Guidelines for Strengthening
Teacher Licensure

The following guidelines are intended to assist state officials and others in assessing the strengths and limitations of their teacher licensure policies and practices and in identifying opportunities to improve them. In particular, the guidelines seek to help stakeholders ensure that their state’s licensure policies and practices are adequate to determine (a) the extent to which the state’s science and mathematics teachers in general have the knowledge required to teach the various courses offered in their disciplines and (b) the comparative strength of the science and mathematics teacher corps in individual school districts.

For none of the guidelines offered here is there a definitive body of empirical evidence that provides unequivocal direction. At best, there is strong consensus among experts in favor of particular strategies, and in some cases less support than this. The intent of the recommendations here, however, is not so much to advocate the adoption of specific policies or practices as it is to help ensure that states are systematic and rigorous in determining the licensure and certification-related policies, practices, and standards they ultimately do adopt. This implies the need for state officials to weigh seriously the opinions of national experts and to assess the suitability of various practices and policies employed by other states. Each state also should engage its own local community of experts in arriving at the standards and policies that are deemed appropriate.

1. Adopt and maintain the maximum possible rigor in the general standards for teacher licensure and certification
• For licensure examinations, this means ensuring the assessments are as valid and reliable as possible and establishing and maintaining a passing score or "cut score" that is high enough to indicate appropriate intellectual and academic proficiency and adequate mastery of the subjects tested

Elaboration

A 2001



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Mitchell, K.J., Robinson, D.Z., Plake, B.S., & Knowles, K.T. (Eds.). (2001). Testing Teacher Candidates: The Role of Licensure Tests in Improving Teaching Quality. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. See p. 115.

study²⁸ from the National Research Council (NRC) on teacher licensure examinations found that current initial licensure examinations may indeed be valid assessments of a teacher’s subject knowledge. The study also found that a higher score on examinations of subject knowledge is likely to be correlated with greater grasp of the subject. This is a finding that reinforces the importance of setting adequately demanding cut scores, and it justifies



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See Not Good Enough: A Content Analysis of Teacher Licensing Examinations. (1999, Spring). Washington, DC: The Education Trust.

concern²⁹ about states that set lower passing scores than others. In addition, licensure examinations that are able to reflect accurately the extent of teachers’ basic reading and writing skills also



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The research on the importance of teachers’ proficiency in reading and writing is surprisingly mixed. See, for example, Ferguson, R.F. (1991). Paying for Public Education: New Evidence on How and Why Money Matters. Harvard Journal on Legislation, 282, 465–498; and Aloe, A.M., & Becker, B.J. (2009). Teacher Verbal Ability and School Outcomes. Educational Researcher, 38 (8), 612-624.

may contribute³⁰ valuable information.

The NRC study indicates, however, that current licensure examinations are inadequate to the task of assessing other important dimensions of teachers’ knowledge and skill and thus are not appropriate for use in accountability systems that seek to evaluate the quality of teacher preparation programs or teachers’ overall classroom effectiveness. At best, then, licensure examinations measure knowledge that is necessary but not sufficient to ensure that a teacher will be successful.

The NRC study also includes an illuminating discussion of (1) the difficulties involved in determining what cut score on an examination reflects adequate basic mastery of a subject and (2) the significance of the variability in cut scores between states. It is difficult to specify a minimum passing score on teacher licensure examinations that can provide strong assurance that those who pass have adequate skill or knowledge and those who fail do not. Indeed, whatever passing score is specified, there are sure to be some candidates with lower scores who would make fine teachers and some with higher scores who will not – although psychometrically valid and reliable examinations minimize these “false negatives” and “false positives.”

Given this limitation, the



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See Gitomer, D.H., Latham, A.S., & Ziomek, R. (1999). The Academic Quality of Prospective Teachers: The Impact of Admissions and Licensure Testing. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

likelihood³¹ that raising the passing score on initial licensure examinations will restrict the supply of teachers and likely reduce the number of minority teachers in the new teacher pool (at least initially) may make states that much more reluctant to set high standards. States that go too far in the direction of being permissive in their standards for the sake of expanding their teacher supply, however, will pay the price by increasing the number of teachers whose grasp of their teaching subject is questionable.

Finally, there is also



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Presley, J. B., White, B. R., & Gong, Y. (2005). Examining the Distribution and Impact of Teacher Quality in Illinois. Carbondale, IL: Illinois Education Research Center. ; and Boyd, D., Lankford, R. H., Loeb, S., Rockoff, J., & Wyckoff, J. (2007). The Narrowing Gap in New York City Teacher Qualifications and Its Implications for Student Achievement in High-poverty Schools. Albany, NY: Teacher Policy Research.

recent research³² strongly suggesting that teachers who require numerous attempts in order to pass initial licensure examinations may be less effective than teachers who were able to pass the examinations more quickly. This may imply that states should consider restricting the number of times an individual can retake initial licensure examinations as an additional safeguard to ensure that licensure signals basic teacher competency.

Close Elaboration

• Where alternative forms of assessment of teachers’ skill and knowledge are used, such as portfolios, this means ensuring that these also employ rigorous standards and are sufficiently valid and reliable to distinguish between teacher candidates who demonstrate basic competence in the areas assessed and those who do not. Unfortunately, there are
  

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  See Mitchell, K.J., Robinson, D.Z., Plake, B.S., & Knowles, K.T. (Eds.). (2001). Testing Teacher Candidates: The Role of Licensure Tests in Improving Teaching Quality. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. See p. 115.
  few studies³³ of the validity and reliability of these alternative forms of assessment.
2. Ensure that any undergraduate or post-baccalaureate course requirements for endorsement in a general field (e.g., physical science) or specific discipline (e.g., chemistry) are sufficient to provide a solid grasp of all specific science or mathematics subjects the endorsement entitles the holder to teach and are appropriate to the different licensure levels (elementary, middle, or secondary). Accomplishing this is likely to involve three specific policy commitments:
• Articulating minimum standards for teachers’ knowledge that are appropriate to the grade-level standards for students’ knowledge in specific science and mathematics subjects
• Adopting and enforcing credential requirements in science and mathematics fields that adequately reflect these standards
• Ensuring that all teachers – both beginning teachers and veteran teachers – meet these standards and requirements as soon as possible.

Elaboration

Rigorous requirements for appropriate subject knowledge at the different grade levels become especially important as the emphasis on the increased science and mathematics proficiency of America’s students pushes college preparatory courses down to middle school and implies that even elementary students need to have a stronger grounding in science and mathematics. Many current licensure policies, however, do not adequately respond to this trend. This can be a problem in both mathematics and science, but it is especially vexing in science, where individuals who teach multiple subjects at the college preparatory level (e.g., Physics, Biology, or Chemistry) often lack the expertise to be effective in one or more individual subjects even though state licensure policies may permit the licensee to teach all of them.

There are two interrelated challenges involved here. One more directly concerns specific endorsement policies, and the other concerns the inherent difficulty of defining adequate coursework preparation in a teaching subject:

• Endorsement Policies

  Endorsement policies and practices vary significantly from state to state, and some policies pose particular challenges for the effort to ensure licensure rigor. For example, K-8 or Middle School licenses, which some states offer, generally have less stringent content knowledge requirements in science and mathematics than broad Secondary or 9-12 licenses. Although this practice has a good deal of justification and follows the recommendations of the

  

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  See, for example, the standards of the Conference Board for the Mathematics Sciences and the standards of the American Association of Physics Teachers

  disciplinary associations³⁴ that set the content knowledge standards for teachers at the various grade levels in science and mathematics, it does increase the possibility that K-8 and Middle School teachers will be poorly prepared to teach Algebra 1, Biology or other college preparatory courses that some districts may have pushed down to the middle school level.

  

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  See Cavanaugh, S. (2008, October 21). 8th Grade Algebra Teachers in Arkansas to Need State Nod. Education Week.

  Arkansas,³⁵ for example, has attempted to address this problem by requiring that all middle school teachers who are not certified to teach high school mathematics must obtain a specific Algebra 1 endorsement if they wish to teach that subject. Similarly,

  

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  See California’s bulletin on Subject Matter Authorizations.

  California³⁶ now requires all middle school teachers to have a special credential in order to teach science or mathematics courses at that level.
  A general science endorsement, which in a number of states allows teachers to teach any science course, often does not require sufficient depth in all of the specific science disciplines (e.g., Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geology) to enable teachers to be effective. In some states, teachers seeking a science endorsement are required to major in a specific science but are then allowed to teach courses in other sciences in which they may have minimal background. In other states, teachers may pursue a general or distributed sciences major that enables them to teach a variety of college preparatory science course even though their major has minimal course requirements for any individual science subject.

  

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  See the description of the Science Education Credential Program from California State University, Fullerton.

  California³⁷ has attempted to address these problems through strict credentialing requirements, which specify rigorous course work or the equivalent demonstration of knowledge in individual core science subjects in order to teach them at the college preparatory level. Individuals wishing to teach integrated science or non-college preparatory science courses must meet a less stringent standard for appropriate course work or the equivalent demonstration of knowledge in the science subjects they wish to teach.
  To be sure, a recommendation to strengthen subject preparation requirements for teachers of science and mathematics presents a special challenge for some districts. Rural districts, for example, often seek to hire teachers with a broad science background because the districts’ schools may offer too few science classes in any one subject to offer a teacher a full-time course load in the subject. Likewise, many urban districts have difficulty finding teachers with strong qualifications in science and mathematics to teach in their highest poverty schools. If states and districts dilute the requirements for strength of content knowledge in STEM fields, however, they risk

  

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  Two studies by The Education Trust find that this is precisely what has happened in a number of states, and with especially severe consequences for low-income and minority students. See Core Problems: Out of Field Teaching Persists in Key Academic Courses and High-Poverty Schools. (2008). Washington, DC: The Education Trust; and Jerald, C. (2002). All Talk, No Action: Putting an End to Out-of-Field Teaching. Washington, DC: The Education Trust.

  compromising³⁸ the quality of their K-12 science and mathematics education.

• Defining Adequate Coursework Preparation

  No one knows how many college courses in a subject are necessary to ensure a new teacher’s grasp of his or her subject matter and therefore what the coursework preparation requirement should be for teacher licensure in science or mathematics. The limited empirical research³⁹ on the subject generally indicates that taking more courses benefits high school instruction, in particular, but that there is also a threshold to this effect after which additional courses have no impact. Obviously, a stronger background is required to teach the more difficult subjects in a field, such as calculus or AP Biology, than to teach only introductory or middle school courses.

  Several of the various disciplinary societies that set standards for teacher knowledge offer specific recommendations for the amount of coursework needed to teach the disciplines competently at the different educational levels. Consistent with the standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), for example, the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (CBMS)

  

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  See CBMS. (2001). The Mathematical Education of Teachers, p.8.

  proposes⁴⁰ minimum coursework requirements in mathematics for elementary, middle school, and high school teachers: 9 semester hours for elementary teachers, 21 semester hours for middle school teachers, and the equivalent of an undergraduate major for high school teachers. Similarly, based on the standards set by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and other groups, the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT)

  

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  See AAPT. (2009). The Role, Education, Qualifications, and Professional Development of Secondary School Physics Teachers, pp. 3 & 15.

  calls⁴¹ for secondary school physics teachers to have at least a minor in physics and, ideally, the equivalent of a major in the field.
  These are only rough guidelines, and the difference between a major and a minor in a field is often significant. A major in a field provides

  

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  Assuming a sufficiently high GPA in the discipline to signify reasonable mastery – probably a B or higher.

  strong assurance⁴¹ that a teacher has an adequate grasp of the subject, but it may in fact be more than is truly necessary. On the other hand, a subject minor might be sufficient, but requirements for a minor are institution-specific and highly variable so that a minor could provide an adequate preparation for secondary teaching at one institution but not at another. Clearly, states that want to ensure strong content knowledge on the part of their science and mathematics teachers could insist upon the equivalent of a subject major for endorsement in an individual STEM discipline. That presents a problem, however, for states that already have a scarcity of science and mathematics teachers and for districts that need science and mathematics generalists.

  Gaining a grasp of a subject isn’t only a matter of taking a certain number of courses, however, but of how well one learns the material presented in those courses. Moreover, the undergraduate science or mathematics curriculum may be organized differently in different colleges and universities, thus making it difficult to specify on a statewide basis which courses or how many courses in the teaching field a candidate should take.

  One implication of this is that standardized assessments of a teacher candidate’s knowledge of his or her teaching field can play an important role in providing additional evidence of the candidate’s subject mastery. Another implication is that the variability in the way the undergraduate science and mathematics curriculum may be organized in different colleges or universities within the same state highlights the important role of state program approval in ensuring the adequacy of the subject coursework requirements and the standards for determining students’ subject mastery that are set by the individual preparation programs. Such an approval process often tries to determine whether a program’s coursework requirements provide teacher candidates with the background necessary to meet the standards for teacher knowledge that are set by the respective disciplinary societies. In the case of the sciences, these standards generally seek consistency with the National Science Education Standards for K-12 students that were articulated in 1996 by the National Academies.

  The

  

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  This situation is reflected, for example, in the Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel. See, for example, p. 12. It is also noted in the 2006 NRC report Taking Science to School. See, for example, pp. 304-308.

  absence⁴³ of a strong research base somewhat weakens the force of disciplinary society recommendations concerning coursework and content mastery for effective teaching of specific science and mathematics courses. They can claim little more justification than the consensus among the subject experts and educators who endorse them. According to the 2008 Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (p. 36), such recommendations are particularly difficult in the case of elementary and middle school mathematics. And, according to the 2006 NRC report Taking Science to School, there is a similar difficulty in science education.

  These problems should not be taken as a justification for low standards, however, nor for inaction on the part of state policymakers and education leaders. A consensus on teacher standards among noted scholars and accomplished teachers in a field cannot be ignored even if the empirical research base to support it is thin. Moreover, as

  

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  Hiebert, J. (1999). Relationship Between Research and the NCTM Standards. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 30 (1), 3-19.

  James Hiebert⁴⁴ points out, research will never be a sufficient basis for the formulation of standards, which always involves values issues (e.g., what knowledge of mathematics and science it is most important for K-12 students to master).

Close Elaboration

3. Ensure that staged (or tiered) licensure and licensure renewal are able to accomplish the following:
• Remove from the teaching profession those individuals who fail to demonstrate solid knowledge of their teaching subject and proven effectiveness in the classroom
• Encourage capable teachers to deepen their subject knowledge and teaching skill

Elaboration

Tiered and continuing licensure can be used to improve the overall quality of the state’s teacher workforce, but states can only take advantage of these opportunities if the requirements to move from one licensure stage to the next or to renew certification are sufficiently rigorous.

• Tiered Licensure

  Almost all states make some distinction between initial licensure and a more advanced stage of licensure or certification that also may include tenure. Such a licensure system provides several opportunities. One opportunity is to evaluate initially licensed teachers’ actual performance in the classroom over several years’ time and, on the basis of this evaluation (and perhaps

  

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  In the tiered licensure systems of both New Mexico and Wisconsin, there are a set of standards or competencies in which teachers are expected to demonstrate increasing mastery in order to move from one licensure tier to the next.

  other criteria⁴⁵) to deny a second-stage license to teachers whose skill, knowledge, or performance prove to be inadequate. It is extremely difficult to undertake a valid assessment of a candidate’s actual teaching skill as part of the initial licensure process because most licensure candidates simply have too little pre-service teaching experience to serve as an adequate basis of evaluation and also relatively little opportunity to acquire (and demonstrate) solid pedagogical knowledge in their specific discipline.
  In addition, some states have an even more advanced level of certification for teachers who demonstrate exemplary teaching or who acquire advanced degrees. This often includes teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. To the extent these licensure distinctions truly reflect differences in teacher knowledge and skill, they are helpful in providing a more nuanced assessment of the strength of the teacher corps statewide and a comparative assessment of the relative strength of teachers between individual schools and districts. There is

  

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  See National Board Certification—What the Research Says.

  good evidence⁴⁶ that National Board Certification validly identifies teachers who are marginally more effective than teachers who lack the credential. And

  

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  See Rice, J.K. (2003). Teacher Quality: Understanding the Effectiveness of Teacher Attributes. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, pp. 25-28.

  research⁴⁷ also confirms that master’s degrees in the teaching subject – specifically, in science and mathematics – can contribute to more effective teaching at the secondary level.

• Licensure Renewal

  In addition to different licensure stages or tiers, another licensure mechanism that ideally can promote teacher quality is the requirement, already present in some form in

  

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  See the Certification and Licensure State Policy Database maintained by the National Comprehensive Center for Teaching Quality. Every state that lists continuing licensure requirements in the database has professional development requirements for licensure renewal, and the few states whose continuing licensure requirements are not listed in the database can be found to have similar requirements listed on their state teacher certification website.

  all states,⁴⁸ that teachers renew their license periodically by participating in various sorts of professional development. Such licensure renewal is especially important in the sciences because the knowledge base in the sciences is continually evolving, and teachers need to keep current in their chosen disciplines. In order to be truly effective, however, the requirement for continuing education for science and mathematics teachers should be complemented by a requirement that teachers demonstrate that their knowledge of their teaching field is up-to-date. This stricter requirement also would be likely to promote a demand for truly

  

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  For a review of research on the impact of various professional development programs in science and mathematics, which affirms the importance of focusing on both disciplinary content and pedagogy, see Blank, R.K., de las Alas, N., & Smith, C. (2008). Does Teacher Professional Development Have Effects on Teaching and Learning: Analysis of Evaluation Findings from Programs for Mathematics and Science Teachers in 14 States. Washington, DC: Council of Chief State School Officers.

  effective⁴⁹ professional development. In addition to being current in their subject knowledge, science teachers as well as mathematics teachers ought to be familiar with important recent teaching innovations in their fields (such as new way of teaching key concepts) that have shown promise in the classroom. A demonstrated grasp of these also could be a requirement for license renewal.

Close Elaboration