Adolescent Literacy: Georgia
Secondary Teacher Preparation Policy
Analysis of Georgia's policies
Informational Texts: Georgia's preparation standards and tests for all middle and secondary school teachers do not address the instructional shifts associated
with college- and career-readiness standards toward building content
knowledge
and vocabulary through careful reading of informational and literary
texts.
Literacy Skills: Standards for all
middle school teachers address incorporating literacy skills and require candidates to do the following:
- Use knowledge of adolescent literacy development
- Apply knowledge of the teaching of reading and writing to adolescents
- Use knowledge of formal and informal literacy assessment strategies in the content areas
- Demonstrate knowledge of how to facilitate all students learning from content area texts.
Recommendations for Georgia
Ensure that middle and secondary school 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.
Georgia should specifically address the instructional shifts toward building content knowledge and vocabulary through increasingly complex informational texts and careful reading of informational and literary texts associated with the state's college- and career-readiness standards for students. The state may consider addressing these shifts either through testing frameworks in tests taken by all middle or secondary teachers regardless of subject area (such as a teaching methods tests), or through teacher preparation standards.
Incorporate literacy skills as an integral part of every subject.
Georgia should ensure that teacher preparation standards include literacy skills and using text to build content knowledge in history/social studies, science, technical subjects and the arts to ensure that secondary school students are capable of accessing varied information about the world around them.
State response to our analysis
Georgia disagreed with NCTQ's analysis of preparation standards regarding the use of informational texts. The state cited that the Georgia Professional Standards Commission Educator Preparation Rule 505-3-.01 requires:
Georgia indicated that the InTASC Model Core Teaching Standards address the instructional shifts referred to in the analysis.
Updated: December 2017
Last word
NCTQ awards credit for specific teacher preparation standards that are incorporated into policy, rather than standards that are simply referenced by name or nested.
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Georgia
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General Teacher Preparation
- Program Entry
- Teacher Shortages and Surpluses
- Program Performance Measures
- Program Reporting Requirements
- Student Teaching/Clinical Practice
- Teaching Methods
Elementary Teacher Preparation
Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Middle School Content Knowledge
- Middle School Licensure Deficiencies
- Adolescent Literacy
- Secondary Content Knowledge
- Secondary Licensure Deficiencies
Special Education Teacher Preparation
Alternate Routes
Hiring
- Requirements for Out-of-State Teachers
- Provisional and Emergency Licensure
- Licensure for Substitute Teachers
- Supporting New Teachers
Teacher and Principal Evaluation
Teacher Compensation
Retaining Effective Teachers
Early Childhood Preparation
How we graded
3C: Adolescent Literary
The state should ensure that all middle and secondary teachers are sufficiently prepared for the ways that college- and career-readiness standards affect instruction in all subject areas. Specifically,
- Middle School Preparation: The state should ensure that all new middle and secondary teachers are prepared to incorporate informational texts of increasing complexity into instruction.
- Secondary Preparation: The state should ensure that all new middle and secondary teachers are prepared to incorporate literacy skills as an integral part of every subject.
One-half of the total goal score is earned based on the following:
- One-half credit: The state will earn one-half of a point if at least one of the two components is "fully addressed" and one is "partially addressed."
- One-quarter credit: The state will earn one-quarter of a point if one of the two components is "fully addressed" or two are "partially addressed."
One-half of the total goal score is earned based on the following:
- One-half credit: The state will earn one-half of a point if at least one of the two components is "fully addressed" and one is "partially addressed."
- One-quarter credit: The state will earn one-quarter of a point if one of the two components is "fully addressed" or two are "partially addressed."
Research rationale
States must ensure that middle school and secondary teacher preparation programs prepare teachers to incorporate complex text into instruction and student practice. These are critical years of schooling when far too many students fall through the cracks.
With that said, college- and career-readiness standards are influencing significant shifts in literacy instruction.
College- and career-readiness standards for K-12 students adopted by nearly all states require from teachers a different focus on literacy integrated into all subject areas.[1] The standards demand that teachers are prepared to bring complex text and academic language into regular use, emphasize the use of evidence from informational and literary texts, and build knowledge and vocabulary through content-rich texts. While most states have not ignored teachers' need for training and professional development related to these instructional shifts, states must also attend to the parallel need to align teacher competencies and requirements for teacher preparation so that new teachers will enter the classroom ready to help students meet the expectations of these standards.
[1] Student Achievement Partners. (2015). Research supporting the Common Core ELA/literacy shifts and standards. Retrieved from https://achievethecore.org/content/upload/Research%20Supporting%20the%20ELA%20Standards%20and%20Shifts%20Final.pdf