House Bill 1059: Teacher Licensure

February 2, 2022August 16, 2022 Bill Tracker

House Bill 1059 would adjust criteria for teacher licensure in a number of ways, including the addition of a performance-based route for bypassing subject matter competency requirements. Other changes include allowing the State Board of Education to set qualifying scores and a minimum GPA for licensure, as well as changes to the Teach Mississippi Institute (TMI).

On January 31, HB 1059 passed the House Education Committee. It is now awaiting action on the House floor.

Authority for setting qualifying scores and minimum GPA requirements for entrance to an educator preparation program (EPP)

HB 1059 would allow MDE to set the minimum qualifying ACT/SAT score and a minimum qualifying GPA for EPP entrance criteria. Currently, state law mandates an ACT score of 21 (or SAT equivalent) and a minimum GPA of 3.0 as EPP entrance criteria; MDE already has the authority to set the qualifying score for the Praxis Core Academic Skills. Under HB 1059, MDE could raise or lower ACT or GPA requirements as they see fit. 

Performance-based licensure

The most significant change under HB 1059 would be allowing certain veteran educators to bypass subject matter competency requirements in order to earn licensure via the Traditional Route or Alternate Route. Currently, state law requires “satisfactory completion of nationally administered examinations of achievement” (37-3-2(6)(a)(iii) while MDE regulations clarify that teacher candidates must pass a content area assessment to earn licensure. HB 1059 would enshrine the content area assessment clearly in state law but would also allow teacher candidates in both the Traditional Route and Alternate Route to bypass it should they meet the following criteria:

• A documented attempt to take a content area assessment
• Completion of an EPP
• A minimum of three years of “relevant teaching experience in the content area with performance-based evidence of educator effectiveness”

In effect, HB 1059 would allow teacher candidates who have failed their content area assessment to earn licensure anyway, as long as they have documented evidence of effective teaching over at least a three-year period. Importantly, HB 1059 leaves the definition of “performance-based evidence of educator effectiveness” undefined, putting the onus on MDE to determine the relevant rules and regulations for demonstrating effectiveness. However, depending on whether a teacher is attempting to earn traditional or alternate certification, these provisions could have very different impacts.

The bill as it is currently written will have the greatest effect on teachers who completed a traditional teacher education program but have not passed their content area assessment. Currently, these teachers may teach up to three years on a special, nonrenewable license but cannot continue working beyond that point unless they pass the content assessment. The bill would open a pathway for these teachers to convert their special, nonrenewable license (the only one they qualify for without passing the content assessment) to a standard, five-year renewable license. The bill would not allow traditional route teachers to immediately earn a standard license if they cannot pass the content assessment as they must teach at least three years to qualify.

Teachers attempting to earn alternate route licensure must pass the content area assessment to enter an approved alternate route program. There is no current alternate route pathway that does not require admission to an alternate route program. Because test passage is an entrance requirement to alternate route programs, alternate route teachers cannot both bypass the program entrance requirement and “complet[e] an approved teacher education program” to qualify to bypass the test for licensure purposes. As a result, it is entirely unclear what alternate route teachers this provision would help since the law does not clearly remove MDE’s authority to require assessment passage prior to admission. 

We believe it is possible that the bill’s author actually intended the bill to have greater impacts on both traditional and alternate route teachers. However, the two sections of the Mississippi code this bill amends to introduce performance-based licensure–37-3-2(6)(a-b)–are awkwardly written at present. Currently, the law dealing with traditional route licensure, 37-3-2(6)(a), mandates that “Applicants for a standard license shall submit to the department…” and then proceeds to list both required documentation (37-3-2(6)(a)(i-iv)) and requirements for admission to educator preparation programs (37-3-2(6)(a)(v)). Furthermore, rather than having its own item, the requirement for elementary educators to pass a reading instruction assessment is oddly appended to 37-3-2(6)(a)(ii) about completion of an EPP. Section 37-3-2(6)(b) also has problematic grammatical structure and leaves much to interpretation.

HB1059 only adds to the confusion with its own awkward structure. In order to best reflect what the author of HB1059 intends, the original code and the bill will require some work, either on the House floor or in the Senate.

Teach Mississippi Institute

HB 1059 would make a number of changes to the Teach Mississippi Institute (TMI) program, an Alternate Route certification program consisting of a summer institute followed by a full-time teaching internship. To start, HB 1059 would expand TMI from a pilot program, available at only up to four locations throughout the state, to one available at any EPP, subject to MDE approval. The bill eliminates the requirement that the summer institute last eight weeks as long as the total experience is still nine credit hours. It further tweaks the language of what content must be covered by this institute to include teaching strategies for students with disabilities. Additionally, HB 1059 would require a two semester, six credit hour internship rather than a one semester, three credit hour internship. This change also increases the number of total semester hours earned through TMI from 12 to 15 and allows students to apply all of these toward a master’s degree.

Updates
2/10/22 Update:
On February 10, the House passed an amended HB 1059. The amendment did not include language to directly address our concerns about HB 1059, but it did add a reverse repealer, which will ensure that the House has another opportunity to properly amend the bill (or approve Senate amendments to the bill) before it may become law.

3/1/22 Update:
The Senate declined to take action on HB 1059 by the March 1 deadline, causing this bill to die in committee.