| Raleigh, N.C. –On Monday, March 11 , Senator McInnis (R- Richmond) filed Senate Bill 219, titled Modify Teacher Licensure Requirements to help the state of North Carolina combat teacher shortages by allowing for additional options of certification to highly qualified teachers. This legislation requires the State Board of Education to grant a North Carolina teaching license to individuals who move to North Carolina with a current license to teach and in good standing from another state without further testing after proving their effectiveness in the classroom. Additionally, the bill provides North Carolina teachers more options to obtaining their full teaching license aside from the passing of one single test, preventing teachers who have proven themselves to be highly effective from being removed from the classroom.There is little to no correlation between success on the required teacher test and productivity as a classroom teacher. Putting in place other options to determine if teachers are qualified to be in the classroom will result in students receiving a better education and teachers focusing on teaching and not their own testing requirement. This bill is the largest piece of legislation in several years to address the NC Teacher shortage and to increase the quality of teachers in NC. When asked about the bill Senator McInnis said the following: “As a school board member before being elected to the NC State Senate, I witnessed firsthand the effect of the teacher shortage in our State, especially rural North Carolina,” said Sen. McInnis. “It is my belief that this legislation will give the authority to hire highly qualified teachers back to the local superintendent and school board. It’s time that we use every effort to make sure that no classroom suffers from a vacant teacher position in our state. We cannot allow our students to be short changed in their educational endeavors due to the inability to hire great teachers because of one single testing requirement.” |
