Re: I'm no longer qualified

["gerald bracey" <gbracey@erols.com>]

You'll probably be happier as a chef or tour guide anyway.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nancy Patterson" <patterna@gvsu.edu>
To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 12:55 PM
Subject: [arn-l] I'm no longer qualified


> 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