Secondary Teacher Preparation Policy
Content Test Requirements: Louisiana requires a middle grades certificate (grades 4-8) for all middle school teachers. All new middle school teachers in Louisiana are required to pass a middle school single-subject Praxis content test to attain licensure.
Louisiana also allows teachers to add middle school area endorsements to existing certificates with either 30 credit hours in the content area or a passing score on a content test.
Provisional and Emergency Licensure: Because provisional and emergency licensure requirements are scored in Provisional
and Emergency Licensure, only the test requirements for the state's initial
license are considered as part of this goal.
Close the loophole that allows teachers to add middle-grade levels to an existing license without demonstrating content knowledge.
NCTQ urges the state 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 teach in a classroom as the teacher of record.
Louisiana recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.
3A: Middle School Content Knowledge
Middle school grades are critical years of schooling. It is in these years that far too many students fall through the cracks. However, requirements for the preparation and licensure of middle school teachers can be especially problematic. States need to distinguish the knowledge and skills needed by middle school teachers from those needed by an elementary teacher. Whether teaching a single subject in a departmentalized setting or teaching multiple subjects in a self-contained setting, middle school teachers must be able to teach significantly more advanced content than elementary teachers. In order to do so, middle school teachers must be deeply knowledgeable about every subject they will be licensed to teach, and able to pass a licensing test in every core subject to demonstrate this knowledge.[1] The notion that someone should be identically prepared to teach first grade or eighth grade mathematics seems ridiculous, but states that license teachers on a K-8 generalist certificate essentially endorse this idea.