If teachers' salaries were tied to their effectiveness, many teachers would immediately look for better teaching methods and materials. They might, however, have trouble finding them. In Ontario, teacher training is provided almost exclusively by faculties of education (pre-service) and boards of education (in-service). There are three main problems with this teacher training.

1. Virtually no attention is paid to the knowledge and skills which the graduates will be expected to teach.
2. Most Ontario faculties of education and school boards are dominated by the same educational philosophy, namely child-centred learning.
3. Most teacher training is not of much practical use. Prospective teachers learn how to make leaf collections but not how to teach children to read, the history of education but not how to write report cards. Few are taught effective classroom management skills or strategies to teach difficult students.

The problems with teacher training are deeply entrenched. For a variety of reasons, including the tenure enjoyed by professors and the control exercised by the teacher unions, reforming existing teacher training is likely to be slow and difficult. It will be necessary to jump-start the development of genuinely useful courses by authorizing alternative methods of training and certifying teachers.

An additional reason for authorizing alternative routes to certification is the pending teacher shortage. Already, qualified math and science teachers are scarce. Potentially-excellent teachers, such as recent honours math graduates and retired engineers, are deterred by the cumbersome requirements for teacher certification. Most US states permit alternative certification, resulting in an influx of excellent teachers.