Minnesota’s 845,000 students need highly qualified licensed teachers guiding them every day at all grade levels and across a myriad of specialties. The two greatest factors in students’ academic success are parental involvement and the quality of the teachers in their classrooms.
To provide quality teachers for all students, Minnesota needs to balance the availability and supply of teachers across the state with the rigor and quality of Minnesota teacher candidates, and ensure that districts can offer competitive compensation packages.
Development & Evaluation
MREA supports legislative action to establish:
- A merger of the current Teacher Development & Evaluation program with the QComp program and expanded funding to districts currently not in the QComp program.
- A college tuition rebate and/or scholarship program for newly licensed teachers who are employed in Minnesota public schools and who are graduates of a teacher licensing college within Minnesota. Teachers qualify for this rebate or scholarship program if they agree to teach in areas of the state and/or in subject areas with less than adequate teacher availability or are hired for positions in these shortage areas.
Licensing Options
MREA supports legislative restructuring of the Board of Teaching so that qualified education individuals from each economic development region in Minnesota serve on the Board of Teaching, and requiring the Board of Teaching to amend licensure requirements to accomplish the following:
- Create a robust array of alternative licensing options with Minnesota teacher education programs for college graduates
- Increased flexibility of licensing categories to allow teachers in small, rural schools to teach across disciplines and specialties
Teacher Quality
To ensure an adequate level of rigor with regard to beginning teachers’ pedagogical skills and ability to relate to the children and youth the teacher is instructing, MREA supports legislation incorporating the:
- Use of multiple strategies to measure the basic reading, writing, and mathematics skills and knowledge of teachers and prospective teachers through means other than a single standardized test
- Elimination of cut scores and time limits on any single teacher standardized test to determine licensure
- Amending of passage of state board exams for teacher licensure to completion of state board exams with disclosure of results to hiring agencies including school districts
The state should commission an independent, longitudinal analysis that studies the relationship of the Minnesota Teacher Licensure Exam (MTLE) score with teacher proficiency in the first three years of a teacher’s career.
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View MREA’s Legislative Platform for 2015