Secondary Teacher Preparation in Social
Studies: Delaware

Analysis of Delaware's policies

Delaware only offers secondary certification in general social studies. Candidates must pass the Praxis II "Social Studies" content test. Teachers with this license are not limited to teaching general social studies but rather can teach any of the topical areas.

Middle school social studies teachers in Delaware are required to have a middle level social studies teacher certificate. Commendably, candidates must pass the Praxis II "Middle School Social Studies" test.

Citation

Delaware Administrative Code, Title 14:1534 Praxis Testing Requirements www.ets.org

Recommendations for Delaware

Require secondary social studies teachers to pass tests of content knowledge for each social studies discipline they intend to teach.
States that allow general social studies certifications—and only require a general knowledge social studies exam—are not ensuring that their secondary teachers possess adequate subject-specific content knowledge. Delaware's required assessment combines all subject areas (e.g., history, geography, economics) and does not report separate scores for each subject area. Therefore, candidates could answer many—perhaps all—history questions, for example, incorrectly, yet still be licensed to teach history to high school students.

State response to our analysis

Delaware recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.