Licensure Deficiencies: Nebraska

Analysis of Nebraska's policies

Content Test Requirements: In Nebraska, early childhood education teachers may either earn a PreK-3 and an elementary education K-6 endorsement, or they may earn an Early Childhood Education Inclusive endorsement, which means they are licensed to teach elementary grades through grade 3. Candidates who complete the K-6 endorsement are required to pass the same Praxis II test Elementary Education: Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment (5017) as elementary candidates, in addition to the Education of Young Children (5024) test. Neither of these tests is a content test. Candidates applying for the Early Childhood Inclusive endorsement are only required to take the Education of Young Children test, which is not a content test.

Scientifically Based Reading Instruction: As a condition of initial licensure, Nebraska does not require its early childhood candidates to pass a reading test addressing the five instructional components of scientifically based reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

Informational Texts: The Elementary Education test incorporates some of the instructional shifts in the use of text associated with college- and career-readiness standards for students. The Education of Young Children test incorporates some of these instructional shifts as well. However, the test components that address these new standards are based on revised tests that incorporate college- and career-readiness standards, and candidates can choose between these versions and older test versions that do not address these standards.

Literacy Skills: The Education of Young Children test vaguely addresses literacy skills in other core areas by requiring a teacher to know "strategies to integrate literacy into the content areas (e.g., mathematics, social studies, science, and the arts)." The elementary test requires that a teacher "knows how to make connections within reading and language arts topics, across other disciplines, and in real-world contexts." However, these test standards are not sufficient to ensure that teachers include literacy skills across the core content areas.

Struggling Readers: Nebraska's elementary content test also only indirectly addresses struggling readers by requiring that a teacher "knows how to design and use formative assessments to adjust instruction." With regard to struggling readers, the Education of Young Children test indirectly addresses the topic by requiring that a teacher "knows how to collect, analyze and interpret observation and assessment results to inform instructional decision making."

Citation

Praxis Test Requirement http://www.education.ne.gov/EducatorPrep/IHE/SkillsTesting/ContentTestScores.pdf 92 NAC 24.006.16 and .17

Recommendations for Nebraska

Require early childhood teacher candidates to pass a subject-matter test designed to ensure sufficient content knowledge of all subjects.
Nebraska should require all early childhood teacher candidates who teach the elementary grades to pass a content test with separate passing scores for each of the core subject areas, including reading/language arts, mathematics, science and social studies. Although the state requires appropriate testing for elementary teachers teaching on an elementary certificate, Nebraska creates a significant loophole by not holding early childhood teachers who teach elementary grades to the same requirements. The state's current practice of allowing teachers up through grade 3 to teach without ever having passed a content test is particularly worrisome and should be amended.

Require all teacher candidates who teach elementary grades to pass a rigorous assessment in the science of reading instruction.
Nebraska should require a rigorous reading assessment tool to ensure that its early childhood candidates are adequately prepared in the science of reading instruction before entering the classroom. The assessment should clearly test knowledge and skills related to the science of reading and address all five instructional components of scientifically based reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. If the test is combined with an assessment that also tests general pedagogy or elementary content, it should report a subscore for the science of reading specifically. Early childhood teachers who do not possess the minimum knowledge in this area should not be eligible for licensure.
 
Ensure that early childhood teachers are prepared to meet the instructional requirements of college- and career-readiness standards for students.

Incorporate informational text of increasing complexity into classroom instruction. 
Although Nebraska's Praxis II Education of Young Children (5024) assessment addresses some knowledge of informational texts, the framework does not appear to capture the major instructional shifts of college- and career-readiness standards. However, the state is encouraged to strengthen its teacher preparation requirements and ensure that all candidates who teach the elementary grades have the ability to address the use of informational texts as well as to incorporate complex informational texts into classroom instruction.

Incorporate literacy skills as an integral part of every subject.
To ensure that elementary students are capable of accessing varied information about the world around them, Nebraska should also—either through testing frameworks or teacher standards—include literacy skills and using text to build content knowledge in history/social studies, science, technical subjects and the arts.

Support struggling readers.
Nebraska should articulate more specific requirements ensuring that all candidates who teach elementary grades are prepared to intervene and support students who are struggling. The early elementary grades are an especially important time to address reading deficiencies before students fall behind.

State response to our analysis

Nebraska recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis. However, the state strongly asserted that it continues to disagree with NCTQ's analysis that does not recognize Nebraska's Guidelines to which all institutions are held accountable. Based on the NCTQ
standard, the criteria used, and the standards for acceptable documentation, Nebraska concedes that the analysis is factually accurate.

Updated: December 2017

Last word

Despite Nebraska's indication that all teacher preparation programs are held accountable to the Rule 24 guidelines, the cover of the document explicitly states that the guidelines "are suggestions only," and that program approval is dependent only on criteria in Rule 24 itself, not the guidelines. This is the basis for NCTQ's exclusion of the guidelines from the analysis.