Middle School Teacher Preparation : Tennessee

Analysis of Tennessee's policies

Tennessee requires middle grades certification (grades 4-8) for all middle school teachers. Candidates must earn one of the following: an interdisciplinary major that includes study in English, mathematics, science and social studies; an interdisciplinary major in two disciplines from the arts and sciences; or a major in a single discipline from the arts and sciences with an area of emphasis in at least one additional discipline outside the major.

All new middle school teachers in Tennessee are also required to pass a Praxis II subject-matter test to attain licensure. However, candidates are only required to pass the general middle school content test, in which subscores are not provided; therefore, there is no assurance that these middle school teachers will have sufficient knowledge in each subject they teach.

Citation

Tennessee Licensure Standards and Induction Guidelines http://www.tn.gov/education/lic/doc/accttchlicstds.pdf www.ets.org/praxis

Recommendations for Tennessee

Require subject-matter testing for middle school teacher candidates.
Tennessee is commended for not allowing middle school teachers to teach on a K-8 generalist license. However, Tennessee should require subject-matter testing for all middle school teacher candidates in every core academic area they intend to teach, as a condition of initial licensure. 

Differentiate between single and multiple subject middle school teachers.
Tennessee may also want to consider only requiring two minors for middle school teachers who intend to teach multiple subjects, rather than two majors, or a major and a minor.

State response to our analysis

Tennessee recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.