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Teacher preparation programs long ago abandoned (if they ever embraced) theory-centric instruction in favor of research-based clinical methods. Further, they have championed a middle way independent of the changeable pedagogical and curriculum priorities promoted by individual districts and funders. While popular practices are often addressed, either unilaterally or in partnership with outside entities, education schools’ academic independence protects them from being swamped by political and financial forces driving others.

Now comes a pronouncement from the New York State Board of Regents and the State Education Department commissioner that higher education will no longer be the sole route to teacher and leadership certification. The Regents, who appoint the commissioner, are themselves appointed by our state legislature, that dysfunctional body more famous for patronage than policy competence.

Not surprisingly, then, the Regents have rejected the fundamental role of independent inquiry in professional preparation in favor of faster, cheaper methods based on proprietary ownership. Whether these programs are run by non-profit, for-profit, or school district organizations, their aim will be to brand grads with a particular skill set, antithetical to preparing able, agile, open-minded professionals for long-term teaching effectiveness.

Though many claims against schools of education depend on phony stereotypes, some criticism is valid. Higher education governance makes it hard to quickly adopt new programs and courses. Its dependence on credit hours toward completion of degree requirements creates a temporal uniformity inimical to more flexible arrangements based on subject content and mastery. But higher education itself has heeded these critiques, responding with a plethora of governance, course, and degree reforms that meet market demands while preserving academic integrity and independence.

Expansion of educator preparation to other providers is simply a political response by SED to a growing constituency of educational entrepreneurs who, often lacking certification themselves, seek clones rather than independent-minded professionals to staff their similarly branded schools. There is nothing inherently wrong with training in such methods, if successful, but state-granted professional certification should guarantee greater flexibility than the ability to teach in a KIPP charter school or to navigate the city Department of Education’s ARIS database.

More important, the Regents’ policy will distract SED and the public from the Department’s core mission: to set and oversee standards for certification, curriculum, and student performance. Ever since its politicization under former Commissioner Richard Mills, when the state took credit for increasing test scores and graduation rates through dumbed-down tests and looking the other way on bogus credit recovery strategies rather than monitoring district performance and compliance, we have seen a steady decline in SED’s reputation and credibility. This recently reached a new low with the state’s first-round Race to the Top application which neither the commissioner nor Regents seemed to realize was bloated with furniture purchases and high-priced consultants. Steven Brill’s recent New York Times Magazine piece purporting to document “The Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand” was more important for revealing SED’s deliberate lies designed to secure Race to the Top money. The Regents’ charter initiatives, their commissioning of a study on testing standards, and the expansion of certification providers are less about improving education than diverting attention from its core failures.

If there is a problem with higher education certification — and there is because diploma mills abound — then SED should take steps to improve or eliminate the bad actors that it already supervises, not race to expand the pool. Long the subject of drastic budget cuts and poor spending practices, SED does not have the resources to adequately monitor the work of colleges, school districts, charter and nonpublic schools under its present control, let alone determine if a new category of providers is meeting its obligations.

In his previous campaign for governor, Andrew Cuomo favored putting SED under gubernatorial authority. While his current comprehensive platform, “The New New York Agenda,” fails to specifically address the issue, it states a strong preference for giving the Governor unilateral powers over State government consolidation and reorganization. Cuomo’s call for a new Spending and Government Efficiency Commission and a State Government Reorganization Act provide canny vehicles for further politicizing SED, cited at page 64 as a prime example of organizational chaos. But what difference would it make as long as SED continues its shameful codependent relationship with the state’s political branches, school districts, charter and private schools? In abdicating their fundamental role of independent oversight, the Regents and commissioner have sown the seeds of executive annexation since they have become handmaidens of the very constituencies they were created to constrain.

Housecleaning is in order, but not the kind the new education elite have in mind. With its workforce already substantially reduced and more cuts on the way, SED needs to use its constitutional independence to set standards and monitor district and school compliance with a reduced, essential set of regulations regarding students’ academic performance, health, and safety. SED should be the public’s educational ombudsman, keeping accurate, transparent data so that parents and taxpayers can assess schools’ academic and fiscal activity. If the State Education Department continues to indulge in political distractions from its laughable failures in this mission, it will have squandered its obligations to a public desperately in need of square dealing and educational candor.