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Elementary Teacher Preparation: Massachusetts

Delivering Well Prepared Teachers Policy

Look at National Findings
Goal

The state should ensure that its teacher preparation programs provide elementary teachers with a broad liberal arts education, the necessary foundation for teaching to the Common Core Standards.

Nearly meets goal
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2011). Elementary Teacher Preparation: Massachusetts results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/MA-Elementary-Teacher-Preparation-6

Analysis of Massachusetts's policies

Massachusetts has adopted the Common Core Standards, and the state is on the right track in ensuring that its elementary teacher candidates are adequately prepared to teach the rigorous content associated with these standards.

In Massachusetts, elementary teachers are required to pass the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure (MTEL) general curriculum test, which does not report teacher performance in each subject area.

Massachusetts also requires elementary teacher candidates to complete at least 36 semester hours in upper-and lower-level arts and sciences coursework. According to the state, "some of this coursework might also count toward the required arts or sciences major."

Further, the MTEL content tests articulate important subject-matter requirements. English requirements include children's and young adult literature, adult literature, and classical and contemporary works. History and social science requirements include Massachusetts and U.S. history from colonial times to the present, world history with stress on Western civilization, economics and geography. Science requirements include life and physical sciences.

Although not addressed on the subject-matter test, Massachusetts also requires approved programs to include the following topics: science laboratory work, child development, visual and performing arts, physical education, and personal and family health.

Commendably, Massachusetts ensures that arts and sciences faculty will teach liberal arts classes to elementary teacher candidates.

Citation

Recommendations for Massachusetts

Require a content test that ensures sufficient knowledge in all subjects.
Massachusetts should ensure that its subject-matter test for elementary teacher candidates is well aligned with the Common Core Standards, which represent an effort to significantly raise the standards for the knowledge and skills American students will need for college readiness and global competitiveness.

The state should also require separate passing scores for each content area on the test because without them it is impossible to measure knowledge of individual subjects.

State response to our analysis

Massachusetts asserted that it requires elementary and special educators to take a separately scored math subtest. Candidates for the elementary license, students with moderate disabilities license and those who teach the visually impaired must also pass a Foundations of Reading test. Scores are reported by test subarea, allowing for a more detailed review of performance. "The MTEL tests reflect the current subject-matter knowledge requirements for licensure, which in turn, reflect the state's curriculum frameworks." 

Massachusetts also noted that tests are reviewed on a regular schedule by panels of the state's educators. It plans a comprehensive review of licensure standards in 2012-2013 to, among other things, ensure overall alignment with the Common Core Standards. 

Last word

The state's reading and mathematics requirements, which NCTQ finds to be among the best in the country, are analyzed in detail in Goals 1-C and 1-D, respectively. 

    • Best practice
    • Meets goal
    • Nearly Meets goal
    • Meets goal in part
    • Meets a small part of goal
    • Does not meet goal

  • Massachusetts

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Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
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Research rationale

Numerous research studies have established the strong relationship between teachers' vocabulary (a proxy for being broadly educated) and student achievement. For example: A.J. Wayne and P. Youngs, "Teacher characteristics and student achievement gains: A review," Review of Educational Research 3, No. 1 (2003): 89-122. See also G.J. Whitehurst, "Scientifically based research on teacher quality: Research on teacher preparation and professional development," presented at the 2002 White House Conference on Preparing Teachers; R. Ehrenberg and D. Brewer, "Did Teachers' Verbal Ability and Race Matter in the 1950s? Coleman Revisited," Economics of Education Review 14 (1995), 1-21.

Research also connects individual content knowledge with increased reading comprehension, making the capacity of the teacher to infuse all instruction with content of particular importance for student achievement. See Willingham, D. T., "How knowledge helps: It speeds and strengthens comprehension, learning—and thinking," American Educator 30(1), (2006).

For the importance of teachers' general academic ability, see R. Ferguson, "Paying for Public Education: New Evidence on How and Why Money Matters," Harvard Journal on Legislation 28 (1991), 465-498; R. Greenwald, L. Hedges, and R. Laine, "Does Money Matter? A Meta-Analysis of Studies of the Effects of Differential School Inputs on Students' Outcomes," Educational Researcher 23, no. 3 (1994), 5-14; E. Hanushek, "Teacher Characteristics and Gains in Student Achievement: Estimation Using Micro-Data," American Economic Review 61, no. 2 (1971), 280-288; E. Hanushek, "A More Complete Picture of School Resource Policies," Review of Educational Research 66 (1996), 397-409; H. Levin, Concepts of Economic Efficiency and Educational Production," in Education as an Industry, ed. J. Froomkin, D. Jamison, and R. Radner (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1976); D. Monk and J.R. King, "Subject Area Preparation of Secondary Mathematics and Science Teachers and Student Achievement," Economics of Education Review 12, no. 2 (1994), 125-145; R. Murnane, "Understanding the Sources of Teaching Competence: Choices, Skills, and the Limits of Training," Teachers College Record 84, no. 3 (1983) R. Murnane and B. Phillips, Effective Teachers of Inner City Children: Who They Are and What Are They? (Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research, 1978); R. Murnane and B. Phillips, "What Do Effective Teachers of Inner City Children Have in Common?" Social Science Research 10 (1981), 83-100; M. McLaughlin and D. Marsh, "Staff Development and School Change," Teachers College Record 80, no. 1 (1978), 69-94; R. Strauss and E. Sawyer, "Some New Evidence on Teacher and Student Competencies," Economics of Education Review 5 (1986), 41; A. A. Summers and B.L. Wolfe, "Which School Resources Help Learning? Efficiency and Equity in Philadelphia Public Schools," Business Review (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, February 1975).

Sandra Stotsky has documented the fact that teacher candidates often make inappropriate or irrelevant coursework choices that nonetheless satisfy state requirements. See S. Stotsky, "Can a State Department of Education Increase Teacher Quality? Lessons Learned in Massachusetts," in Brookings Papers on Education Policy, ed. Diane Ravitch (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2004).

On the need for colleges and universities to improve their general education coursework requirements, see The Hollow Core: Failure of the General Education Curriculum (Washington, D.C.: American Council of Trustees and Alumni, 2004). For a subject-specific example of institutions' failure to deliver solid liberal arts preparation see, The Coming Crisis in Citizenship: Higher Education's Failure to Teach America's History and Institutions (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2006).

For information on teacher licensing tests, see The Academic Quality of Prospective Teachers: The Impact of Admissions and Licensure Testing (Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1999). A study by C. Clotfelter, H. Ladd, and J.Vigdor of elementary teachers in North Carolina also found that teachers with test scores one standard deviation above the mean on the Elementary Education Test as well as a test of content was associated with increased student achievement of 0.011 to 0.015 standard deviations. "How and Why Do Teacher Credentials Matter for Student Achievement?" The Calder Institute (2007).
 
For information on where states set passing scores on teacher licensing tests across the U.S., see chart on p. 13 of NCTQ "Recommendations for the Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Removing the Roadblocks: How Federal Policy Can Cultivate Effective Teachers," (2011).

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