Education 2.0 & 3.0

Interview with Dr. Stephen Fink is the executive director of the University of Washington Center for Educational Leadership (CEL), and affiliate associate professor of educational leadership and policy studies in the University of Washington College of Education.

"I think state licensure has been a poor proxy for performance – both at the teacher and administrative level. My approach may be seen as somewhat radical but I would propose doing away with state licensure altogether except maybe for criminal background checks just to ensure due diligence. Rather than exercising licensing control, I suggest that States invest in robust data dashboards that over time measure teacher and administrator performance on a range of agreed-upon metrics with links to their preparation program of choice.

Frankly it doesn’t matter to me who prepares teachers and administrators as long as they can ensure those educators leave the program with specific competencies that matter most for improving student learning and that can be measured. While the transition to this kind of system would be muddy for a period of time, eventually the availability of transparent performance data would allow market forces to reward high-performing preparation programs while weeding out the poor performers. In essence our school districts will need to become much smarter consumers. This seems like a much better role for states to assume than the traditional role of licensure."