Episode 8 – Licensure in Strength and Conditioning

Episode Details

Should you need a license to work as a strength and conditioning coach, sport scientist or sport coach? Unfortunately, those beating the drum for licensure simply assume that licensure improves the licensed profession. Perhaps more accurately, those calling for licensure have not for a second, considered what the current evidence suggests about licensure. So much for being evidenced based! In this episode we chat with Dr. Dick Carpenter about licensure, and the impact licensure generally has on quality, safety, and costs.

Our Guest

Our guest for this episode is Dr. Dick Carpenter. Dr. Carpenter serves as a director of strategic research for the Institute for Justice and you can follow his work at the Institute for Justice.

His work has been featured in academic venues such as Urban Studies, Economic Development Quarterly, Regulation and Governance, Fordham Urban Law Journal, Independent Review, Journal of Advanced Academics, Journal of Applied Business and Economics, Journal of Education Finance, Assessment for Effective Intervention, Peabody Journal of Education, Journal of Special Education, The Forum, Education and Urban Society, Journal of School Choice, and Leadership and magazines, such as Regulation, Phi Delta Kappan and the American School Board Journal. Moreover, the results of his research are used by state education officials in accountability reporting, have been influential in crafting policy in state legislatures, and cited in briefs to various state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.

Dr. Carpenter has served as an expert witness in several federal lawsuits and has been quoted in newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Denver Post, Los Angeles Times, Detroit Free Press, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chronicle of Higher Education, Dallas Morning News, Miami Herald, Baltimore Sun, Education Week, and the Washington Times, among others.

Episode Resources

• Published in 2016, Dr. Carpenter’s book Bottleneckers, is a great place to start if you want to know more about licensing in general.
• Not ready for the book Bottleneckers? Dr. Carpenter has also put together a “condensed” version of the information contained in the book. Check out the article Bottleneckers: The Origins of Occupational Licensing and What Can Be Done About Its Excesses.
• What are the alternatives to licensing? Dr. Carpenter and Dr. Thomas A. Hemphill have outlined the most viable alternatives to licensure in their article, Occupations: A Hierarchy of Regulatory Options.
• As discussed on the episode is the second edition of the project by Dr. Carpenter and team, License to Work: A National Study of Burdens from Occupational Licensing. This project was obviously a massive undertaking but it is pretty easy to browse the results or download the PDF.
• As you can tell, we like to dabble in economics and one of our favorite economic podcast out there this EconTalk with Russ Roberts. Dr. Carpenter was a guest on EconTalk and it is definitely worth a listen.
• You can also check out the other work Dr. Carpenter has been involved in at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.