government relations
New Teacher Licensure Rules – What Do They Mean for Our Profession? Brad Schneider, WMEA State Chair, Government Relations
It is no secret that Wisconsin, l ike many other states, is experiencing a teacher shortage. Stagnant wages, lack of professional con- trol, high standards for teacher prepara- tion programs and
public attitudes toward teachers have all played a part in contributing to this sig- nificant problem.
In the spring of 2016, State Superintendent Tony Evers convened a task force to iden- tify reasons for the teacher shortage and more importantly, to brainstorm solutions. These recommendations were developed further by the Leadership Group on School Staffing Challenges. This group was made up of executives in school administration associations, the school board associa- tion, the president of WEAC and teacher education leaders from Wisconsin’s post secondary colleges. This leadership group focused on five areas to tackle the teacher shortage in Wisconsin:
1. Fewer Licenses, More Flexibility
2. Effective Collaboration to Address Shortages and Other Workforce Needs
3. Ease Licensing Process for Educators Trained in Another State
4. Reducing Testing Burden on Prospective Teachers
5. Expand Opportunities for Licensed Teachers to Take on New Challenges
Here is the link to the Executive Sum- mary of the Leadership Group on Staffing Challenges:
http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.wasda. org/resource/resmgr/saa/Leadership Group ExecutiveSumm.pdf
Here is the link to the Full Summary of the Leadership Group on Staffing Chal- lenges:
http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.wasda. org/resource/resmgr/saa/Summaryof RecommendationsLead.pdf
Present and especially future music edu- cators would be affected by a change to a single license for teaching music.
Proposal From the Leadership Group:
Consolidate multiple related subject area licenses into single subject licenses. Candidates would be pre-
“Present and
especially future music educators would be affected by a change to a single license for teaching music.”
pared and licensed with a broadfield license (similar to the current math license) in areas like science, social studies, music and English Language arts. Teachers could specialize in a specific area of choice, but would be allowed to teach in any area of the broadfield.
Though not finalized at this writing, I believe that this proposal for a single broadfield music license in Wisconsin will be implemented.
As part of this recommendation, all consolidated subject area licenses would offer emphasis opportunities in a specific area (i.e. science license with a biology emphasis; social stud- ies license with a history emphasis). This change would allow license holders to continue to focus on a spe- cific area, but would also allow the license holder maximum flexibility to teach additional coursework within their broad content area. For exam- ple, a teacher holding a music license with an instrumental emphasis could also teach a course in choir.
http://bit.ly/NAfMEBackpack 30
Further, educator preparation programs would have flexibility to determine how an emphasis would be offered (i.e. through coursework,
September 2017
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