Teacher Certification Requirements Research Articles

Preparing teachers for parent engagement: role of teacher educators in Canada

ABSTRACT Parent engagement has long been considered important for students’ academic achievement and well-being. To ensure strength-based parent engagement, it is important for teachers to be prepared to work with parents. This study reports findings from interviews with Canadian teacher educators to better understand their role in preparing teachers for parent engagement. Teacher educators consider readiness for parent engagement a vital competence for teachers but find it difficult to secure a permanent place for parent engagement in the curriculum. Recommendations include the integrated parent engagement framework centred around a parent engagement policy and parent engagement requirements for teacher education programmes and teacher certification.

State Variations in Certification of Teachers of Students With Visual Impairments

Introduction: This study reviews state certification requirements for teachers of students with visual impairments (TVIs). Method: TVI certification criteria were systematically reviewed and coded from 55 states and territories. Fifteen variables captured a broad overview of criteria including license and endorsement data (i.e., terminology, grade and age range, and standards and testing requirements) and provisional and emergency certification data (i.e., terminology, length of time, and renewability). Results: Thirty-two of 55 states required some form of initial teaching license on which to add a TVI endorsement. Sixty-five percent of states specified certification as required for working with students aged 3–21 only. Slightly over half of the states did not have coursework requirements. Forty-two states had provisional certification and 20 states had emergency certification. Discussion: Multiple pathways to certification with varied terminology across states suggest that becoming certified in the visual impairment field is complex. Implications for practitioners: Variations across states make requirements for certification difficult to navigate and differences in required competencies across states may create varied quality of certified professionals in the field impacting the services to children who are visually impaired.

PENINGKATAN KOMPETENSI GURU DENGAN PENGENALAN MODEL – MODEL DALAM TAHAPAN PENELITIAN TINDAKAN KELAS DI SMK NEGERI KOKAR

PTK is a report of real activities carried out by teachers in the classroom in an effort to improve the quality of learning. Classroom Action Research (PTK) is important in improving and improving the profession of educators, it is also important for improving and improving the quality of students. The purpose of this activity is to carry out the Tri Darma of Higher Education activities in the aspect of community service. This activity aims to share knowledge information in the context of developing the competence of teachers at SMK N Kokar. This service activity is carried out using lecture methods and practices. The lecture method was delivered by resource persons with material about Class Action Research (PTK). Furthermore, the practice is carried out directly by the teacher with the practice of making PTK proposals as well as being presented as a form of guidance and evaluation of the stages of research preparation. The result of this PKM activity is that teachers at SMK Neegri Kokar can understand the steps and stages in implementing PTK. In addition, the teachers already have a plan for PTK proposals that will be implemented in the near future. Furthermore, Mr / Mrs. Guru also has a new motive in order to develop themselves to meet the requirements for promotion and teacher certification

From theory to implementation: Examining EL certification requirements through the lens of local context

With growing English learner (EL) populations enrolling in districts throughout the United States, educators must be trained to meet the needs of this culturally and linguistically diverse population. However, the approaches used to meet this growing teacher training need vary widely, with little available research on how different approaches impact student success. The current paper uses geospatial mapping to examine how states’ EL teacher certification requirements are related to the academic success of English learners in those states. The results of this study suggest that state EL teacher certification requirements are related to student outcomes and that geographic location moderates those results. The geospatial mapping technique utilized in this study improves the accessibility of available data to the general population and policy makers.

Pre-Service Teacher Experiences during COVID 19: Exploring the Uncertainties between Clinical Practice and Distance Learning

Teacher preparation programs assist candidates with the pedagogical, theoretical, and practical application of teaching and learning. This article explored the dialog between a state education agency and teacher preparation programs’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The author presents a research study of current teacher performance expectations (TPEs), online readiness, and the design of distance learning in pre-service teacher clinical practice. The participants are 10 current pre-service teachers. The researcher collected data from fieldwork supervisors, observations, and survey results from participants. Kolb’s experiential theory was used in the analysis of co-requisite policy and observations of field experiences of students in a teacher education program. The article analyzed data that suggested that in-person observations and opportunities to practice classroom instruction contribute to teacher readiness and relationship building in comparison to online learning. Furthermore, states will have to re-assess their teacher certification requirements, quality control efforts, and mandatory exams since COVID-19, which may lead to the reauthorization of the pre-service guidelines. Program learning outcomes and critical assignments that allow candidates to demonstrate content knowledge and instructional delivery are being compromised. The finding were that pre-service candidates did not have the opportunity to demonstrate mastery of specific teacher performance expectations within the distance learning format. This article aims to encourage further research teacher education and distance learning to discuss potential alternatives to certification and creative ways to embed flexibility into teacher preparation. Substantial changes can lower the quality of a program and significantly decrease effectiveness while increasing data misrepresentation. Distance learning can potentially limit quality supervision and teacher mentoring. In addition, pre-service teachers will enter classrooms with substantially fewer clinical practice hours.

Examining Certification Requirements in Early Math and Literacy: What Do States Expect Prekindergarten Teachers to Know?

The purpose of this study was to examine preK certification requirements for literacy and mathematics coursework to understand policy trends across the United States. We were interested in examining whether teacher certification requirements in these content areas align with expectations for child outcomes in early literacy and math. We completed a content analysis of 114 documents from 50 states including preK teacher certification requirements and early learning standards from each state. We engaged in a detailed analysis of the sections of these documents related to early literacy and mathematics. Based on this state-by-state analysis, we found that most states had very little specification of preK teacher certification requirements related to literacy or mathematics. Our findings suggest that current certification policies are not well-aligned with expectations for preK children’s learning in early literacy and mathematics.

Expanding Capacity to Serve Multilingual Learners: A University-School District Partnership

In a time of new teacher certification requirements in New York, school districts are grappling with how to meet the regulatory expectations imposed by Commissioner’s Regulations Part 154. One way that schools are solving staffing challenges is by forging new collaborations with university partners to expand their collective capacities to serve Multilingual learners (MLLs). In this article, we document a partnership between SUNY New Paltz’s Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program and the Pawling Central School District during the 2017-18 academic year. We describe the partners’ distinct roles in the university-district collaboration, and discuss the logistical considerations and challenges they faced, with respect to program design, hybrid instruction, meeting certification requirements, and working with established university systems. We conclude by identifying components that ultimately made the partnership a success.

Teacher training and development in the United States

This report attempts to offer fundamentals in teacher training and development in the United States. The report is structured around the following five components designed in the form of questionnaires: (1) Teacher education programs which involve entry requirements, training curriculum, and exit standards; (2) teacher certification requirements; (3) teacher recruitment requirements; (4) continuing education and support for beginning teachers; and (5) providers and governance of teacher education and certification. One of the most striking findings is that while entry requirements for teacher education are flexible, if not downplaying, across the states, the curriculum places a particular focus on the subject area content courses and, more importantly, on coursework in education and pedagogical skills, together with a long period of in-school student teaching, as prerequisites for graduation. Let alone such practice-based exit requirements, the quality of prospective teachers is checked upon by teacher licensure testing and further empowered by regular induction programs and professional development with an ultimate goal of meeting the eleven professional standards for teachers. With these, the report reveals systematic differences in the practices of teacher education programs, certification, and professional development, among other things, in the United States as compared with those in Vietnam. Thus, it may leave some room for consideration.

Teacher preparation for emergent bilingual students: Implications of evidence for policy

Failure to adequately prepare teachers of emergent bilingual (EB) students could have devastating consequences for student achievement, EB reclassification, and eventually, high school and college completion. To enhance the policy discourse, we explore how teacher certification requirements relate to both EB student achievement and teacher self-efficacy in three states with similar EB student populations but disparate policies on ways to meet EBs' needs: Arizona, California, and Texas. To do this we ask: (1) How well do states prepare their teachers to meet the needs of EBs? (2) What knowledge specific to meeting EBs’ needs do states require their teachers to demonstrate? (3) How are these requirements related to teacher perceptions of their preparedness to effectively teach EBs? We find that there are marked differences across the three states in terms of how well they prepare EBs, and these patterns can be discerned from their teacher preparation requirements. Although teachers’ self-efficacy does not appear to be related to teacher training in the first three years of teaching, there is an advantage to more rigorous training over time. Implications for policy are discussed.

The South Carolina Comprehensive Health Education Act Needs to Be Amended.

The article focuses on needs for amendments to South Carolina's Comprehensive Health Education Act. It states proposed amendments relate to including evidence-based and medically-accurate information, strengthening oversight of school district compliance with the law, and certification and training requirements for teachers. It comments that South Carolina is one of 28 states that doesn't require unbiased and culturally appropriate content and talks about sexual risks among SC teenagers.

The elusiveness of teacher quality: A comparative analysis of teacher certification and student achievement in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries

In national education systems worldwide, teacher quality has become synonymous with education reform efforts, but a more elusive goal is empirically measuring teacher quality. One proposed measure of teacher quality, teacher licensing, also known as certification, is an increasingly ubiquitous component of national education systems and pre-service teacher education around the world. Rapidly developing national education systems, like those in the Arabian Gulf states, are actively seeking to measure teacher quality through teacher certification and to estimate teacher quality using scores on student achievement tests. This study synthesizes research literature and contextual data as a foundation for using hierarchical linear models to estimate the impact of teacher certification on student achievement in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Despite the emphasis on improving teacher quality by establishing teacher certification requirements in GCC national education systems, the researchers found neither a direct nor a consistent association between teacher certification and student achievement in the GCC.

Mathematics Reform and Teacher Quality in Elementary Grades: Assessments, Teacher Licensure, and Certification

We analyzed the gap in mathematics standards, assessments and accountability, and teacher licensure and certification requirements in mathematics for elementary grades. We found states delineated mathematics academic standards in specific content areas. Licensure and certification requirements were weak indicators since they lacked the specificity of conceptual and procedural knowledge that could strengthen mathematics content knowledge and inform instructional practices. The most recent changes in licensure and certification requirements intended to affect teacher quality are not reaching a large proportion of elementary teachers; thus, their overall impact on teacher quality is likely to be limited. We discuss policy strategies for licensure and certification requirements likely to have a broader reach in addressing teacher quality at the elementary grades.

Teacher MA attainment rates, 1970–2000

The share of female teachers in the U.S. with an MA more than doubled between 1970 and 2000. This increase is puzzling, as it is much larger than that of other college-educated women, and it occurred over a period of declining teacher aptitude. I estimate the contribution of changes in teacher demographic characteristics, increases in the returns to an MA, and changes in teacher certification requirements to increases in teacher MA attainment rates. I find that the majority of the rise in attainment not attributable to secular trends and increases in the average age of teachers can be explained by increases in the returns to an MA among teachers. The increase in MA returns among teachers presents a second puzzle, as there is little evidence that master's degrees increase teacher productivity.

When policy instruments combine to promote coherence: an analysis of Connecticut’s policies related to teacher quality

This paper explicates the elements of several policy instruments used in Connecticut, the political conditions under which they were chosen, and their intended targets and expected effects on teacher quality and student learning. The purpose of the paper is to explain how the Connecticut General Assembly (CGA) and the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) were able to implement and sustain a set of integrated policies related to teaching and learning over a 20‐year period from 1985 to 2005. We argue that this occurred for three primary reasons. First, the state legislature combined changes in teacher certification requirements in the 1980s with significant increases in teacher salaries in order to build strong political support among teachers and teacher union leaders for the new requirements. Second, in the 1980s and 1990s, CGA and CSDE repeatedly combined policy instruments in ways that involved multiple stakeholders and strong elements of capacity‐building, thereby increasing their likelihood of success. Third, several policies enacted in Connecticut in the 1990s were directly connected to and strongly reinforced each other.

The State Perspective on Teacher Shortage, Certification, and Recruitment

The article discusses teacher certification, recruitment, and the supply and demand of foreign language teachers in the U.S. In order to meet the demand for language teachers, some states are changing their teacher certification requirements and are implementing alternative teacher certification programs. The obstacles facing language teachers' certification includes the U.S. No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and its requirements about highly qualified teachers. Teacher certification varies in the U.S. from state to state, so lessening the requirements in order to meet the demand for teachers could be difficult according to the author.

The Effect of Certification and Preparation on Teacher Quality

To improve the quality of the teacher workforce, some states have tightened teacher preparation and certification requirements while others have eased requirements and introduced "alternative" ways of being certified to attract more people to teaching. Donald Boyd, Daniel Goldhaber, Hamilton Lankford, and James Wyckoff evaluate these seemingly contradictory strategies by examining how preparation and certification requirements affect student achivement. If strong requirements improve student outcomes and deter relatively few potential teachers, the authors say, then they may well be good policy. But if they have little effect on student achievement, if they seriously deter potential teachers, or if schools are able to identify applicants who will produce good student outcomes, then easing requirements becomes a more attractive policy. In reviewing research on these issues, the authors find that evidence is often insufficient to draw conclusions. They do find that highly selective alternative route programs can produce effective teachers who perform about the same as teachers from traditional routes after two years on the job. And they find that teachers who score well on certification exams can improve student outcomes somewhat. Limited evidence suggests that certification requirements can diminish the pool of applicants, but there is no evidence on how they affect student outcomes. And the authors find that schools have a limited ability to identify attributes in prospective teachers that allow them to improve student achievement. The authors conclude that the research evidence is simply too thin to have serious implications for policy. Given the enormous investment in teacher preparation and certification and given the possibility that these requirements may worsen student outcomes, the lack of convincing evidence is disturbing. The authors urge researchers and policymakers to work together to move to a more informed position where good resource decisions can be made.

Deconstructing Teacher Certification

TWENTY years ago, few states had alternative programs for certifying teachers, and those that did dusted them off only in case of emergency. Today, two kinds of alternative certification programs are proliferating: those delivered agencies not affiliated with an institution of higher education (sometimes called NUCPs for Non-University Certification Programs) and pared-down degrees delivered over the Internet universities and corporations specializing in for-profit educational endeavors. In California, approximately one in five new teachers enters the profession through NUCPs; in Texas and New Jersey, one in four new teachers comes from NUCPs. NUCPs usually receive their charge from legislation, such as California's S.B. 57, which gives school districts and other agencies the right to certify teachers. S.B. 57 states that people may become teachers by successfully completing tests and classroom observations in lieu of traditional teacher preparation coursework and student In lieu of coursework or student teaching, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) requires next to nothing. That is, prospective teachers in the Los Angeles program can move from applicant status to full-time, salaried teacher without bothering to gain experience in an actual classroom, and the only courses required the LAUSD are delivered in-house in brief seminars or online during the first year of teaching. Many states are in the process of following California's lead dramatically loosening requirements for teacher certification. Recently, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law a mandate that every school district be given the authority to certify teachers. The paradox is that, while universities in Florida face increasingly difficult accountability standards from NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education), from professional organizations (such as the National Council of Teachers of English and the National Science Teachers Association), and from regional and state accrediting agencies (such as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the Florida Department of Education), no such accountability is required of Florida's NUCPs. As with the ranking system of public schools, the sole indicator of quality for teacher certification programs has become the percentage of teacher candidates able to pass multiple-choice exams. In a politically savvy move, the NUCPs have started using teacher exit tests, such as the Florida Teacher Certification Exam (similar to Praxis II in many states), as prerequisites for entry into their programs, thereby securing a perpetual passing rate of 100%. In the span of a few years, teacher certification has been transformed the surge in alternative certification and the proliferation of distance-education degree programs. To take the pulse of teacher certification, for the past year I gathered data on the more than 1,000 institutions and agencies that certify teachers in the U.S. Because the gritty details of certification--across the broad spectrum of grade levels and subject areas and across states and institutions--made analysis too unwieldy, I decided to focus on certification in secondary English (usually grades 7-12). Unlike mathematics, science, bilingual education, and special education, English is not a high-need certification area. Thus there is little reason to push for alternative certification in English. Using this logic, I surmised that trends in secondary English might be comparable to developments in social studies but would probably understate the prevalence of alternative programs and distance-education programs in science, mathematics, bilingual education, and special education. THE GROWTH OF ALTERNATIVE CERTIFICATION My study confirmed an incredible variability across institutions and NUCPs. Some programs have rigorous requirements governing admission, internship, and graduation; others require little more than a heartbeat and a check that clears the bank. …

Getting it Wrong on Threats to Teacher Quality

In the debate over how to increase teacher quality, there are those who argue that the greatest impediment to effective teaching is a lack of content expertise. After surveying principals, Mr. Torff reports that deficiencies in the skills needed to teach the content pose a bigger threat to high-quality teaching. EVEN IN THE divisive world of education policy, everyone agrees that children deserve competent, properly educated teachers. And many educators concur that initiatives are needed to upgrade the quality of the nation's work force of teachers. But consensus breaks down over how to accomplish such an upgrade. In particular, disputes arise concerning which teaching skills tend to be weakest and thus constitute the most urgent threats to teacher quality in our nation's schools. The requisite skills of teaching expertise have been broadly categorized as including content knowledge (i.e., familiarity with the subject being taught) and pedagogical knowledge (e.g., familiarity with techniques for teaching the subject). (1) But which of these sets of skills is more frequently the main cause of ineffective teaching? According to an increasingly visible group of educators, too many teachers have insufficient expertise in the subjects they teach, thus making deficiencies in content knowledge far and away the more pressing teacher-quality problem. (2) This group further claims that teachers with deficiencies in content knowledge are regrettably in abundance in low-performing schools--a situation thought to contribute significantly to lagging academic performance in such schools. (3) Teacher preparation programs and state teacher certification regulations, so the reasoning goes, underemphasize content knowledge and overemphasize pedagogical knowledge and thus do little to remedy what's really ailing schools. As a result, this group further argues, teachers with severe content deficiencies gain certification, while talented individuals who hold baccalaureate degrees in content areas but lack training in pedagogical knowledge face unnecessary obstacles to certification. Hence, a radical proposal is put forth: deregulate teacher certification to allow qualified college graduates who may not have completed coursework in educational methodology or received a degree in education to receive state teaching certificates. (4) This strategy is needed because burdensome teacher certification requirements deter well-educated and eager individuals who might make fine teachers but are put off by the cost, in time and money, of completing a conventional teacher preparation program. (5) From this point of view, alternative certification programs would facilitate an influx of better-qualified teachers who would be likely to usher in significant improvement in public schooling--especially in low-performing schools where content-deficient teachers purportedly constitute an especially urgent threat to student learning. Proponents of this proposal assume that the ineffectiveness of teachers is more frequently caused by deficiencies in content knowledge than by deficiencies in pedagogical knowledge. Such an assumption ought to be tested, and one means of doing so clearly exists: consult with principals, the administrators charged with supervising and evaluating the teachers in their schools. With firsthand knowledge of the factors that cause teachers' work to be ineffective, principals are well positioned to evaluate the various threats to teacher quality. Principals review the standardized test performance of students in every teacher's classroom. They also gain firsthand knowledge of teachers' work with students by reviewing lesson materials, observing the delivery of lessons, and evaluating teachers' rapport with students and classroom-management skills. And principals receive feedback about teachers' performance through ongoing contact with students, parents, department heads, and other administrators. …

Effective Teaching and Standards for Teaching: A Loose Coupling

Performance management with teacher appraisal has become mandatory in England and New Zealand. In England there is a single set of comprehensive standards that function as statutory requirements for initial teacher education and certification as a qualified teacher. In New Zealand we have programme requirements for initial teacher education that are not aligned with either the standards for registration or the standards in employment contracts. Moreover in New Zealand the standards are not legal requirements, eg. when recommendations are being made for registration, the Teachers Council’s standards are regarded as indicators of the factors that could be considered. The assumption seems to be that the more coherent and rigorous approach in England will be associated with more effective teaching. This article argues why this may not be the case, and calls for the involvement of teachers and researchers in the development of standards for teacher education and teaching, and the implementation of methods for evaluating teachers’ practice.

Certification Measures: Are They Predictive Of Secondary Agriculture Teacher Proficiency?

The purpose of this study was to assess the ability of teacher preparation program certification requirements to predict classroom teaching performance. The accessible sample consisted of 12 Agricultural Education graduates from the University of Missouri. Teaching performance was assessed by the teacher's supervising administrator using the Performance Based Teaching Evaluation instrument, and by the researcher through classroom observations using the Formative Assessment of Teaching instrument. The first research objective sought to describe the teacher certification requirements that were predictive of teaching performance during the initial years of teaching as assessed by the teachers' administrative supervisors. Agricultural education coursework GPA accounted for 40% of the variance associated with teaching performance, as assessed by public school administrators. The second research objective sought to describe the teacher certification requirements that were predictive of observed classroom teaching performance. Upon regressing the dependent variable, teaching performance, on the seven certification measures, no certification measure, or combination of certification measures, were found that could explain a significant proportion of the variance in teaching performance. Research objective three sought to describe school administrators' perceptions of necessary teaching characteristics and the relationship between cognitive abilities and teaching performance. Administrators, in face-to-face interviews, emphasized the importance of affective characteristics to teaching. Administrators perceived that higher academic abilities did not necessarily equate to successful teaching performance.