Extended Emergency Licenses: Florida
Exiting Ineffective Teachers Policy
Analysis of Florida's policies
Florida allows new teachers to teach for up three years on a temporary certificate. The state requires teachers to pass its general knowledge test and content test within the first year from the date of employment. The validity period of the temporary certificate can be extended up to two years for teachers who are unable to meet the testing requirements due to "extraordinary extenuating circumstances."
Recommendations for Florida
Ensure that all teachers pass required subject-matter licensing tests before they enter the classroom.
While Florida's policy offering its provisional license generally for just one year only minimizes the risks brought about by having teachers in classrooms who lack appropriate subject-matter knowledge, the state could take its policy a step further and require all teachers to meet subject-matter licensure requirements prior to entering the classroom.
State response to our analysis
Florida was helpful in providing NCTQ with facts necessary for this analysis.
The state added that Florida requires teachers who do not hold a Florida Professional Teaching Certificate to pass its general knowledge test within the first year of employment. Florida noted that if the teacher has not already passed the subject-area content test as part of meeting the requirements for a Temporary Certificate, this test must be passed to meet eligibility requirements for a Florida Professional Certificate. According to the state, many teachers on a Temporary Certificate met subject-specialization requirements needed for a Temporary Certificate by passing the subject-area examination.
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Florida
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
- Admission into Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Mathematics
- Early Childhood
- Middle School Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science and Social Studies
- Special Education Teacher Preparation
- Special Education Preparation in Reading
- Assessing Professional Knowledge
- Student Teaching
- Teacher Preparation Program Accountability
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
- State Data Systems
- Evaluation of Effectiveness
- Frequency of Evaluations
- Tenure
- Licensure Advancement
- Equitable Distribution
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
Pensions
Research rationale
Teachers who have not
passed licensing subject-matter tests place students at risk.
While states may need a regulatory basis for filling
classroom positions with a few people who do not hold full teaching
credentials, many of the regulations permitting this put the instructional
needs of children at risk, often year after year. For example, schools can make
liberal use of provisional certificates or waivers provided by the state if
they fill classroom positions with instructors who have completed a teacher
preparation program but have not passed their state licensing tests. These
allowances are permitted for up to three years in some states. The unfortunate
consequence is that students' needs are neglected in an effort to extend
personal consideration to adults who cannot meet minimal state standards.
While some flexibility may be necessary because licensing
tests are not always administered with the needed frequency, the availability
of provisional certificates and waivers year after year signals that even the
state does not put much value on its licensing standards or what they
represent. States accordingly need to ensure that all persons given full charge
of children's learning are required to pass the relevant licensing tests in
their first year of teaching, ideally before they enter the classroom.
Licensing tests are an important minimum benchmark in the profession, and
states that allow teachers to postpone passing these tests are abandoning one
of the basic responsibilities of licensure.
Extended Emergency Licenses: Supporting Research
Research
has shown that "the difference in student performance in a single academic
year from having a good as opposed to a bad teacher can be more than one full
year of standardized achievement." See E. Hanushek, "The Trade-Off between Child Quantity and Quality," The Journal of Political
Economy, Volume 100, No. 1, February 1992, pp. 84-117. Hanushek has also found that highly
effective teachers can improve future student earnings by more than $400,000, assuming
a class of 20. "The Economic Value of Higher Teacher Quality", National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper
16606, December 2010.