Testing the teachers?

One of the great "successes" of the Bush Administration---or at least, what they'd like you to believe---is the "No Child Left Behind" Act. Its main provisions seem to be that states must institute reforms that are tantamount to vouchers, and administer expensive tests every year---but doesn't seem to do much in the way of aiding schools in improving primary and seconday education.

Now, one of the lesser-known provisions of the law seems to be causing problems: teachers must have a college degree for each advanced subject they teach. This means that in rural areas, where a teacher asked to teach math and physics must have separate degrees in mathematics and physics.

While I'm all for competent teachers, it is reasonable to say that advanced degrees are not always prerequisites for being a teacher. For example, I don't think I'd be too concerned if my kid's third-grade teacher didn't have degrees in American history or biology. So long as that teacher had a sufficiently broad "liberal arts" education [I wonder how much conservatives bristle at that particular term, and was trained as an educator, I think I'd be willing to let things slip. Or if the choice in a rural district is between a political science major teaching American history or no one teaching American history, I'm sure I'd rather have our citizens learn about our past than have yet another generation of Americans grow up ignorant not only of the world but of our own past. . . .

That the government seems to think loopholes and exemptions are only for the well-heeled and well-connected never ceases to astonish me.