Middle School Teacher Preparation: South
Carolina

Delivering Well Prepared Teachers Policy

Look at National Findings

Goal

The state should ensure that middle school teachers are sufficiently prepared to teach appropriate grade-level content.

Best Practice

Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2013). Middle School Teacher Preparation: South Carolina results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/SC-Middle-School-Teacher-Preparation-20

Analysis of South Carolina's policies

South Carolina requires middle-level certification (grades 5-8) for middle school teachers. Candidates must complete two areas of concentration with at least 15 semester hours in each area.

All new middle school teachers are required to pass a Praxis II single-subject content test to attain licensure.

Commendably, South Carolina does not offer a K-8 generalist license.

Recommendations for South Carolina

Ensure meaningful content tests.

To ensure meaningful middle school content tests, South Carolina should make certain that its passing scores reflect high levels of performance.

State response to our analysis

South Carolina recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis. The state added that in July 2012, the Board approved higher certification cut-scores for the required middle-level certification tests in math, science, social studies and language arts. Some tests are being regenerated by ETS, and the Board has asked for an update on candidate performance with an eye toward adjusting the required cut-scores. South Carolina also noted that regenerated tests were approved in June 2013 and are aligned with Common Core State Standards/College and Career Readiness Standards.

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Pensions

Research rationale

States must differentiate middle school teacher preparation from that of elementary teachers.

Middle school grades are critical years of schooling. It is in these years that far too many students fall through the cracks. However, requirements for the preparation and licensure of middle school teachers are among the weakest state policies. Too many states fail to distinguish the knowledge and skills needed by middle school teachers from those needed by an elementary teacher. Whether teaching a single subject in a departmentalized setting or teaching multiple subjects in a self-contained setting, middle school teachers must be able to teach significantly more advanced content than elementary teachers do. The notion that someone should be identically prepared to teach first grade or eighth grade mathematics seems ridiculous, but states that license teachers on a K-8 generalist certificate essentially endorse this idea.

Approved programs should prepare middle school teacher candidates to be qualified to teach two subject areas.

Since current federal law requires most aspiring middle school teachers to have a major or pass a test in each teaching field, the law would appear to preclude them from teaching more than one subject. However, middle school teacher candidates could instead earn two subject-area minors, gaining sufficient knowledge to pass state licensing tests and be highly qualified in both subjects. This policy would increase schools' staffing flexibility, especially since teachers seem to show little interest in taking tests to earn highly qualified teaching status in a second subject once they are in the classroom. This only applies to middle school teachers who intend to teach multiple subjects. States must ensure that middle school teachers licensed only to teach one subject area have a strong academic background in that area.

Middle School Teacher Preparation: Supporting Research

A report published by the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (NMAP) concludes that a teacher's knowledge of math makes a difference in student achievement. U.S. Department of Education. Foundations for Success: The Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education (2008).

For additional research on the importance of subject matter knowledge, see T. Dee and S. Cohodes, "Out-of-Field Teachers and Student Achievement: Evidence from Matched-Pairs Comparisons." Public Finance Review, Volume 36, No. 1, January 2008, pp. 7-32; B. Chaney, "Student outcomes and the professional preparation of eighth-grade teachers in science and mathematics," in NSF/NELS:88 Teacher transcript analysis, 1995, ERIC, ED389530, 112 p.; H. Wenglinsky, How Teaching Matters: Bringing the Classroom Back Into Discussions of Teacher Quality (Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 2000).

For information on the "ceiling effect," see D. Goldhaber and D. Brewer, "When should we reward degrees for teachers?" in Phi Delta Kappan, Volume 80, No. 2, October 1998, pp. 134, 136-138.

State Teacher Policy