Americans place a great amount of trust and confidence in their public schoolteachers – and in return they want a higher bar for those entering the profession and more support for the men and women educating their children, a new national poll shows.

In the second installment of their 46th annual poll of the public's attitudes toward public schools, PDK International and Gallup found a large majority – 60 percent – of Americans support increasing the rigor of admission requirements for teacher preparation schools, and that teachers should be required to pass a board certification exam, similar to the tests lawyers and medical professionals take, before earning a license to practice.

"There’s a lot of interest in teachers and teaching, and stressing the need for high-quality teachers in the classroom," says Bill Bushaw, chief executive officer of PDK and the poll's co-director. "Support for a board certification similar to what doctors have, support for higher entry requirements to become a teacher, all indicate to me that Americans see the need to attract the best teachers we can in the classroom and to help them grow professionally."



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Additionally, 80 percent support the use of a board certification exam. Support for both of those proposals was higher among public school parents, at 61 percent and 83 percent, respectively. A national board certification for teachers already exists, but is optional. About 3 percent of the nation's roughly 3 million teachers have met the requirements for national board certification, the PDK/Gallup poll says.

In addition to ratcheting up requirements of new teachers, Americans also indicated there should be more support during the process. Most surveyed said those training to become teachers should spend at least one year practicing teaching under the guidance of a certified teacher. Forty-four percent said those training to become teachers should spend one year in such a role, while another 27 percent said the practice period should last two years.

Americans also see some value in evaluating teacher performance – primarily to help teachers improve their ability to teach – but there is little support for using standardized test scores in those evaluations. Bushaw says sentiment toward the use of standardized test scores could stem from a frustration of the lack of success of No Child Left Behind, which significantly increased the amount of testing in schools under the promise increased testing would drive up student achievement.

"Americans have become disappointed that what they were told would happen hasn't happened," Bushaw says. "They're increasingly questioning not only the amount of standardized testing happening in classrooms, but also how those test results are being used."

Just last month, Education Secretary Arne Duncan took a stronger stance against over-testing, which he said "can rob school buildings of joy, and cause unnecessary stress." Duncan announced states with waivers from No Child Left Behind could petition the Department of Education for an additional year before incorporating test scores into teacher evaluations – a highly criticized requirement for states to win flexibility from the accountability law.

"The public’s frustration with testing has reached critical mass," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, in a statement. "Parents want data about how their kids are doing and educators and kids want feedback, but more and more those closest to the schools are fed up with standardized tests driving every decision affecting students and teachers."

Much like the first half of the PDK/Gallup poll, released last month, Weingarten said the results should serve as a "wake-up call" to policymakers who she said have "ignored the sentiments of parents and teachers on what it takes to meet students' needs."

"We entrust teachers with great responsibility yet there’s schizophrenia in the treatment of the teaching profession," Weingarten. "We recognize teachers’ importance in preparing students for college, career, life and citizenship, yet we don’t provide teachers with appropriate preparation and we ask them to do their jobs with less trust, less latitude and less support."

Bushaw says teacher preparation programs need to do a better job of recruiting highly qualified students sooner, perhaps starting in high school. Additionally, a report on the poll proposes structuring student teaching requirements more like a medical residency program. The report references a residency program outlined by Ron Thorpe, president and chief executive officer of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The program would follow the formal teacher preparation program and would emphasize clinical work.

Increased support and training for teachers is important during a time of extensive teacher turnover. Research from the Department of Education has shown about half of new teachers quit within their first five years of teaching, and those rates can be higher at more disadvantaged schools.