Licensure Reciprocity: Mississippi

Analysis of Mississippi's policies

Mississippi does not support licensure reciprocity for certified teachers from other states.

Mississippi does not make it clear whether it requires applicants to meet its standards regarding licensure testing.

Teachers with comparable out-of-state certificates are eligible for Mississippi's professional certificate. There is no state-mandated recency requirement; however, transcripts are required for all applicants. It is not clear whether the state analyzes transcripts to determine whether a teacher was prepared through a traditional or alternate route or whether additional coursework will be required.

Mississippi is also a participant in the NASDTEC Interstate Agreement; however, the latest iteration of this agreement no longer purports to be a reciprocity agreement among states and thus is no longer included in this analysis.

Citation

Reciprocity License www.mde.k12.ms.us/ed_licensure/reciprocity.html

Recommendations for Mississippi

To uphold standards, require that teachers coming from other states meet testing requirements.
Mississippi should not provide any waivers of its teacher tests unless an applicant can provide evidence of a passing score under its own standards.

Accord the same license to out-of-state alternate route teachers as would be accorded to traditionally prepared teachers.
Mississippi should consider discontinuing its requirement for the submission of transcripts. Transcript analysis is likely to result in additional coursework requirements, even for traditionally prepared teachers; alternate route teachers, on the other hand, almost invariably will have to virtually begin anew, repeating some, most or all of a teacher preparation program in Mississippi.

State response to our analysis

Mississippi asserted that it extends reciprocity to any state as long as it "meets Mississippi license requirements or equivalent requirements as determined by the Mississippi State Board of Education." The state contended that this means all applicants asking for a Mississippi license by reciprocity must show documentation by their degree and test scores that the out-of-state license they obtained meets the state's license standards.

Last word

The wording of the state's requirement is vague as to whether candidates have to simply pass a content test in another state, or whether candidates actually have to earn at least the passing score required by Mississippi.