Licensure Reciprocity: Hawaii

Expanding the Pool of Teachers Policy

Goal

The state should help to make licenses fully portable among states, with appropriate safeguards.

Meets a small part of goal
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2011). Licensure Reciprocity: Hawaii results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/HI-Licensure-Reciprocity-7

Analysis of Hawaii's policies

Hawaii does not support licensure reciprocity for certified teachers from other states.

Regrettably, Hawaii accepts passing test scores based on the applicant's previous state requirements. For tests not taken but required by Hawaii, out-of-state teachers must meet Hawaii test requirements.

Out-of-state teachers with valid, standard professional certificates may be eligible for Hawaii's professional certificate. To qualify, applicants must have completed a state-approved teacher education program. Transcripts are required to verify the preparation program; however, it is not clear whether the state also analyzes these transcripts to determine whether additional coursework will be required.

Hawaii is also a participant in the NASDTEC Interstate Agreement; however, the latest iteration of this agreement no longer purports to be a reciprocity agreement among states and thus is no longer included in this analysis.

Citation

Recommendations for Hawaii

To uphold standards, require that teachers coming from other states meet testing requirements.
Hawaii takes considerable risk by granting a waiver for its licensing tests to any out-of-state teacher with a passing test score in another state. It should not provide any waivers of its teacher tests unless an applicant can provide evidence of a passing score under its own standards.

Accord the same license to out-of-state alternate route teachers as would be accorded to traditionally prepared teachers.
All certified out-of-state teachers should receive equal treatment. Hawaii should expand its reciprocity policy to include all valid professional certificates, regardless of whether a teacher was prepared through a traditional or alternate route. State policies that discriminate against teachers who were prepared in an alternate route are not supported by evidence. In fact, a substantial body of research has failed to discern differences in effectiveness between alternate and traditional route teachers.

The state should also consider discontinuing its requirement for the submission of transcripts. Transcript analysis is likely to result in additional coursework requirements, even for traditionally prepared teachers; alternate route teachers, on the other hand, may have to virtually begin anew, repeating some, most or all of a teacher preparation program in Hawaii. 

State response to our analysis

Hawaii had no comment on this goal.

Research rationale

Many professions have gone further than teaching in encouraging interstate mobility. The requirements for attorneys, for example, are complicated, but often offer certain kinds of flexibility, such as allowing them to answer a small set of additional questions. See the Comprehensive Guide to Bar Admissions Requirements 2007, published by the National Conference of Bar Examiners and the American Bar Association, available at:
http://www.ncbex.org/ .

On the similarity in effectiveness between graduates of traditional and alternative programs, see  J. Constantine, D. Player, T. Silva, K. Hallgren, M. Grider, and J. Deke, An Evaluation of Teachers Trained Through Different Routes to Certification, Final Report. National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Services, U.S. Department of Education (2009), D. Boyd, et al. "How Changes in Entry Requirements Alter the Teacher Workforce and Affect Student Achievement." Education Finance and Policy, (2006).  T. Kane, J. Rockoff, and D. Staiger. "What Does Certification Tell Us About Teacher Effectiveness? Evidence from New York City." National Bureau of Economic Research. (2006), G. Henry and C. Thompson, "Impacts of Teacher Preparation on Student Test Scores in North Carolina." Teacher Portals. University of North Carolina (2010). Z.Xu, J. Hannaway and C. Taylor, "Making a Difference? The Effects of Teach for America in High School." The Urban Institute/Calder. (2009), D. Boyd et al "Recruiting Effective Math Teachers, How Do Math Immersion Teachers Compare? Evidence from New York City." Calder Institute (2009); as well as "How Changes in Entry Requirements Alter the Teacher Workforce and Affect Student Achievement," by Donald Boyd, Pamela Grossman, Hamilton Lankford, Susanna Loeb, and James Wyckoff, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2005; and "The Effects of Teach For America on Students: Findings from a National Evaluation," (Mathematica Policy Research Inc., 2004).