The Indiana State Board of Education approved provisions in the Rules for Educator Preparation and Accountability (REPA II) administrative rules, which made changes to teacher and administrator licensing in Indiana, with a 9-2 vote on Dec. 5.
Provisions of the rules lowered qualification standards for principals and other building-level administrators, allowing for those who obtained a bachelor’s degree with a 3.0 grade-point average or higher to acquire an adjunct permit through taking a test, then doing some pedagogical training that is not yet defined, and allowed teachers to test into teaching licenses in other fields.
Gerardo Gonzalez, dean of the Indiana University School of Education, stated that it would continue to require higher standards of its students, despite the rule change.
“We in the School of Education and schools of education across the board will continue to require students seeking certification for principalship or building-level administration at any level have a master’s degree,” he said.
He expected that hiring school districts would do the same.
“I still have strong beliefs that folks going into the classroom need what I call fundamentals,” Adams Central Community Schools Superintendent and SBOE member Mike Pettibone said. He added, “My fundamentals are child development, child psychology, and I believe that anyone coming into the classroom needs to have, again, another fundamental: some understanding of research-based successful practices in teaching methodology.”
Pettibone, who requested that the SBOE table the issue until a finalized version could be voted on, was one of the board members who voted against the sweeping changes in REPA II. He told The Ellettsville Journal that had he been given the finalized version to review, he most likely still would have voted against it.
Richland-Bean Blossom Community School Corporation Superintendent Steven Kain said the new law lowering qualifications for teachers and building-level administrators would not affect hiring practices in his district for the most part, though he could see some instances where the changes might be necessary.
“We will still be looking for candidates that have gone through programs that deal with teaching techniques,” he said. “We want people who are well-versed in the course they’re teaching, but, too, we might have a situation in a particular area that may come into play – physics, Chinese or something like that.”
Pettibone likened the practice to Teach for America, an organization that places recent college graduates into low-income schools as teachers, even if they do not have a teaching license. They do, however, have to get a teaching certification, which is how adjunct permits would be treated. He said the case may be that many young people go into, particularly, math and science fields believing that is what they want to do, then find out once they graduate and work for a few years that it is not what they want to spend the rest of their lives doing.
“If we can get those people into our schools and get a taste of the intrinsic rewards that come with teaching,” Pettibone said, both schools and students could benefit from acquiring teachers with real-world experience.
Though Kain, Pettibone and Gonzalez agreed that REPA II would have little practical impact on the hiring policies of school districts, Gonzalez noted that one major problem with REPA II was the message it sent.
“It is a low message and ultimately devalues the profession,” Gonzalez said of the rules. “Our main overriding concern is that we should be raising standards, not lowering standards, for teaching preparation and licensing. The more we raise standards, frankly, the more we attract the best and brightest.”
His fear that the rules devalue education as a profession and will make it harder for schools of education to attract people who have a lot of career options is one of practical concern and may be compounded by, as Melissa Keller, associate clinical professor in the Indiana University School of Education noted, potential teacher licensing reciprocity issues should Indiana lose its agreements with most other states.
“If you have an Indiana teacher’s license, you can go to another state and you have a year to meet that state’s requirements for teaching,” Keller said of the current model.
Teachers licensed in Indiana who move elsewhere may begin teaching immediately while they work on getting a license in their new home state, but with REPA II lowering the standards for teaching licensing, that may not be the case in the future.
Many education professionals have expressed concern about the way in which the rules were passed.
“It’s just unfortunate they went ahead and ramrodded this through in view of the upcoming change in leadership in the (Indiana) Department of Education,” Kain said. “Evidently, it was planned to go that direction.”
“We’re all watching to see what will happen with the passage of REPA II, and whether (Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda) Ritz will take action against the very flawed process in voting that in,” Keller said. “She was elected because people were very unhappy with the changes that Dr. Bennett was proposing and to not recognize this and to proceed as though this does not happen has felt like a slap in the face to the democratic process.”
Some professionals have gone so far as to question the legality of the process. They claim that an organization such as the SBOE is not legally capable of making sweeping changes to the law, as indicated by Indiana Code 4-22-2-29.
Pettibone, however, said that a state legal representative has been on board with the project from the beginning.
Further, REPA II rule change will not be finalized until mid-to-late January. When it does become finalized, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller will have 45 days to review it and determine whether or not anything in the rules violate Indiana law. If he approves of it, the governor at that time, Gov.-elect Mike Pence, will have another 15 to 30 days to review it before approving or dismissing it. Given the complexity of the rule change, the full time allowed is expected to be taken.
Originally published in Ellettsville Journal, 2012. Republished here for archival and portfolio purposes.