Rationale: Back-up degree
The undergraduate collegiate experience has traditionally been designed to educate students broadly and then to hone their knowledge in one area through increasingly rigorous advanced (often called "upper division") coursework in a major. While there is no research evidence that such expertise in a single academic field makes a teacher more effective, it has been posited that a strong grounding in the "disciplinary ways of knowing" will make for greater teacher effectiveness,1 and also that a major in an elementary content area can't hurt when teaching that content.
Yet there is another, more practical rationale for this standard. Unless a teacher candidate has a major or has fulfilled a very substantial part of the requirements for a major, the ramifications of failing student teaching are great: the loss or serious delay of a college degree. While a few Illinois programs indicated that candidates are failed for poor performance, there is a strong disincentive for the education program to fail candidates even in the face of poor performance.2 Moreover, if elementary teacher candidates take it upon themselves to earn a full major, they will have a more transferable credential than an education major, which will help ease voluntary and involuntary exit from the teaching profession after hiring.
The recommendation of a concentration—essentially 18 credit hours of coursework in one subject—is conservative. Ten states require that all elementary teacher candidates also earn an academic major.3
The amount of coursework necessary to be prepared for the elementary classroom may make it difficult for the prospective teacher to take a full major outside of the education department. Until more candidates for elementary teaching are more content-proficient and able to satisfy content requirements by placing out through examination, the next best thing to a major is an area of concentration. In fact, many teacher preparation programs nationwide require that elementary teacher candidates have this type of area of concentration.
Because of the dual rationale for this standard, it is listed here, among other "practice teaching" standards, but for purposes of calculating program grades, it is grouped with other standards involving the preparation of elementary teachers.
2For example, North Central College indicated that it has dismissed three elementary candidates over the past two years. Several programs also indicated that teacher candidates who chose to leave the preparation program or are counseled out in their senior year can nonetheless graduate on time, even without a strong concentration, because they are offered a general education major without a recommendation for certification.
On the other hand, when a California education school attempted to flunk a teacher candidate from student teaching in the mid-1990s, the case was litigated for three years, and the education school's attorney indicated that in the entire history of teacher preparation in California to date there was no record of a credential candidate actually failing student teaching. In all other cases, candidates were "counseled" out of the program and free to apply to another program. The education school prevailed in the litigation with evidence from nursing programs that do fail nurse candidate in their clinicals.
3The states that require that elementary teacher candidates have an academic major are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Tennessee and Vermont.
