Middle School Teacher Preparation : New
Mexico

Analysis of New Mexico's policies

New Mexico offers a middle school license for middle school teachers; candidates must earn 24 semester hours in at least one content-related area. Teachers with secondary certificates are allowed to teach single subjects in middle school. Those candidates must complete 24-36 semester hours in at least one content-related area. Regrettably, New Mexico allows middle school teachers to teach on a generalist K-8 license.

All new middle school teachers in New Mexico are also required to pass New Mexico's own NMTA series of assessments to attain licensure. However, only secondary and middle school candidates are required to pass a single-subject content test. Those seeking the elementary license are only required to pass the general content test for elementary education; therefore, there is no assurance that these middle school teachers will have sufficient knowledge in each subject they teach.

Citation

New Mexico Administrative Code 6.61.2, -.3, -.4 http://www.nmta.nesinc.com/

Recommendations for New Mexico

Eliminate K-8 generalist license.
New Mexico should not allow middle school teachers to teach on a generalist license that does not differentiate between the preparation of middle school teachers and that of elementary teachers. These teachers are less likely to be adequately prepared to teach core academic areas at the middle school level because their preparation requirements are not specific to the middle or secondary levels and they need not pass a subject-matter test in each subject they teach. Adopting middle school teacher preparation policies for all such teachers will help ensure that students in grades 7 and 8 have teachers who are appropriately prepared to teach grade level content, which is different and more advanced than what elementary teachers teach.  

Strengthen middle school teachers' subject-matter preparation.
New Mexico should encourage middle school teachers who plan to teach multiple subjects to earn two minors in two core academic areas, rather than a single major. However, the state should retain its requirement for a subject-area major for middle school candidates who intend to teach a single subject.

Require subject-matter testing for middle school teacher candidates.
New Mexico should require subject-matter testing for all middle school teacher candidates in every core academic area they intend to teach as a condition of initial licensure.

State response to our analysis

New Mexico recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.