Middle School Teacher Preparation: Alaska

Analysis of Alaska's policies

Regrettably, Alaska allows middle school teachers to teach on a generalist K-8 license.

Alaska offers, but does not require, middle school endorsements (grades 6-8). In addition, the state does not explicitly require a major or minor in the subject areas that candidates plan to teach. 

Middle school teachers in Alaska are not required to pass a subject-matter test to attain licensure. Subject-matter tests are only required for professional certification, which occurs after three years of teaching.

Alaska's preparation and licensure requirements for middle school teachers do not ensure that teachers will be prepared to address the instructional shifts associated with college- and career-readiness standards.

Alaska does not require content testing for middle school endorsements until the point of professional certification, generally three years after an initial license is granted. At that point, middle school English teachers must pass the Praxis II Middle School English Language Arts (5047) test, which includes some of the instructional shifts toward building content knowledge and vocabulary through careful reading of informational and literary texts associated with college- and career-readiness standards for students.

The state also appears to allow middle school teachers to pass the Praxis II Middle School: Content Knowledge (5146) test, which does not address informational texts. Neither teacher standards nor testing frameworks for other content areas address incorporating literacy skills.

Regarding struggling readers, Alaska's middle school English content test requires that a teacher be able to group students and differentiate instruction. However, it does not specifically address the ability either to identify struggling readers or provide appropriate intervention.

Citation

Praxis Test Requirement www.ets.org Application for Initial Licensure http://education.alaska.gov/TeacherCertification/forms/initial.pdf 4 AAC 12.305

Recommendations for Alaska

Require content testing in all core areas.
Alaska should require subject-matter testing for all middle school teacher candidates in every core academic area they intend to teach as a condition of initial licensure. To ensure meaningful middle school content tests, the state should set its passing scores to reflect high levels of performance.

Eliminate the generalist license.
Alaska should not allow middle school teachers to teach on a generalist license that does not differentiate between the preparation of middle school teachers and that of elementary teachers. These teachers are less likely to be adequately prepared to teach core academic areas at the middle school level because their preparation requirements are not specific to the middle or secondary levels, and they need not pass a subject-matter test in each subject they teach. Adopting middle school teacher preparation policies for all such teachers will help ensure that students in grades 7 and 8 have teachers who are appropriately prepared to teach grade-level content, which is different and more advanced than what elementary teachers teach.  
 
Encourage middle school teachers licensed to teach multiple subjects to earn two subject-matter minors. 
This would allow candidates to gain sufficient knowledge to pass state licensing tests, and it would increase schools' staffing flexibility. However, middle school candidates in Alaska who intend to teach a single subject should earn a major in that area.

Ensure that middle 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.
Although Alaska's English language arts content test for middle school teachers addresses informational texts, the state should strengthen its policy and ensure that all teachers have the ability to address the use of informational texts as well as incorporate complex informational texts into classroom instruction, as a condition of initial licensure.

Incorporate literacy skills as an integral part of every subject.
To ensure that middle school students are capable of accessing varied information about the world around them, Alaska 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.
Alaska should articulate more specific requirements ensuring that middle school teachers are prepared to intervene and support students who are struggling. While college- and career-readiness standards will increase the need for all middle school teachers to be able to help struggling readers to comprehend grade-level material, training for English language arts teachers in particular must emphasize identification and remediation of reading deficiencies.

Close the loophole that allows teachers to add middle-grade levels to an existing license without demonstrating content knowledge.
Alaska allows teachers to add new grade levels to certificates with only institutional recommendation. The state is urged to require that all teachers who add the middle-grade levels to their certificates pass a rigorous subject-matter test to ensure content knowledge of all subject areas before they are allowed in the classroom.

State response to our analysis

Alaska recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.