I'm no longer qualified

["Nancy Patterson" <patterna@gvsu.edu>]

I contacted the Michigan Department of Education yesterday to ask a
question about teacher certification.  And I learned that under the new
NCLB teacher cert laws, I am no longer qualified to teach middle school
language arts. I have a bachelors in English, a masters in education,
and a PhD in English that focused on literacy.  I was a department
chair, a member of the school improvement team, on the language arts
curriculum team and the technology committee.  I have presented at a
zillion conferences across the country. I have 14 and a half years of
experience teaching high school english (which I AM qualified to teach)
and 14 years of experience teaching middle school language arts.

If the name of the language arts courses was changed to "english" then I
would be qualified to teach those courses. But if they are called
"language arts", I'm not qualified.  There is no secondary language arts
certification anymore. And, there is no elementary English
certification. So, if the courses were renamed "english," no one with
elementary language arts certification could teach those courses.

Nancy, the unqualified

Nancy Patterson, PhD
Literacy Studies Program Coordinator
Grand Valley State University 
Editor "Tech Connect," Voices from the Middle
Chair, Assembly on Computers in English
patterna@gvsu.edu
http://faculty.gvsu.edu/patterna