The past is prologue for teacher records

One of Maine's weakest laws is now one of its most useless.

Last session, lawmakers addressed Maine's pitiful statutes regarding teacher disclosure, under which nobody was told if a teacher had their certificate revoked or suspended, or even if that certificate was voluntarily surrendered. Now, the state will tell someone.

Not the public, though. A national teaching accreditation firm, which will warehouse this information for confidential release to school districts. All the public is entitled to know is the raw number of teachers whose certificate status has changed.

That's it. The justification for why the status changed will remain sealed, locked away like gold inside Fort Knox. Are these secrets too damaging to reveal? Is something at risk, or is this the wish of a powerful union protecting its members from up on high? We have our suspicions.

Here's the problem now. The information the public is entitled to receive regarding the status of teaching certificates is not retroactive. Past data is compiled, but it is not being made available. Only from this past September onward will the statistics on certificates be revealed.

This twist has caught most everyone off guard, including the sponsor of the legislation, Sen. Peter Mills, R-Cornville. "Who's going to be harmed?" he asked about releasing past teacher certification records. "It's not individually identifying information." An excellent point.

Without historical context for the newly released information, it is worthless. It will take several years, at this rate, to identify whether Maine indeed has a problem with problem teachers, or not. Nor does this system identify teachers who may have legitimate reasons for surrendering their certificates, such as moving out of state, from those whose certificates were yanked for misconduct or criminal activity. 

In short, the legislation passed to release this data has not resolved the quandary it was drafted to address.

This state's laws on teacher disclosure are the country's weakest. Other states, notably Vermont, go as far as maintaining an online registry of teaching certificate suspensions and revocations. And many other licensed professionals, such as doctors, lawyers and police officers, must have their penalties made public. It is fair that professionals entrusted with great responsibility are held to lofty standards.

Teachers are entitled to greater protections under statute than doctors, lawyers and police. At the very least, the public should have the needed contextual and retroactive information on certification suspensions, revocations and surrenders to understand what the raw data the Legislature has compelled the state to reveal really means. Otherwise, a weak law is now a useless law.

This is not an improvement.