Adjunct professors at colleges often provide a great service to students. Adjuncts are instructors who usually have full-time jobs but hold an array of expertise that can be passed along to students preparing to pursue career goals.
To a smaller degree, lessons from a non-licensed instructor can work in high schools for students who plan to enter the workforce rather than proceed to higher education.
The adjunct concept, however, doesn’t seem proper for school districts trying to ensure there are qualified teachers in classrooms.
A week ago, the Indiana State Board of Education — consisting mostly of governor appointments — voted 9-2 to make major changes to the rules used to issue licenses and credentials to Hoosier educators.
The changes, known as REPA II, were generally opposed by state superintendent-elect Glenda Ritz; now she must enforce them.
For example, teachers earn licenses to teach subjects known by taking content area exams. Under the new rules, teachers won’t have to “test into” such areas as special education, elementary education, early childhood education, English Language learner education, gifted education and communication disorders.
This change should be scary for parents hoping that special needs children receive the best-trained educator at critical stages in their education.
But the most contentious change involves what became known as an adjunct permit, allowing anyone with a bachelor’s degree with a 3.0 GPA to take a test and earn a credential. That is not the same as a teaching license but they could land a job teaching in Indiana. The permit holder is to be evaluated. There may be a requirement coming that these adjuncts take professional development courses.
Handling students in any classroom requires finesse, patience and the ability to relate tough subjects to youth.
The job is not the same as a plant supervisor believing he or she has the ability to train young workers. Nor is it the same as successful entrepreneurs who think they can pass along business skills inside a classroom. Knowing the content behind one’s job, even practicing it on a workday-to-workday basis, is not the same as conveying it in understandable terms to others.
For the state board of education to be rushing these changes, before Ritz takes office, reeks of political union-busting tactics. The board, knowing it must serve a current Republican governor and a future one, is trying to replace qualified teachers with subject experts.
Under the state board changes, adjuncts may likely learn more about their own limitations than teaching students to explore their own potentials. And those types of adult life lessons are not ones that should lessen the classroom experience for Hoosier youth.
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