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By Joanne M. Haas
By staying a few steps ahead of the federal government, Wisconsin’s teachers may have saved themselves some major headaches.
The state’s new teacher licensing law, known as PI 34, covers many of the teacher quality requirements in the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act. But because PI 34 was developed and implemented with major involvement of Wisconsin teachers, it more directly reflects the needs and values of Wisconsin students and educators.
Ron Jetty, a WEAC teaching and learning consultant, said that if the state did not have PI 34 in place when it did, teachers could now be facing some onerous federal requirements, including multiple-choice knowledge tests and requirements that they return to college campuses for additional degrees.
Critics of the ESEA – often referred to as the No Child Left Behind law – view it as a public school destruction kit, loaded with unrealistic student assessment requirements.
Woven into the ESEA are teacher quality requirements – some of which are viewed by educators as positive and some misguided.
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Jack Kean |
The positive ones pretty much mirror provisions of PI 34, said Jack Kean of the state Department of Public Instruction.
And fortunately for Wisconsin teachers, the list of allowable uses for ESEA funds for highly qualified teachers is a close match to PI 34 provisions.
“As it is, our PI 34 rules are so much more inclusive that we really don’t need to change anything,” said Kean, who is the state’s assistant superintendent of public instruction, charged with teacher certification and licensing as head of the Division of Academic Excellence.
“They must have read PI 34 before they wrote it,” he said.
Had the implementation of PI 34 not been under way when the newly revised ESEA came along, the state would have been forced to rewrite the rules, Kean said. And those changes may not have been to the liking of state educators, Jetty said, suggesting the state might be looking at a system with a lot more red tape.
Some of the ESEA’s teacher quality provisions are “in line with what we in Wisconsin said needed to be emphasized,” Kean said. Those include:
In addition, PI 34 contains a broader set of regulations than the ESEA,
reflecting the philosophy that students need a well-rounded education.
“PI 34 goes way beyond ESEA,” Kean said.
Wisconsin’s PI 34 puts in place stricter requirements than the ESEA when it comes to college graduation requirements and mentoring of new teachers. Also, PI 34 institutes a performance-based license renewal system for professionals already in the classroom.
In addition, PI 34:
Kean said PI 34 emphasizes a balanced program that includes attention to content, but “focuses as strongly on what one needs to know to be able to teach successfully.”
PI 34 is built around 10 teaching standards. The first is content knowledge, while the other nine emphasize what a teacher needs to know about learning, child development, culture, assessment and a series of other things.
Defining ‘highly qualified’
The ESEA requires that virtually all public school teachers be “highly
qualified” by the end of the 2005-06 school year. (Paraprofessionals
who work in Title I-funded positions must have two years of college
or pass a rigorous competency assessment by January 2006.)
Generally, a “highly qualified” teacher is one who is fully licensed or certified under state law, meaning nearly all of Wisconsin’s teachers – including those operating on emergency certifications – are highly qualified.
Last September, DPI sent the U.S. Department of Education a report stating that nearly 99% of the state’s teachers are highly qualified – the highest percentage in the country.
Kean said the federal government’s definition of “highly qualified” includes Wisconsin people teaching with emergency licenses or permits. That’s because Wisconsin law requires that anyone with an emergency license be enrolled in a teacher education degree program, and that the district documents the person is getting mentoring and intensive supervision.
Kean said had Wisconsin used its own criteria for “highly qualified,” the definition would have applied to fewer teachers – about 96%. That’s because PI 34 would not apply the term “highly qualified” to people who have been given emergency license permits to serve as substitute teachers.
Although there have been some disputes between Wisconsin and federal officials over some details of ESEA implementation, the federal government has accepted the state’s plan in regard to meeting teacher quality. That plan essentially encompasses PI 34.
For example, Wisconsin secondary teachers have degrees in a major area and in a minor area. DPI officials believe these teachers are qualified to teach in the minor area. The federal government was arguing that a teacher must have a major degree in a subject area he or she is teaching or pass a test.
Wisconsin resolved this issue by pointing to PI 34’s requirement that pre-service teachers pass a content test, beginning this year.
“We are opposed to testing practicing teachers, and we fortunately did not end up fighting that battle,” Jetty said.
The pre-service content test applies to a teacher’s major and minor areas of study, Kean said of the test that begins this year for the new teachers entering the system. “So whatever they teach, they’ll be tested in.”
Mike McNett, WEAC’s director of collective bargaining and research, said the testing question also surfaced for special education teachers and secondary education teachers, who teach a variety of subjects in the confines of one room or within one grade.
“Wisconsin is taking the view that if you are teaching special ed and you’re (certified) in special education, then you are fine,” he said, versus asking the same teacher to test out in math if math is part of the special education curriculum.
Jetty said one interpretation of the law could have been a K-8 licensed teacher at grades 7 or 8 who instructs on several subjects would have to take the subject test in each of those areas. “That would have set up additional hurdles for teachers who want the flexibility of a K-8 license, which makes them more marketable in smaller school districts,” Jetty said.
Kean said the federal government maintains that Wisconsin must prove current teachers know their content.
“Our position is under the rules that we have had for many years, the colleges and universities have always paid attention to content ... and have always assessed whether the candidate (graduate) had the knowledge.” Adding to this, he said, is the fact Wisconsin teachers had to earn six college credits in a relevant area every five years to maintain their teaching licenses.
“We’re taking the position that our current teachers have met the full qualifications specified in our administrative rules and do know the content of what they are teaching,” Kean said.
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Implementation grants available
The WEAC Teaching and Learning Campus once again is offering quality
school grants (ranging from $2,000 to $4,000) to help associations or
districts implement the new licensure requirements. This year, there
are two “levels” of grants for those who are preparing to
implement the new licensure requirements:
Two or three grants may be awarded to those who are willing to pilot mentor training materials that were developed by Kathy Larson and WEAC’s Professional Development Academy.
Applications must be received by April 5, 2004. More information on
the grants and application process is available.
• • •
Sending a message to Congress
Members are urged to use the OnWEAC Cyberlobby to contact their state
senators and ask them to support Senate Resolution 19, which calls on
Congress to fully fund the ESEA and the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act. The Cyberlobby
is in the Members Only section of OnWEAC.
Posted February 27, 2004