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Part Time Teaching Licenses: Louisiana

Expanding the Pool of Teachers Policy

Look at National Findings
Goal

The state should offer a license with minimal requirements that allows content experts to teach part time.

Meets goal in part
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2011). Part Time Teaching Licenses: Louisiana results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/LA-Part-Time-Teaching-Licenses-7

Analysis of Louisiana's policies

Louisiana offers the Math for Professionals Certificate as a part-time license. The Math for Professionals Certificate is valid for one year and allows an individual to teach one or more mathematics courses on a part-time basis. The certificate can be renewed on an annual basis.

Candidates for the certificate must have an undergraduate degree with at least 30 credit hours of mathematics coursework, a master's degree in mathematics or science content area, or be able to pass the mathematics content area test.

Candidates are required to complete a district-developed classroom readiness/training program prior to entering the classroom.

Citation

Recommendations for Louisiana

Allow other subject matter experts to teach under a similar certificate.
While Louisiana is commended for offering a license that increases districts' flexibility to staff mathematics courses, the state should consider extending such a license to content experts in other subjects, including other STEM areas, that are frequently hard to staff or may not have high enough enrollment to necessitate a full-time position. 

Require applicants to pass a subject-matter test.
Although Louisiana is recognized for allowing professionals the flexibility to demonstrate their content knowledge on a test, the state should require a subject-matter test of all applicants, including those with 30 credit hours or a master's degree. While the state does require evidence of content knowledge, only a subject-matter test ensures that teachers on the Math for Professionals Certificate know the specific content they will need to teach.

State response to our analysis

Louisiana was helpful in providing NCTQ with the facts necessary for this analysis.

    • Best practice
    • Meets goal
    • Nearly Meets goal
    • Meets goal in part
    • Meets a small part of goal
    • Does not meet goal

  • Louisiana

    Louisiana map
Licensure Reciprocity
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
Research rationale

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" 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 28 (1991), 465-498.

For more on math and science content knowledge, see D. Monk and J.R. King, "Subject Area Preparation of Secondary Mathematics and Science Teachers and Student Achievement," Economics of Education Review 12, no. 2 (1994), 125-145; R. Murnane, "Understanding the Sources of Teaching Competence: Choices, Skills, and the Limits of Training," Teachers College Record 84, no. 3 (1983)

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