BROWN DEER, Wis. – For centuries, skilled tradesmen replenished their ranks for future generations by sharing their expertise with young apprentices.

Those tradesmen not only mastered their crafts, but learned how to compete and survive in the marketplace and function effectively among their peers.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

In short, they had real world experience, and their apprentices learned valuable, real-world lessons.

Now Wisconsin students will be able to benefit from similar situations. On Tuesday Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill during a visit to Brown Deer High School, allowing K-12 school districts to hire vocational education teachers who have not earned traditional teacher licenses, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The teachers can now be awarded “experience-based licenses,” so they can share their knowledge and help guide young people into the workplace.

The state already has a program that provides “experience-based” alternative teacher licensing for technical education teachers.

Now K-12 school officials are asking for an expansion of that program to attract candidates for hard-to-fill vocational education positions in business, marketing, agriculture, child care and other academic disciplines.

Vocational teachers hired by a school district will be issued three-year teaching licenses by the Department of Public Instruction, according to Fox6Now.com. When they expire, the instructors may be issued professional teaching licenses, provided they have met standards established by their local school board.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

Critics of the legislation, “including the state Department of Public Instruction, the state’s largest teachers union and university schools of education have raised concerns, saying the measure will lower the bar on teacher standards and create an uneven licensing system around the state,” according to the Journal Sentinel.

Of course the university schools of education crank out most of the traditional teachers, many of whom join the union. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is led by state Superintendent Tony Evers, a loyal Democrat with strong ties to the union.

They’ve controlled the teaching profession in Wisconsin for decades, and they don’t want interference from people outside of their ranks.

But there are two important points to remember.

Many critics, including former U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, have complained that university schools of education have been doing a woeful job of preparing young teachers for the classroom.

InsideHigherEd.com wrote that “the vast majority of teacher education programs – housed in universities and colleges across the United States – are not sufficiently preparing future teachers to run their own classrooms, according to a highly critical new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality.”

Meanwhile, on the most recent Badger Exam, taken by Wisconsin students in grades 3-8 across the state, only 51 percent tested proficient or advanced in reading, and only 44 percent hit the mark in math.

They all have conventionally trained teachers, and a lot of them aren’t doing very well at all.

Can it really hurt to trying something different, using people with practical experience in their fields who want to share what they’ve learned with youngsters?