Revising Teacher Licensing Regulations to Advance Education Reform in...

Sandra L. Stotsky is Senior Associate Commissioner for Standards, AcademicReview, and Research at the Massachusetts Department of Education.

Revising Teacher LicensingRegulations to Advance Education

Reform in MassachusettsSandra L. Stotsky

Introduction

The guiding principle of education reform is increased studentlearning, but education reform is unlikely to succeed ifelementary and middle school teachers do not have sufficientacademic preparation in specific subject areas to teach to thestandards we desire their students to achieve. An examination ofthe academic coursework that prospective elementary andmiddle school teachers are apt to take in the undergraduateyears makes it clear that their academic preparation needs to bestrengthened in very specific ways. The Massachusetts Depart-ment of Education sought to address this need in a revision of itsteacher licensing regulations this past year by including specificundergraduate academic coursework and testing requirements.This paper chronicles our efforts to initiate and implementreforms in teacher preparation, from assessment of the originsand scope of the problem to solutions based on maintaining highstandards for students and teachers.

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Background

In 1993, the Massachusetts state legislature passed the EducationReform Act, which provided for the development of a system ofstandards and accountability measures to improve studentlearning. For students, this system was to take the form ofPreK–12 standards (called the Massachusetts CurriculumFrameworks) and accountability measures (collectively knownas the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, orMCAS). For school districts, this system was to take the form ofschool and school district standards and accountability measuresapplied through an established schedule of inspections andthrough ratings based on the inspections and student assessmentresults.

But it was recognized that education reform could not focus onlyon the schools, their curricula, and student assessment, and thusthe Education Reform Act of 1993 also provided for the develop-ment of new standards and accountability measures in teachertraining. Regulations in place since 1994 have requiredprospective teachers to graduate with a major in the arts orsciences appropriate to the instructional field—rather than ineducation—to become initially certified. Teachers may alsograduate with a second major in education, something manycolleges require of students who are seeking a teaching license,but by law, graduates of teacher preparation programs musthave a bachelor’s degree in the arts or sciences. The law did notrequire teachers to take tests of pedagogical knowledge orperformance assessments. The Education Reform Act, however,mandates that prospective teachers pass a test of reading andwriting skills and a test of subject matter knowledge for thecertificate sought. Passage of these tests, which are now knownas the Massachusetts Educator Certification Tests™, is required

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for all candidates applying for their first teaching certificate inany field of education in Massachusetts.1

Standards and Assessments for PreK–12 Students

The Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks

As a first step toward implementation of the student reformslegislated by the Education Reform Act, standards documentswere developed in five major subjects: science and technology/engineering (1995), mathematics (1995), English language arts/reading (1997), foreign languages (1998), and history and socialscience (1998). These standards were reviewed by hundredsof Massachusetts educators. Revisions to these standardsdocuments have been ongoing, with revised versions of themathematics, English language arts/reading, and science andtechnology/engineering curriculum frameworks all approved bythe Board of Education in 2000 and the revised version ofthe history and social science curriculum framework expectedin 2001.

A major feature of the revisions has been the introduction ofchoice in assessment and a change in the type of assessmentprovided at the secondary school level. In mathematics, twoassessment options are now being planned for grade 8: one is atest based on “integrated” content strands and the other an end-of-course test for algebra 1. In science, end-of-course, discipline-specific tests are being planned for each of the four sciencestypically taught at the high school level (i.e., biology, chemistry,physics, and earth/space science); an “integrated” science test

1 Effective October 2001, the title of the educator licensure testing program will changefrom Massachusetts Educator Certification Tests™ to Massachusetts Tests for EducatorLicensure™.

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covering two years of “integrated” science is being planned aswell. Students may select the test they wish to take, dependingon the science courses they have chosen to take in grades 9, 10,and 11. An end-of-course test is also being planned in U.S.history for the high school level.

Overall, teachers and administrators have welcomed theseassessment options and changes in test type; in general, theyprefer end-of-course assessments to tests covering more than oneyear of coursework. They rightly judge that there is clearerteacher accountability for student learning in the results of a testfocusing chiefly on a one-year course.

The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System

Another step in the implementation of the Education Reform Actwas the development of assessments for students in grades 4, 8,and 10. The results of the first three years of student assessmentunder the MCAS (1998 to 2000) have been sobering and have hadclear implications for teacher training. Although there has beenan increase in the number of students performing at a higherlevel in the 2000 and 2001 tests, large numbers of students arefailing the tests at all grade levels. As we all know, there aremany reasons why students do not do well in school, amongthem such obvious factors as erratic school attendance, limitedreading ability, or limited fluency in English. But it is also clearthat there are teachers, especially in the elementary and middleschool, who lack an adequate academic background to teach tothe high standards embedded in the Massachusetts CurriculumFrameworks, especially in mathematics, science, and history.This is why our approach to education reform focuses not onlyon student assessment but also on teacher testing.


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Why Too Many Elementary and Middle School TeachersHave a Weak Academic Background

Most elementary and middle school teachers in Massachusettsare prepared in undergraduate, not graduate, programs. By law,they must have an arts or sciences degree. Unfortunately, this isnot enough. Because of weak academic subject-area require-ments and broad general education requirements at manyteacher preparation programs, graduating teachers are ofteninadequately prepared to teach at the elementary and middleschool levels.

Academic Coursework Requirements

Research shows that the majority of elementary teachers do notchoose to major in one of the subjects they will teach in grades 1to 6 (i.e., English, history, geography, government/civics,mathematics, and science). As for middle school teachers, thosewho choose to major in one of the core subjects taught in grades5, 6, 7, and 8 (again, these are English, history, geography,government/civics, mathematics, and science) and obtain alicense to teach that subject in the middle school clearly have hadsufficient academic coursework in their discipline. The problemslie in the training of those who have chosen to obtain a middleschool generalist license, as it is called in Massachusetts. Underthe regulations in effect since 1994, candidates for the generalistlicense have been required to complete a minimum of only 24semester hours across a range of academic disciplines (includingmore than those listed above), which may or may not overlapwith the requirements they must fulfill for a major in the arts orsciences. And yet, with a generalist license, these individuals arecertified, and supposedly prepared, to teach all subjects in self-contained classrooms in grades 5–8.

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General Education Requirements

Because general education or core distribution requirements areoften inconsistent across colleges, unclear, or excessively broad,it is quite possible that few prospective elementary teachers takeeven lower-level courses in U.S. history, European history, otherworld history, American literature, British literature, other worldliterature, composition, economics, geography, and U.S.government. They are also unlikely to have taken one ormore science laboratory courses and the mathematics andnon-laboratory science courses appropriate for an elementaryteacher. Similarly, it is quite possible that few prospectivemiddle school generalist teachers have taken upper-level coursesin U.S. history, European history, other world history, Americanliterature, British literature, other world literature, composition,economics, geography, and U.S. government, as well as one ormore science laboratory courses and mathematics and non-laboratory science courses in the arts and sciences. Moreover,because many colleges also require an education major (or minorfor middle school teachers), the number of courses under-graduates can take in their junior and senior years outside theirarts or sciences major is even more limited.

Other Factors in Middle School Teacher Preparation

Another problem is that many middle school teachers actuallyhold only elementary licenses—because they teach grades 5 and6 and these are often included in a middle school. Since Massa-chusetts teachers may legally teach outside their license field for20 percent of their time, some of these middle school teacherswith elementary licenses could be teaching students in grades 7and 8. Further, large numbers of middle school teachers arecertified elementary school teachers who have added the middleschool level to their license. Academic requirements for post-


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baccalaureate programs preparing teachers for a middle schoolgeneralist license are unclear and inconsistent across colleges.

Standards and Assessments for Prospective Teachers

Recognizing that many elementary and middle school teachersin Massachusetts have had weak academic backgrounds—andthat in many cases this lack of preparation is because they havenot been required in their undergraduate programs to takesufficient coursework in the subjects they are expected to teach—is only half the battle. To ensure that only qualified individualswith appropriate subject matter knowledge become certified toteach, the Education Reform Act mandated that all prospectiveteachers take and pass a test of reading and writing skills and atest of the subject area corresponding to the license sought.

Testing Requirements

The educator licensure tests in Massachusetts, which includeboth the Communication and Literacy Skills Test and tests inapproximately 40 different subject areas, were developedbetween 1995 and 1998 and administered for the first time inApril 1998. The results of these tests were also sobering: a largenumber of candidates failed one or both tests. This led the Boardof Education to formulate a policy that puts on probation teachertraining programs whose student pass rate falls below 80 percentfor several successive years. These accountability measures havebeen reflected at the national level by the establishment of anaccountability system for higher education (in Title II, Section207 of the Higher Education Act) based on state pass rates.

One might expect that the existence of a new state teachertest for prospective elementary teachers—and the education-program accountability measures that go along with the test—

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would provide teacher training programs with enough incentiveto compel their students to take adequate academic courseworkin all necessary subjects. This is not the case. The present four-hour teacher test of subject matter knowledge consists of onlyabout 80 multiple-choice items and two open-response itemsrequiring a written response. These few items must assess all themajor academic subjects that elementary or middle schoolteachers teach, as well as the domains of reading/language arts,the arts, physical education, and child development (for theElementary test) or the arts, physical education, and adolescentdevelopment (for the generalist Middle School test). The tests areclearly not long enough to test in adequate depth the majorsubjects that we expect elementary and middle school teachers tobe able to teach. Therefore, to increase the incentive toMassachusetts colleges and universities to strengthen theirteacher training programs and to upgrade their admissioncriteria, the Department of Education is also using teacherlicensing regulations to ensure that prospective teachers havestronger academic backgrounds than they now have in thesubjects they teach.

Licensing Requirements

In the summer of 1999, Commissioner of Education DavidDriscoll and the Massachusetts Board of Education called uponDepartment of Education staff under my direction to reviseexisting regulations on teacher licensing and approval criteria forteacher preparation programs. One major goal in revising theseregulations was to strengthen the subject matter knowledgerequired for each license to ensure that teachers are prepared toteach to the student learning standards in the MassachusettsCurriculum Frameworks. A second major goal, and it will be


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clear in a moment why this was necessary, was to spell out,wherever possible, requirements indicating desired academiccoursework for a particular license.

Undergraduate teacher training programs must do two differentthings to produce graduates who are well-prepared teachers, oneof which is completely under their control, one of which is not.Not only must teacher training programs provide appropriatepedagogical coursework addressing the academic contentacquired by the undergraduate students who intend to becometeachers of that content area, they must also ensure thatprospective teachers have taken, or are taking, the appropriatecoursework in the arts and sciences. The programs’ respon-sibilities are much easier to fulfill with respect to those whobecome teachers in secondary schools, since the requirements fora major in the arts and sciences generally provide students whomajor in a particular subject with sufficient academic back-ground to teach its content in the secondary school. And one cannormally expect an undergraduate student who wishes to teach,say, English or biology, to choose to major in English or biology.However, as we have seen, the situation is quite different for theprospective elementary teacher. It may also be quite different forthe undergraduate student who wishes to teach in the middleschool, which is why the new teacher licensing regulations are soimportant.

How Massachusetts Revised Its Teacher LicensingRegulations

At its November 2000 meeting, the Board of Educationunanimously approved a new set of guidelines called theRegulations for Educator Licensure and Preparation Program

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Approval. For undergraduates seeking an elementary license, wenow require:

at least 36 semester hours in upper and lower arts andsciences coursework covering composition; Americanliterature; world literature, including British literature;U.S. history from colonial times to the present; worldhistory, including European history, from ancient time tothe present; geography; economics; U.S. government,including founding documents; child development;science laboratory work; and mathematics and sciencecoursework appropriate for the elementary schoolteacher. Some of this coursework might also counttoward the required arts or sciences major or generaleducation requirements.2

For undergraduates seeking a middle school license, we nowspecify:

academic concentrations of a minimum of 24 semesterhours in each of two subjects selected from English,history, mathematics, and science OR 36 semester hoursin an integrated mathematics/science or integratedEnglish/history program of studies. This does notexclude the possibility of obtaining a general sciencelicense or single subject licenses for grades 5–8.3

The first option for undergraduates seeking a middle schoollicense (academic concentrations of a minimum of 24 semesterhours in each of two selected subjects) is similar to North

2 See Appendix A for the list of topics assessed on the test of subject matter knowledgefor the elementary license.

3 See Appendix B for the list of topics assessed on the test of subject matter knowledgefor the middle school generalist license.


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Carolina’s current requirements for a middle school license,which according to a recent Education Week article are among thestrongest in the country. The second option reflects our judg-ment that what is needed at a minimum in the middle schooltoday are science and mathematics teachers who have takenenough science and mathematics courses for their arts andsciences degree to cover the science and mathematics contenttaught in the middle school. An undergraduate studentcompleting the requirements for a full science or mathematicsmajor today is unlikely to want to teach middle school.

Concluding Remarks

As a growing body of research indicates, the chief instructionalvariable related to improved student learning is teacher knowl-edge of subject matter and verbal/academic skills. Massachu-setts hopes to tackle the issue of teacher underpreparedness headon through its newly adopted regimen of standards andassessment for both students and teachers. Although there hasbeen some dissatisfaction with varying features of the studentassessments, and with their link to future high school graduationrequirements for the class of 2003, support for state standardsand the MCAS remains high.

There is widespread public concern and academic agreement,however, that the academic knowledge typical elementary andmiddle school teachers bring to their teaching of the majorsubjects in the school curriculum is insufficient for new, higherstudent standards. Enormous amounts of money are spent eachyear on professional development for these teachers in all thesubject areas they teach. In fact, the National Science Foundationhas targeted middle school mathematics and science teaching asthe educational level most in need of professional development.

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It is in response to this kind of evidence that Massachusetts hassought to prepare candidates for the elementary and middleschool licenses who are able to address the learning standards inits PreK–8 curriculum frameworks—without requiring them tomajor in one or more of the chief subjects they teach in theelementary and middle school. By means of the requirementsspelled out in our new regulations, we hope to prepare futureelementary and middle school teachers who:

1. know much more than the students they teach, especially ingrades 6, 7, and 8;

2. can challenge the most able students, especially in grades 6,7, and 8, rather than feel intimidated by them and thus workto deter the flight from public to private schools of high-achieving children; and

3. can improve the learning of all students better than currentlytrained elementary and middle school teachers do, becausethe research shows that mathematics teachers with strongacademic backgrounds in mathematics improve the learningof all populations of students better than teachers withoutthis background.


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References

The following research shows relationships between studentlearning and teacher verbal abilities, skills, and/or subject matterknowledge.

Ehrenberg, R., & Brewer, D. (1994). Do school and teachercharacteristics matter? Economics of Education Review, 13:1.The authors report that teachers with higher test scores tendto increase the learning of their students more than teacherswith lower scores.

Ehrenberg, R., & Brewer, D. (1995, June). Did teachers’ verbalability and race matter in the 1960s? Coleman revisited.Economics of Education Review, 7:3.

Ferguson, R. (1991). Paying for public education: New evidenceon how and why money matters. Harvard Journal onLegislation, 28:465. The author states that “evidencepresented here shows that differences in the quality ofschooling account for between one quarter and one third ofthe variation among Texas school districts in students’ scoreson statewide standardized reading exams. Most of theestimated effect of schooling is due to a single measure ofteacher quality: teachers’ performances on a statewiderecertification exam required of all Texas teachers in 1986.”

Ferguson, R., & Ladd, H. (1996). How and why money matters:An analysis of Alabama schools. In H. Ladd (Ed.),Holding schools accountable: Performance-based reform ineducation. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution.According to the authors, “the skills of teachers as measuredby their test scores (on the ACT) exert consistently strongand positive effects on student learning. . . . Additionaleducation for teachers, as measured by the proportion of

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teachers with master’s degrees, also appears to increasestudent learning, but by a lesser amount.”

Goldhaber, D., & Brewer, D. (1997). Why don’t schools andeducation seem to matter? The Journal of Human Resources,32:3. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of1988, the authors find that “teachers who are certifiedin mathematics, and those with bachelor’s or master’sdegrees in math, are identified with higher test scores”among tenth-grade students administered a standardizedmathematics test.

Goldhaber, D., & Brewer, D. (1998, October). When should wereward degrees for teachers? Phi Delta Kappa, 134–138.

Haycock, K. (1998). Good teaching matters. Thinking K–16, 2.This review of the literature concludes that teachers withstrong verbal and math skills and adequate subject matterpreparation have the greatest impact on student perform-ance. There is less evidence that pedagogical knowledge hasas great an effect on student learning.

Monk, D. (1994). Subject area preparation of secondarymathematics and science teachers and student achievement.Economics of Education Review, 13:2.

Wenglinsky, H. (2000, October). How teaching matters: Bringingthe classroom back into discussions of teacher quality. InPolicy Information Center. Princeton, NJ: EducationalTesting Services. Using National Assessment of EducationalProgress data from the 1996 mathematics and science assess-ments and information from teacher surveys, Wenglinskyfinds that only one factor, the teacher’s majoring or minoringin the subject matter taught, is associated with improvedacademic performance.


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Appendix A

Topics Required for the Elementary License

1. English

a. Children’s and young adult literature

b. Adult literature, classical and contemporary works

c. Genres, literary elements, and literary techniques

d. Nature, history, and structure of the Englishlanguage: lexicon and grammar

2. Mathematics: Basic principles and concepts related toelementary school mathematics in the areas of numbersense and numeration, patterns and functions, geometryand measurement, and data analysis

3. History and Social Science

a. Major developments and figures in Massachusetts,U.S. and world history, with stress on Westerncivilization

b. Basic economic principles and concepts

c. Basic geographical principles and concepts

d. U.S. political principles, ideals, institutions, andprocesses, their history and development

4. Science and Technology/Engineering

a. Basic principles and concepts of the life sciencesappropriate to the elementary school curriculum

b. Basic principles and concepts of the physicalsciences appropriate to the elementary schoolcurriculum

c. Principles and procedures of scientific inquiry

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d. History of major scientific and technologicaldiscoveries or inventions

e. Safety issues related to science investigations

5. Child Development

a. Basic theories and concepts in social, emotional,language, and physical development from childhoodthrough adolescence

b. Characteristics and instructional implications ofmoderately and severely disabling conditions


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Appendix B

Topics Required for the Middle School License(for two of the following four subject areas)

1. English

a. Literature

i. American literature including the ColonialPeriod; the Revolutionary Period; AmericanRomanticism and the American Renaissance(to include Hawthorne, Emerson, Melville,Whitman, and Thoreau); the Civil War and thepost-war period; and fiction, poetry, and dramafrom the early twentieth century to the present

ii. World literature including British literature(including the Anglo-Saxon period, the MiddleAges, the Renaissance, the Restoration and theeighteenth century, the Romantic Period, theVictorian Period, and the twentieth century) andother European literature; literature of Africa,Latin America and Asia; Ancient Greek andRoman literature; the Bible as literature; worldmyths and folk tales

iii. Characteristics of the different genres ofliterature

b. Language

i. History and structure of the English language

ii. Knowledge of the rules and conventions ofstandard written and spoken English

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c. Rhetoric and Composition

i. Principles of classical rhetoric

ii. Similarities and differences between oral andwritten communication

2. History

a. United States History: Indigenous people of NorthAmerica; European settlements and colonies; theAmerican Revolution; expansion, reform, andeconomic growth of the United States up to the CivilWar; the Civil War and Reconstruction; Europeanimmigration, industrialization, and scientific andtechnological progress; the two World Wars; and theUnited States from 1945 to the present

b. World History: Human beginnings and earlycivilizations (Africa, Babylonia, Egypt, India, China);roots of Western Civilization (Israel, Greece, Rome);English and Western European history; Renaissanceand the age of exploration; development of Asia,Africa, and South America; age of revolutionarychange in Europe; the world in the era of two WorldWars; and the world from 1945 to the present

c. Geography

i. Major physical features of the world

ii. Key concepts of geography and its effects onvarious people

d. Economics

i. Fundamental economic concepts and economicreasoning


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ii. American economic history

e. Government: Principles of American governmentand the founding documents of the United States

f. Methods and sources for research in history

3. General Science

a. Intermediate knowledge of biology, chemistry,physics, earth/space science, and relatedmathematics

b. History and philosophy of science

c. Methods of research in the sciences, includinglaboratory techniques and the use of computers

4. Mathematics

a. Algebra

b. Euclidean geometry

c. Trigonometry

d. Discrete/finite mathematics

e. Introductory calculus through integration

f. History of mathematics

g. Use of technology

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