STEM (Part-Time) Teaching Licenses: North
Carolina
Hiring Policy
Analysis of North Carolina's policies
Pathway for STEM professionals to teach part-time: North Carolina offers the Lateral Entry License which allows qualified individuals outside of the public education system to become classroom teachers. The state requires candidates to have at least a Bachelor's degree. Candidates must also have a relevant degree or 24 semester hours of coursework in the teaching area or a passing score on a subject matter test and a 2.5 GPA or five years of relevant experience or a passing skill on the Praxis Core Academic Skills Test for Educators, SAT, or ACT and a 3.0 GPA. Lateral Entry Licenses may only be requested by the school district hiring the candidate.
Employment with this certificate is not restricted to teaching part-time, nor is it restricted to teaching only STEM subjects. This license is valid for three years.
Subject-matter test: North Carolina allows a subject matter test as one of the possible options to qualify for the Lateral Entry License.
Induction support and evaluation systems: North Carolina does not explicitly require individual candidates for the Lateral Entry License to have access to induction support or evaluation systems.
Other licensure requirements: North Carolina requires candidates to take coursework prescribed by a higher education institution in order to qualify for licensure advancement to the Professional Educator's Continuing License.
Recommendations for North Carolina
Offer a license that allows content experts to serve as part-time
instructors.
North Carolina should permit individuals with deep subject-area knowledge to
teach a limited number of courses without fulfilling a complete set of
certification requirements. The state should verify content knowledge
through a rigorous test and conduct background checks as appropriate, while
waiving all other licensure requirements. Such a license would 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.
State response to our analysis
North Carolina recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.
Updated: December 2017
-
North Carolina
Select another topic
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.