Licensure Advancement: South Carolina
Identifying Effective Teachers Policy
Analysis of South Carolina's policies
South Carolina's requirements for licensure advancement and renewal are not based on evidence of teacher effectiveness.
After successfully completing the Initial Certificate, teachers in South Carolina may advance to the bachelor's degree level, the first of five successive levels within its Professional Certificate, if they complete the induction program, any ancillary requirements and the formal evaluation. The remaining successive levels include a bachelor's degree plus 18 hours, a master's degree, a master's degree plus 30 hours and a doctorate degree.
Each level within the Professional Certificate is renewable, so teachers are not necessarily required to advance past the bachelor's degree level; however, those who do not earn a master's degree must earn a minimum of 60 renewal credits during each five-year validity period.
South Carolina does not include evidence of effectiveness as a factor in the renewal of a professional license. South Carolina teachers must renew their licenses every five years by completing 120 renewal credits made up mostly of professional development requirements.
Recommendations for South Carolina
Require evidence of effectiveness as a part of teacher licensing policy. South Carolina should require evidence of teacher effectiveness to be a factor in determining whether teachers can renew their licenses or advance to a higher-level license.
Discontinue license requirements with no direct connection to classroom effectiveness. While targeted requirements may potentially expand teacher knowledge and improve teacher practice, South Carolina's general, nonspecific credit hour coursework requirements for license advancement and renewal merely call for teachers to complete a certain amount of seat time. These requirements do not correlate with teacher effectiveness.
End requirement tying teacher advancement to master's degrees. South Carolina should remove its mandate that teachers obtain a master's degree for license advancement. Research is conclusive and emphatic that master's degrees do not have any significant correlation to classroom performance. Rather, advancement should be based on evidence of teacher effectiveness.
State response to our analysis
South Carolina noted that under the ESEA waiver Principle 3, student achievement will determine a portion of the teacher's effectiveness rating.
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South Carolina
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
- Admission into Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Mathematics
- Middle School Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science
- Special Education Teacher Preparation
- Assessing Professional Knowledge
- Student Teaching
- Teacher Preparation Program Accountability
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
- State Data Systems
- Evaluation of Effectiveness
- Frequency of Evaluations
- Tenure
- Licensure Advancement
- Equitable Distribution
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
Pensions
Research rationale
The reason for probationary licensure should be to determine teacher effectiveness.
Most states grant new teachers a probationary license that must later be converted to an advanced or professional license. A probationary period is sound policy as it provides an opportunity to determine whether individuals merit professional licensure. However, very few states require any determination of teacher performance or effectiveness in deciding whether a teacher will advance from the probationary license. Instead, states generally require probationary teachers to fulfill a set of requirements to receive advanced certification. Thus, ending the probationary period is based on whether a checklist has been completed rather than on teacher performance and effectiveness.
Most state requirements for achieving professional certification have not been shown to affect teacher effectiveness.
Unfortunately, not only do most states fail to connect advanced certification to actual evidence of teacher effectiveness, but also the requirements teachers must most often meet are not even related to teacher effectiveness. The most common requirement for professional licensure is completion of additional coursework, often resulting in a master's degree. Requiring teachers to obtain additional training in their teaching area would be meaningful; however, the requirements are usually vague, allowing the teacher to fulfill coursework requirements from long menus that include areas having no connection or use to the teacher in the classroom. The research evidence on requiring a master's degree is quite conclusive: These degrees have not been shown to make teachers more effective. This is likely due in no small part to the fact that teachers generally do not attain master's degrees in their subject areas. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, less than one-fourth of secondary teachers' master's degrees are in their subject area, and only 7 percent of elementary teachers' master's degrees are in an academic subject.
In addition to their dubious value, these requirements may also serve as a disincentive to teacher retention. Talented probationary teachers may be unwilling to invest time and resources in more education coursework. Further, they may well pursue advanced degrees that facilitate leaving teaching.
Licensure Advancement: Supporting Research
For a meta-analysis of the research on the relationship between advanced degrees and teacher effectiveness, see M. Ozdemir and W. Stevenson, "The Impact of Teachers' Advanced Degrees on Student Learning" which has been published as an appendix in Arizona's Race to the Top: What Will It Take to Compete? (NCTQ, 2009).
Studies in the analysis include: Clotfelter, C. T., Ladd, H. F., & Vigdor, J. L., 2004, Teacher sorting, teacher shopping, and the assessment of teacher effectiveness, which is the previous draft of the current paper entitled C. Clotfelter, H. Ladd, and J. Vigdor, Teacher-student matching and the assessment of teacher effectiveness, January 2006 from the National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 11936, web site: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11936; C. Clotfelter, H. Ladd, and J. Vigdor, How and why do teacher credentials matter for student achievement?, January 2007 from the NBER, Working Paper 12828, web site: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12828. R. Ehrenberg and D. Brewer, Do school and teacher characteristics matter? Evidence from high school and beyond. Economics of Education Review, Volume 13, No. 1, March 1994, pp. 1-17; D. Goldhaber and E. Anthony, Can teacher quality be effectively assessed? National board certification as a signal of effective teaching. Review of Economics and Statistics, Volume 89, No, 1, February 2007, pp. 134-150; D. Goldhaber and D. Brewer, Why don't schools and teachers seem to matter? Assessing the impact of unobservables on educational productivity. The Journal of Human Resources, Volume 32, No. 3, Summer 1997, pp. 505-523; D. Goldhaber and D. Brewer, Does teacher certification matter? High school teacher certification status and student achievement. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Volume 22, No. 2, June 20, 2000, pp. 129-145; E. Hanushek, J. Kain, D. O'Brien, and S. Rivkin, (2005) The market for teacher quality. Retrieved February 2005 from the National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 11154 from web site: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11154.pdf; E. Hanushek, J. Kain, and S. Rivkin, Teachers, schools, and academic achievement. Retrieved August 1998 from the National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 6691 from web site: http://www.nber.org/papers/w6691.pdf; D. Harris and T. Sass, Value-added models and the measurement of teacher quality. Unpublished paper, Florida State University; D. Harris and T. Sass, What makes for a good teacher and who can tell?, Calder Institute, September 2009, Working Paper 30; Harris, D. and T. Sass, Teacher training, teacher quality, and student achievement; Calder Institute, March 2007, Working Paper 3; D. Harris and T. Sass, The effects of NBPTS-certified teachers on student achievement, Calder Institute, March 2007, Working Paper No. 4; C. Jepsen, Teacher characteristics and student achievement: Evidence from teacher surveys. Journal of Urban Economics, Volume 57, No. 2, March 2005, pp. 302-319; 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; J. Riordan, Is There a Relationship Between No Child Left Behind Indicators of Teacher Quality and The Cognitive and Social Development of Early Elementary Students? April 8, 2006, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association, San Francisco, CA; B. Schneider, Further evidence of school effects, Journal of Educational Research, Volume 78, No. 6, Jul.-Aug., 1985, pp. 351-356.
For evidence on the lack of correlation between education coursework and teacher effectiveness, see M. Allen, "Eight Questions on Teacher Preparation: What Does the Research Say?" Education Commission of the States, 2003 at: http://www.ecs.org/html/educationIssues/teachingquality/tpreport/home/summary.pdf.