Middle School Teacher Preparation: Wyoming

Analysis of Wyoming's policies

Wyoming requires a middle-level (grades 5-8) endorsement for middle school teachers. Candidates are not required to earn a major or minor in a subject area. Middle school teachers in Wyoming who have not acquired certification through a traditional route must pass a single-subject Praxis II content test to attain licensure. In these cases, a general content-knowledge test is not an option.

Commendably, Wyoming does not offer a K-8 generalist license. 

Wyoming's preparation and licensure requirements for middle school teachers are not aligned with the state's college- and career-readiness standards for students.

The state only requires middle school social studies teachers to pass a content test, which does not address incorporating literacy skills. Teacher standards also do not address these skills associated with its standards for students.

Wyoming has no requirements for the preparation of middle school teachers who address struggling readers.

Citation

Praxis Test Requirement www.ets.org PTSB Rules and Regulations, Chapters 3 and 4

Recommendations for Wyoming

Require content testing in all core areas.
Wyoming should require subject-matter testing for all middle school teacher candidates in every core academic area they intend to teach as a condition of initial licensure.

Ensure that middle school teachers are prepared to meet the instructional requirements of college- and career-readiness standards for students.
Incorporate informational text of increasing complexity into classroom instruction.
Either through testing frameworks or teacher standards, Wyoming should specifically address the instructional shifts toward building content knowledge and vocabulary through increasingly complex informational texts and careful reading of informational and literary texts associated with the state's college- and career-readiness standards for students.

Incorporate literacy skills as an integral part of every subject.
To ensure that middle school students are capable of accessing varied information about the world around them, Wyoming should include literacy skills and using text to build content knowledge in history/social studies, science, technical subjects and the arts.

Support struggling readers.
Wyoming should articulate requirements ensuring that middle school teachers are prepared to intervene and support students who are struggling.

Close the loophole that allows teachers to add elementary grade levels to an existing license without demonstrating content knowledge.
Wyoming is urged to require that all teachers who add the middle grade levels to their certificates pass a rigorous subject-matter test to ensure content knowledge of all subject areas before they are allowed in the classroom.

State response to our analysis

Wyoming disputed the accuracy of NCTQ's analysis that only new middle school teachers in Wyoming who have not acquired certification through a traditional route must pass a single-subject Praxis II content test to attain licensure. In these cases, a general content-knowledge test is not an option. Wyoming also stated that completion of a state-approved program surpasses the knowledge demonstrated through passing an exam.

The state also disagreed with the contention in the recommendation that elementary grade levels can be added to an existing license without demonstrating content knowledge. Wyoming asserted that elementary teachers may not add middle-grade endorsements without first completing a state-approved program, which satisfactorily demonstrates content knowledge.

Wyoming added that passing subject-area tests is not the only way for applicants to demonstrate content knowledge.