Since charter schools got started in the 1990s, they’ve been lauded as beacons of K-12 innovation, offering greater flexibility in what and how they teach, learning approaches tailored to students’ individual needs and increased autonomy for teachers and school leaders.
Billed as less bureaucratically rigid, charter schools still face an unexpected obstacle in some states: outdated licensure policies that make it harder to recruit quality educators into the classroom. In the past decade, this has become a growing challenge for traditional public schools as well.
Innovative teacher licensure policies can be the answer to getting more qualified and diverse candidates into the profession. These policies reimagine pathways into teaching, and they can ensure a dynamic, diverse and skilled workforce is ready to meet the evolving needs of students.
But these types of licensure policies don’t exist everywhere, creating barriers for traditional public schools and charter schools alike by deterring high-quality candidates from becoming teachers. These barriers pose special challenges to charter schools with unique missions or focus areas that want to expand beyond traditional pools for teacher recruitment.
The good news: Some states are advancing innovative teacher policies, making it easier for both traditional public and charter schools to recruit and hire educators. For example, Arizona and Colorado have enabled charter schools to broaden their search for teachers, including those from nontraditional professional backgrounds. Massachusetts, New Jersey and Louisiana have implemented similar flexibility for their traditional public schools.
In this post, we examine how these innovative policies work and how they can serve as a model for other states looking to recruit quality teachers into both traditional public and charter schools.
As a state that began authorizing charters in 1994, Arizona has extensive experience establishing and overseeing charter schools. Excluding Washington, D.C., Arizona has the highest proportion of charter students in the country (20%) and has authorized more than 550 charter schools in the past 30 years.
Arizona’s charter schools thrive under the state’s flexible policies, especially in teacher hiring. To cite one example, the state does not require charter school teachers to have a standard certification, allowing schools to attract a diverse range of professionals. This flexibility has been instrumental in scaling up successful charter networks, ensuring they can serve a growing number of students effectively.
Arizona charter schools have an automatic teacher certification exemption in place, meaning they can hire teachers without any sort of certification. Still, they must ensure all teachers hold a bachelor’s degree and undergo formal safety and background checks, just like for traditional public school teachers. Some of the state’s charter networks proactively use the certification exemption to create unique staffing models and tailor professional development to meet the specific requirements of the charter’s mission. Consider two examples:
Policymaker Takeaway: These examples from Arizona highlight how flexibility in hiring and training can be effectively used to meet specific educational goals of charter schools.
Based on more than 30 years of experience in charter school management, Colorado’s charter school laws rank among the most flexible in the country when it comes to teacher licensure.
One key feature of this flexibility is an Automatic Waiver Process. Colorado charter schools benefit from an automatic waiver from traditional certification requirements, allowing them to hire according to their unique needs.
Charter schools in Colorado have excelled academically, placing second out of 36 states for their charter-specific NAEP ranking, in addition to district-managed schools in standardized tests, especially in schools serving low-income families.
Policymaker Takeaway: Colorado’s data on charter performance provides an intriguing example for other states, indicating that the deregulation of educator licensure can occur at the same time as high teacher quality and student achievement.
In Louisiana, policymakers have focused on improving support for new teachers through alternative certification paths into both traditional public and charter schools. Louisiana policymakers also eased regulations related to the recruitment of retired educators and teachers from other states. Recent actions taken by the state include:
Policymaker Takeaway: Louisiana exemplifies a proactive approach to mitigating teacher shortages. The state’s initiatives serve as a viable model for others, demonstrating the importance of versatile strategies in bolstering the educational workforce.
Understanding the effects of teacher certification on educational quality has been a central issue in policy debates. Recent studies of alternative certification programs in New Jersey and Massachusetts offer useful insights. Recent data from these states reveal that teachers with emergency certifications are performing comparably to their traditionally licensed colleagues:
Policymaker Takeaway: Recent findings from New Jersey and Massachusetts highlight that alternative teacher certification does not necessarily impact the quality of teaching or student outcomes. This suggests that regulatory flexibility in licensure can be explored without compromising educational standards or student outcomes.
The challenge of filling teaching vacancies calls for immediate and innovative policy interventions. The documented decline in teacher preparation program enrollment further highlights the need for new pathways to certification.
ExcelinEd’s model policies provide actionable solutions for policymakers aiming to build a larger and more adaptable teaching workforce:
In conclusion, it’s clear that the journey toward innovative teacher licensure policies is not just about relieving shortages. It’s about reimagining the pathways into teaching and ensuring a dynamic, diverse and skilled workforce stands ready to meet the evolving needs of students in all schools.
