Secondary Teacher Preparation Policy
Content Test Requirements: Ohio requires a middle childhood license (grades 4-9) for middle school teachers. All new middle school teachers in Ohio are required to pass a specific subject-area test from the Ohio Assessments for Educators (OAE) tests to attain licensure. Middle school candidates must also pass the Foundations of Reading test.
Teachers may also add a middle school generalist endorsement to an existing middle school license in order to add grades 4-6 in the additional content areas. Teachers adding this endorsement must complete an additional six semester hours in each of the content areas to be added and must pass either the middle school content test in the applicable subject area or the elementary 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.
Ensure that content tests adequately measure sufficient knowledge in all subjects.
Ohio should ensure that its subject-matter tests for
middle school teacher candidates is sufficiently rigorous. The state
should ensure that the required passing scores on each test reflect high
levels of performance. Doing so will help to ensure that every student
is taught by a teacher with adequate subject-matter knowledge.
Ohio recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis, and was helpful in providing NCTQ with facts that enhanced 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.