Part-Time Teaching Licenses: Texas
Expanding the Pool of Teachers Policy
Analysis of Texas's policies
Texas offers the Texas School District Teaching Permit (SDTP),
which allows individuals with deep subject-area knowledge to teach a limited
number of courses without fulfilling a complete set of certification
requirements. School districts recently received more flexibility to hire individuals under an SDTP for noncore career and technical education assignments without approval by the commissioner of education.
Applicants for the Texas SDTP must have at least a
bachelor's degree with relevant college coursework of at least 18 hours for
elementary and middle school and 24 hours for high school. School districts can use any combination of work experience, training and education, or industry license, certification or registration, to use as evidence of subject-matter knowledge to qualify an individual for an SDTP. Candidates must also
have five years of relevant work experience. A subject test is not required.
Recommendations for Texas
Require applicants to pass a subject-matter test.
Texas is commended for offering a license that increases districts' flexibility
to staff certain subjects, including many STEM areas, that are frequently hard
to staff or may not have high enough enrollment to necessitate a full-time
position. Although this license is designed to enable individuals who have
significant content knowledge to teach, Texas should still require a
subject-matter test. While the state does require verification, only a
subject-matter test ensures that teachers on the School District Teaching
Permit know the specific content they will need to teach.
State response to our analysis
Texas was helpful in providing NCTQ with facts that enhanced this analysis.
Texas added that except for Health Science Technology and Trade and Industrial Education assignments, applicants for the Texas School District Teaching Permit (SDTP) must have at least a bachelor's degree and relevant college coursework of at least 18 hours for elementary and middle school and 24 hours for high school. Health Science Technology assignments require at least an associate’s degree, active professional licensure, certification, or registration by a nationally recognized professional accrediting agency, and five years of full-time wage earning work experience requiring licensure within the past eight years. Trade and Industrial Education assignments require at least a high school diploma, active professional licensure, certification, or registration by a nationally recognized professional accrediting agency, and five years of full-time wage earning work experience requiring licensure within the past eight years. Special education and bilingual education teaching assignments are not eligible for a SDTP.
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Texas
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
- Admission into Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Mathematics
- Early Childhood
- Middle School Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science and Social Studies
- Special Education Teacher Preparation
- Special Education Preparation in Reading
- Assessing Professional Knowledge
- Student Teaching
- Teacher Preparation Program Accountability
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
- State Data Systems
- Evaluation of Effectiveness
- Frequency of Evaluations
- Tenure
- Licensure Advancement
- Equitable Distribution
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
Pensions
Research rationale
Part-time licenses
can help alleviate severe shortages, especially in STEM subjects.
Some of the subject areas in which states face the greatest
teacher shortages are also areas that require the deepest subject-matter
expertise. Staffing shortages are
further exacerbated because schools or districts may not have high enough
enrollments to necessitate full-time positions.
Part-time licenses can be a creative mechanism to get content experts to
teach a limited number of courses. Of
course, a fully licensed teacher is best, but when that isn't an option, a
part-time license allows students to benefit from content experts—individuals
who are not interested in a full-time teaching position and are thus unlikely to
pursue traditional or alternative certification. States should limit requirements for part-time licenses to
those that verify subject-matter knowledge and address public safety, such as
background checks.
Part-Time Teaching Licenses: Supporting Research
The origin of this goal is the effort to find
creative solutions to the STEM crisis. While teaching waivers are not typically
used this way, teaching waivers could be used to allow competent
professionals from outside of education to be hired as part-time instructors to
teach courses such as Advanced Placement chemistry or calculus as long as the
instructor demonstrates content knowledge on a rigorous test. See NCTQ, "Tackling the STEM Crisis: Five steps your state can take to improve the quality and quantity of its K-12 math and science teachers", at: http://www.nctq.org/p/docs/nctq_nmsi_stem_initiative.pdf.
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,Volume 28, Summer 1991, pp. 465-498.
For
more on math and science content knowledge, see D. Monk, "Subject Area Preparation of Secondary Mathematics and Science Teachers and Student Achievement," Economics of Education Review, Volume 13, No. 2, June 1994, pp. 125-145; R. Murnane, "Understanding the Sources of Teaching Competence: Choices, Skills, and the Limits of Training," Teachers
College Record, Volume 84, No. 3, 1983, pp. 564-569.