STEM (Part-Time) Teaching Licenses: Wisconsin
Hiring Policy
Analysis of Wisconsin's policies
Pathway for STEM professionals to teach part-time: Wisconsin offers a Professional Teaching Permit to allow professional with content expertise to teach in Wisconsin classrooms. The Professional Teaching Permit may be issued to individuals with a bachelor's degree in engineering, music, art, foreign language, computer science, mathematics or science. The applicant must have at least five years of experience as a professional in the degree subject area. Candidates for this permit must enroll in a 100-hour alternative teacher training program. The state requires school districts to "ensure that no regularly licensed teacher is removed from his or her position as a result of the employment" of someone with this permit.
Employment with this certificate is not restricted to teaching part-time, nor is it restricted to teaching only STEM subjects, although there is some focus on STEM in the requirements. This permit is valid for two years and may be renewed.
Subject-matter test: Wisconsin requires applicants for the Professional Teaching Permit to demonstrate subject-area competency through a subject-matter exam.
Induction support and evaluation systems: Wisconsin requires districts to provide a supervising teacher who holds a Wisconsin license who is available to coordinate, direct, and inspect the practice of the person holding the Professional Teaching Permit.
Other licensure requirements: Wisconsin requires candidates for a Professional Teaching Permit to complete a background check.
Recommendations for Wisconsin
Offer a license that allows content experts to serve as part-time instructors.
It is unclear whether the Professional Teaching Permit 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 that may be the intent of this 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.
State response to our analysis
Wisconsin was helpful in providing NCTQ with facts that enhanced this analysis.
The state indicated that a candidate for the License Based on Equivalency Pathwayis issued a full Initial Educator (IE) or Professional Educator (PE) license and follows the same advancement and renewal criteria as all Wisconsin IEs or PEs.
The Professional Teaching Permit is issued for two years and can be renewed for five-year increments.
Licensure in both of these pathways allows an educator to teach any amount of time in the subject of the license they are issued.
Updated: December 2017
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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.