Extended Emergency Licenses: Utah
Exiting Ineffective Teachers Policy
Analysis of Utah's policies
Utah requires all licensure candidates to submit passing scores on designated content tests to be eligible for initial licensure.
However, the state also allows alternate route teachers to teach on a temporary license for up to one year while they fulfill licensure requirements, including passing subject-matter tests.
Recommendations for Utah
Ensure that all teachers pass required subject-matter licensing tests before they enter the classroom.
Utah is commended for requiring that all licensure candidates pass designated content tests for initial licensure. However, the state continues to permit teachers on Alternate Route Licenses to teach in classrooms for three years before passing required subject-matter tests. While the state may find it appropriate to delay pedagogy assessments for these teachers, alternate route teachers—like all teachers—should have sufficient and appropriate content knowledge when they begin teaching. Utah could take its policy a step further and require all teachers to meet subject-matter licensure requirements prior to entering the classroom.
State response to our analysis
Utah recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.
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Utah
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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
Teachers who have not
passed licensing subject-matter tests place students at risk.
While states may need a regulatory basis for filling
classroom positions with a few people who do not hold full teaching
credentials, many of the regulations permitting this put the instructional
needs of children at risk, often year after year. For example, schools can make
liberal use of provisional certificates or waivers provided by the state if
they fill classroom positions with instructors who have completed a teacher
preparation program but have not passed their state licensing tests. These
allowances are permitted for up to three years in some states. The unfortunate
consequence is that students' needs are neglected in an effort to extend
personal consideration to adults who cannot meet minimal state standards.
While some flexibility may be necessary because licensing
tests are not always administered with the needed frequency, the availability
of provisional certificates and waivers year after year signals that even the
state does not put much value on its licensing standards or what they
represent. States accordingly need to ensure that all persons given full charge
of children's learning are required to pass the relevant licensing tests in
their first year of teaching, ideally before they enter the classroom.
Licensing tests are an important minimum benchmark in the profession, and
states that allow teachers to postpone passing these tests are abandoning one
of the basic responsibilities of licensure.
Extended Emergency Licenses: Supporting Research
Research
has shown that "the difference in student performance in a single academic
year from having a good as opposed to a bad teacher can be more than one full
year of standardized achievement." See E. Hanushek, "The Trade-Off between Child Quantity and Quality," The Journal of Political
Economy, Volume 100, No. 1, February 1992, pp. 84-117. Hanushek has also found that highly
effective teachers can improve future student earnings by more than $400,000, assuming
a class of 20. "The Economic Value of Higher Teacher Quality", National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper
16606, December 2010.