For most public school teaching jobs, before you can set foot in the classroom, you need to present a piece of paper (or electronic image) that indicates you’re allowed to teach. Some states call it a teaching license and others call it a certificate. How you acquire that ticket to teaching varies by state, but to start and develop a career in teaching, it’s helpful to understand various ways to get and maintain certification–plus how you can boost your marketability with specialized endorsements.
The Basics
In most states, a teaching license can be earned through a traditional path or an alternative path. The traditional path usually requires completing a bachelor’s degree through an approved education preparation program that includes student teaching or supervised field experience, passing state exams and clearing a background check. You apply for a license through your state’s Department of Education by submitting all the required paperwork and paying a fee. Many states issue an “initial” or “provisional” license which allows you to start teaching, but requires additional education or performance benchmarks to be fulfilled in order for you to continue teaching beyond the probationary period.
Alternative pathways were designed to expand access to the profession, especially for individuals who enter teaching after starting in a different career, and to help address high-need subjects that often face teacher shortages. Teachers in “alt-cert” programs generally start teaching under the guidance and mentorship of the program while completing coursework required by the state, then need to meet certification requirements within a prescribed amount of time.
Maintaining Certification
Knowing your state’s requirements for keeping your certification current is very important. Often schools will support their teachers in fulfilling maintenance and renewal requirements, but the responsibility of meeting the state’s mandates for licensure is fully on the license holder. Be sure to check with your state’s Department of Education to understand how often you need to renew, what professional development or continuing education you need to complete and whether regulations have changed. Sometimes requirements, like PD credits, can take years to meet, so planning for how to maintain certification is crucial.
Crossing State Lines
Being certified to teach in one state does not mean you can teach anywhere. In fact, many states don’t recognize licenses from other states, meaning you might have to start the certification process all over in order to be eligible to teach.
Luckily, though, most states have some form of reciprocity, including by interstate agreements through organizations like NASDTEC. These agreements vary from full reciprocity–granting a state license to any holder of a valid out-of-state license–to more conditional reciprocity whereby you might need to complete additional coursework, pass tests or have a certain level of experience before getting a license in the destination state. For more details on each state’s level of reciprocity, Education Commission of the States is a great resource.
Getting an Advantage through Certification
Once you hold a teaching license, you are usually able to add on an endorsement by completing targeted coursework and passing a subject area exam. Being licensed to teach in multiple subjects makes you a more desirable hire for districts because it provides them more flexibility in your placement. Sometimes a district has the student enrollment to only fill one section of a class–say, AP Statistics or American Sign Language–so a teacher with multiple certifications can teach that class alongside more in-demand classes.
And speaking of in-demand, having an endorsement in a hard-to-fill subject area greatly improves your marketability–and can enhance your teaching. Endorsements for Special Education and English as a Second Language (ESL or ELL) provide extra know-how to meet the needs of students, and are also highly sought by school districts. Other subject areas that face chronic teacher shortages are math, science and foreign language. Getting certified in any of these areas would give you an advantage over more competitive subjects like elementary, English and history.
Final Considerations
By understanding how certification works, proactively choosing endorsements and staying on top of renewals, you position yourself to move more confidently — both within your state and across state lines. Just remember to start with the Department of Education of your state (or your destination state) and keep organized records of all the paperwork that is involved in the certification process.
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