Input to SBEC Regarding Proposed Revisions to 19 TAC Chapters 227-228
May 9, 2008
Agenda Items 8 and 9
The Association of Texas Professional Educators (ATPE) offers the following input to the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) on proposed revisions to the administrative rules governing
Provisions for Educator Preparation Students (Ch. 227) and Requirements for Educator Preparation Programs (Ch. 228).
Earlier this year, ATPE was invited to participate in a stakeholders’ committee that analyzed and discussed these chapters in advance of the board’s review, and we greatly appreciated the opportunity to share our input. ATPE members have long supported high standards for the education profession and have made it a priority to advocate for increased standards. The ATPE Legislative Program most recently adopted by our House of Delegates outlines our members’ educator certification concerns as follows:
Certification and assignment
ATPE supports a state certification process that ensures educators are appropriately trained and certified exclusively by the state.
ATPE opposes mandatory national certification and state funding for national certification programs.
ATPE recommends that the state:
- Standardize teacher preparation programs to include a specified period of supervised student teaching.
- Require comprehensive pedagogical training, including classroom and discipline management, child and adolescent psychology, and methods courses.
- Require coursework in the areas of reading, special education, gifted/talented, ESL and computer literacy.
- Require districts to assign all certified educators to teach in their certification area(s).
- Require administrators to have at least five years of classroom teaching experience.
We are very pleased that the new rules will prescribe educator preparation curriculum, including such subjects as instructional technology, pedagogy/instructional strategies, differentiated instruction, classroom management, child development, working with special populations and diagnosing learning needs.
ATPE recognizes the need for some degree of flexibility in the regulations to foster the recruitment of competent educators, particularly in shortage areas. Where there is flexibility, however, there must be greater oversight. To complement these new rules and maintain the highest standards for educator preparation, we urge the board and the Texas Education Agency (TEA) staff to closely monitor all current and future programs for strict compliance with the new rules, especially as follows:
- ATPE recommends that close attention be paid to §228.35(a)(6), which requires programs to implement criteria and procedures that would allow their candidates to substitute experience and/or professional training for other educator preparation requirements in the rule.
- Similarly, if the board decides to give alternative certificate programs the flexibility to waive the minimum GPA requirement in proposed §227.10(a)(4), then the agency must exercise strict scrutiny over those particular programs to ensure that such a waiver does not result in a lowering of standards and the admission of under-qualified candidates to the teaching profession.
- We also urge the board not to allow programs to substitute online training for the face-to-face field-based experiences required under Ch. 228 of the new rules.
In closing, ATPE commends the board for honoring its ongoing commitment to the mission of ensuring “the highest level of educator preparation and practice to achieve student excellence."
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