Teacher Credentialing

In most states, teachers must pass a licensure test after graduating from an approved traditional or alternative preparation program. While a growing number of states offer alternative pathways, in most cases, students must graduate from a college of education in order to obtain a teaching license.

Licensure test are often a low bar and passage rates are north of 90 percent, which makes them an ineffective filter to ensure quality classroom teaching. In many school districts, teachers are incentivized or even required to get graduate-level credits up to a master’s degree. This is despite the fact that studies show such programs to be costly to teachers and school districts without any benefits students. As is often the case in postsecondary education, when rigor is low, there is ample room for politics to seep in.

States should develop or adopt a more rigorous test for initial licensure than they have today in order to raise the bar for teaching. These tests would ensure that new teachers are adequately prepared to teach the science of reading, core math concepts, and other essential tools necessary to serve students. States would simultaneously offer greater flexibility so that excellent future teachers with military or private sector experience, those who have taught in other states, those completing an apprenticeship, or those who majored in something other than education can earn a license.

Local school principals would also be given greater flexibility to reward and promote the best teachers based on objective evidence, rather than being forced by teachers’ unions and legacy practices to pay teachers more simply because they have more graduate-level credits or years on the job. States would ban incentives and requirements for teachers to spend time and money getting ineffective graduate-level credits. States and local school districts would also be prevented from spending money in this way. State and district incentives would be repurposed to reward the teachers most effectively serving students based on whether they contribute to student success.