SBEC Approves Draft Rules for Teacher Certification

TEACHER CERTIFICATION
On April 9, the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) approved proposed amendments to rules for certification requirements for new career and technical education (CTE) courses that become effective in the fall of 2010. To view the proposal visit: Teacher Certification Draft Rules.

The proposed amendments will be filed with the Texas Register for an official 30-day public comment period. SBEC will consider the amendments June 18 for final action. Once approved, the amendments must then be presented to the State Board of Education (SBOE), which is anticipated in July 2010. If the SBOE takes no action on proposed amendments, they will stand as approved by SBEC. If the SBOE does not favor the amendments, it has the authority to send the rules back to SBEC for additional work.

REQUIRED TEACHER TRAINING
For teachers who will be teaching the new CTE courses for math or science graduation requirements, there will be a required up to 90 clock hour professional development available in 2011. This training will be different than Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills training taking place this spring and summer. The in-service training will be specific to courses that satisfy academic credit. This training is expected to be worth enough points to deem a teacher as highly qualified.

HIGHLY QUALIFIED AND NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
In order to teach the new CTE courses for academic credit, instructors must meet the highly qualified provisions under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. CTAT is partnering with the Texas office of NCLB to ensure the teacher of record will be able to meet the criteria of state-defined HOUSSE (high objective uniform State standard of evaluation) rules without compromising the integrity or intent of the law.

Under HOUSSE rules, subject-matter competency is the critical component for CTE teachers teaching math, science, fine arts, or speech. According to the law, this can be demonstrated through coursework, passing a certification test, or meeting HOUSSE. The federal Department of Education has issued guidance on flexibility, which can be found at http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/methods/teachers/hqtflexibility.html

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
Educational Excellence grants have been awarded to University of North Texas, Texas A&M University, and Stephen F. Austin State University for curriculum development for the new courses approved as part of the state's revision of Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for CTE courses. Curriculum developed through the Educational Excellence grants may be ready for some clusters as early as the summer of 2011. In the interim, districts are working both independently and in groups to develop curriculum for use with new course implementation for this fall. The Educational Excellence grantees have worked with TEA to develop scope and sequence documents for each new CTE course, and those are available at http://www.cte.unt.edu/index.html, http://tea.im.tamu.edu/, and http://www.cte.sfasu.edu/Human/human.shtml, respectively.