Licensure Advancement: New York

Analysis of New York's policies

Evidence of Effectiveness: New York's requirements for licensure advancement and renewal are not based on evidence of teacher effectiveness.

Advancing to a Professional License: New York's Initial Certificate issued in specific subject and grade titles, is valid for five years and leads to the Professional Certificate. It appears that each subject and grade level presents multiple requirements for the professional certification, including various mentoring and teaching experiences. The state also requires a master's degree for advancement. 

Renewing a Professional License: New York requires teachers to complete professional development hours within each five-year cycle to maintain certification.

Citation

Certification Requirements http://eservices.nysed.gov/teach/certhelp/CertRequirementHelp.do Renewal Requirements http://www.highered.nysed.gov/tcert/resteachers/175.html

Recommendations for New York

Require evidence of effectiveness as a part of teacher licensing policy. 
New York should require evidence of teacher effectiveness to be a factor in determining whether teachers may renew or advance to a higher-level license.

Discontinue license requirements with no direct connection to classroom effectiveness. 
Although targeted requirements may potentially expand teacher knowledge and improve teacher practice, New York's general, nonspecific coursework requirements for license advancement and renewal merely call for teachers to complete a certain amount of seat time. These requirements do not correlate with teacher effectiveness.

End requirement tying teacher advancement to master's degrees.  
New York should remove its mandate that teachers obtain a master's degree for license advancement. Research is clear that master's degrees generally do not have any significant correlation with classroom performance. Rather, advancement should be based on evidence of teacher effectiveness. 

State response to our analysis

New York asserted that teachers who hold the professional certificate are required to successfully complete 100 clock hours of acceptable Continuing Teacher and Leader Education (CTLE) requirements during each five-year registration period. Acceptable CTLE must be taken from a Department-approved sponsor and is more specific than the phrase "professional development" in the above analysis. Acceptable CTLE must be conducted through activities designed to improve the teacher's or leader's pedagogical and/or leadership skills and targeted at improving student performance, including but not limited to formal CTLE activities. Such activities must promote the professionalization of teaching and must be closely aligned with district goals for student performance.

Acceptable CTLE must also include study in the content area of any certificate title held by the individual, or in pedagogy, and include any required study in language acquisition addressing the needs of English language learners as described in section 80-6.3 of Commissioner's Regulations. Holders of Professional English to Speakers of Other Languages certificates or Bilingual Extension Annotations are required to complete a minimum of 50 percent of the required CTLE clock hours in language acquisition aligned with the core content area of instruction taught, including a focus on best practices for co-teaching strategies and integrating language and content instruction for English language learners. All other professional certificate holders must complete a minimum of 15 percent of the required CTLE clock hours in language acquisition addressing the needs of English language learners, including a focus on best practices for co-teaching strategies and integrating language and content instruction for English language learners. Classroom teachers who are employed by a school district or BOCES with an approved exemption are exempt from the language acquisition CTLE requirements.

Updated: December 2017