STEM (Part-Time) Teaching Licenses:
Mississippi
Hiring Policy
Analysis of Mississippi's policies
Pathway for STEM Professionals to Teach Part-Time: Mississippi offers the Expert Citizen Special License. This
one-year license is granted to local business or other professional personnel
to offer specialized or technical courses. This license can be used to teach a maximum of three periods per teaching day. Candidates for this license must submit "a transcript and/or other documents of education and related experience which substantiate preparation for the subject to be taught."
Employment with this license is not restricted to teaching only STEM subjects.
Subject-Matter Test: Mississippi does not require candidates to pass a subject-matter exam.
Induction Support and Evaluation Systems: Mississippi does not explicitly require individuals with an Expert Citizen Special License to have access to induction support or evaluation systems.
Other Licensure Requirements: Mississippi does not set any other requirements for candidates for the Expert Citizen Special License.
Recommendations for Mississippi
Offer a license that allows content experts to serve as part-time
instructors.
It is unclear whether the Expert Citizen Special License serves as a vehicle
for individuals with deep subject-area knowledge to teach a limited number of
courses without fulfilling a complete set of certification requirements. It
appears that this may be the intent of the license; however, state policy does
not describe the conditions of employment, whether it is for part-time or
full-time teaching or requirements that candidates must fulfill.
Require applicants to pass a subject-matter test.
The Expert Citizen Special License could increase districts' flexibility to
staff certain subjects, including many STEM areas, that are frequently hard to
staff or may not have high enough enrollment to necessitate a full-time
position. The state should require a subject-matter test to ensure expertise in
a content area. Only a subject-matter test ensures that teachers on the Expert
Citizen license know the specific content they will need to teach.
State response to our analysis
Mississippi was helpful in providing NCTQ with facts that enhanced this analysis.
Updated: December 2017
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General Teacher Preparation
- Program Entry
- Teacher Shortages and Surpluses
- Program Performance Measures
- Program Reporting Requirements
- Student Teaching/Clinical Practice
- Teaching Methods
Elementary Teacher Preparation
Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Middle School Content Knowledge
- Middle School Licensure Deficiencies
- Adolescent Literacy
- Secondary Content Knowledge
- Secondary Licensure Deficiencies
Special Education Teacher Preparation
Alternate Routes
Hiring
- Requirements for Out-of-State Teachers
- Provisional and Emergency Licensure
- Licensure for Substitute Teachers
- Supporting New Teachers
Teacher and Principal Evaluation
Teacher Compensation
Retaining Effective Teachers
Early Childhood Preparation
How we graded
Research rationale
Part-time licenses
can help alleviate severe shortages, especially in STEM subjects.
Some of the subject areas in which states face the greatest
teacher shortages are also areas that require the deepest subject-matter
expertise. Staffing shortages are
further exacerbated because schools or districts may not have high enough
enrollments to necessitate full-time positions.
Part-time licenses can be a creative mechanism to get content experts to
teach a limited number of courses. Of
course, a fully licensed teacher is best, but when that isn't an option, a
part-time license allows students to benefit from content experts—individuals
who are not interested in a full-time teaching position and are thus unlikely to
pursue traditional or alternative certification. States should limit requirements for part-time licenses to
those that verify subject-matter knowledge and address public safety, such as
background checks.
Part-Time Teaching Licenses: Supporting Research
The origin of this goal is the effort to find
creative solutions to the STEM crisis. While teaching waivers are not typically
used this way, teaching waivers could be used to allow competent
professionals from outside of education to be hired as part-time instructors to
teach courses such as Advanced Placement chemistry or calculus as long as the
instructor demonstrates content knowledge on a rigorous test. See NCTQ, "Tackling the STEM Crisis: Five steps your state can take to improve the quality and quantity of its K-12 math and science teachers", at: http://www.nctq.org/p/docs/nctq_nmsi_stem_initiative.pdf.
For
the importance of teachers' general academic ability, see R. Ferguson,
"Paying for Public Education: New Evidence on How and Why Money
Matters," Harvard Journal on Legislation,Volume 28, Summer 1991, pp. 465-498.
For
more on math and science content knowledge, see D. Monk, "Subject Area Preparation of Secondary Mathematics and Science Teachers and Student Achievement," Economics of Education Review, Volume 13, No. 2, June 1994, pp. 125-145; R. Murnane, "Understanding the Sources of Teaching Competence: Choices, Skills, and the Limits of Training," Teachers
College Record, Volume 84, No. 3, 1983, pp. 564-569.