education process. This is always their answer……when something doesn’t work dumb it down (2 year program) or throw good money after bad money (voucher program) and at the end of the day they do as they always do; they ignore and refuse to address the root cause of the problem because that would require too much work and frankly I don’t think we have people anymore that actually know how to educate kids. All they do is follow orders even when they know those orders are not going to produce positive results. And the end of the day all he and the Governor are doing is pushing the problem down the road to further failure.”