Hiring Policy
Eligibility for Standard License: Utah allows teachers with valid out-of-state certificates to be eligible for licensure. All out-of-state teachers may initially apply for the Level 1 Utah Educator License. Those with three or more years of experience will be promoted to a Level 2 License after one year of experience in Utah and a recommendation from the employing district.
Evidence of Effectiveness: Utah does not require evidence of effective teaching during previous employment in its reciprocity policy.
Testing Requirement: Utah does not waive any of its testing requirements. Utah requires all out-of-state teachers, no matter how many years of experience they have, to meet the state's passing scores on licensing tests.
Additional Requirements: Other aspects of Utah's policy create obstacles for teachers from other states seeking licensure in Utah. Utah has in place a process to review the college transcripts of licensed out-of-state teachers, an exercise that may result in the state requiring additional coursework before it will offer a license. States that reach a determination about an applicant's licensure status on the basis of the course titles listed on the applicant's transcript may end up mistakenly equating the amount of required coursework with the teacher's qualifications.
Utah requires a criminal background check.
Require evidence of effective teaching when determining eligibility for full certification.
To facilitate the movement of effective teachers between states, Utah should require that evidence of teacher effectiveness, as determined by an evaluation that includes objective measures of student growth, be considered for all out-of-state candidates. Such evidence should indeed be a factor for candidates who come from states that make student growth a determinative factor of a teacher evaluation. (See 7-A: Student Growth analysis and recommendations.)
Offer a standard license to certified out-of-state teachers, absent unnecessary requirements.
Utah should discontinue its requirement for the submission of transcripts because transcript reviews are not a particularly meaningful or efficient exercise. Such review is likely to result in additional coursework requirements, even for traditionally prepared teachers; alternate route teachers, on the other hand, may have to virtually begin anew, repeating some, most or all of a teacher preparation program in Utah.
Utah was helpful in providing NCTQ with facts that enhanced this analysis.
6A: Requirements for Out-of-State Teachers
Evidence of effectiveness is far more important than transcript review.[1] In an attempt to ensure that teachers have the appropriate professional and subject-matter knowledge base when granting certification, states often review a teacher's college transcript, no matter how many years earlier a bachelor's degree was earned. A state certification specialist reviews the college transcript, looking for course titles that appear to match state requirements. If the right matches are not found, a teacher may be required to complete additional coursework before receiving standard licensure.[2] This practice holds true even for experienced teachers who are trying to transfer from another state, regardless of their prior success. The application of these often complex state rules results in unnecessary obstacles to hiring talented and experienced teachers.[3] Evaluation systems which prioritize effectiveness and evidence of student learning offer an opportunity to bypass counterproductive efforts like transcript review and get to the heart of the matter: is the out-of-state teacher seeking licensure in a new state an effective teacher?
Testing requirements should be upheld, not waived. While some states have historically imposed burdensome coursework requirements, many have simultaneously failed to impose minimum standards for licensure testing. Instead, some states have offered waivers to veteran teachers transferring from other states, thereby failing to impose minimal standards of professional and subject-matter knowledge. In upholding licensure standards for out-of-state teachers, the state should be flexible in its processes but vigilant in its verification of adequate knowledge. It is all too common for states to develop policies and practices that reverse these priorities, focusing diligently on comparison of transcripts to state documents while demonstrating little oversight of teachers' knowledge. If a state can verify that a teacher has taught successfully and has the required subject-matter and professional knowledge, its only concern should be ensuring that the teacher is familiar with the state's student learning standards.
States licensing out-of-state teachers should not differentiate between experienced teachers prepared in alternate routes and those prepared in traditional programs. It is understandable that states are wary of accepting alternate route teachers from other states, since programs vary widely in quality. However, the same variance in quality can be found in traditional programs.[4] If a teacher comes from another state with a standard license and a clean criminal record, has demonstrated evidence of effectiveness, and can pass the state's licensure tests, whether the preparation was traditional or alternative should be irrelevant.[5]