Secondary Teacher Preparation

Delivering Well Prepared Teachers Policy

Secondary Teacher Preparation

The state should ensure that secondary teachers are sufficiently prepared to teach appropriate grade-level content.

Best practices

Not only do Indiana and Tennessee require that secondary teacher candidates pass a content test to teach any core secondary subjects, but these states also do not permit any significant loopholes to this important policy by allowing secondary general science or social studies licenses (see Goals 1-G and 1-H).

Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2011). Secondary Teacher Preparation National Results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/national/Secondary-Teacher-Preparation-6
Best practice 2

States

Meets goal 29

States

Nearly meets goal 0

States

Meets goal in part 8

States

Meets a small part of goal 0

States

Does not meet goal 12

States

State requires a test of secondary teacher candidates’ content knowledge in every subject they are licensed to teach.

2011
Figure details

State requires a single-subject test for every subject a teacher is licensed to teach.: IN, TN

State requires single-subject tests; however, its policy has significant deficiencies regarding science and/or social studies.: AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, PA, SC, SD, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV

The state does not require a single-subject test for every subject a teacher is licensed to teach.: AK, AZ, CA, CO, IA, MN, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, OR, RI, WY

Do states require secondary candidates to demonstrate sufficient knowledge in the endorsement area in order to earn an endorsement?

2011
Figure details

Yes. State requires a single-subject test to add an endorsement area.: IN, TN

Partially. State generally requires single-subject tests; however, its policy has significant deficiencies regarding science and/or social studies.: AL, AR, CT, DE, FL, GA, ID, IL, KS, KY, MA, ME, MI, MN, ND, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, SC, SD, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV

No. State does not require a single-subject test to add an endorsement area.: AK, AZ, CA, CO, DC, HI, IA, LA, MD, MO, MS, MT, NC, NE, NH, NM, NV, OR, RI, WY

Research rationale

Research studies have demonstrated the positive impact of teacher content knowledge on student achievement.  For example, see D. Goldhaber, "Everyone's Doing It, But What Does Teacher Testing Tell Us About Teacher Effectiveness?" Journal of Human Resources, vol. XLII no.4 (2007).  See also Harris, D., and Sass, T., "Teacher Training, Teacher Quality and Student Achievement." Teacher Quality Research (2007).Evidence can also be found in White, Pressely, DeAngelis "Leveling up: Narrowing the teacher academic capital gap in Illinois" Illinois Education Research Council (2008); D. Goldhaber and D. Brewer, "Does teacher certification matter? High School Certification Status and Student Achievement." Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. 22: 129-145. (2000); and D. Goldhaber and D. Brewer, "Why Don't Schools and Teachers Seem to Matter? Assessing the impact of Unobservables on Educational Productivity." Journal of Human Resources (1998).