April 2026 Board of Ed: Teacher licensure regulations

 Proposed final regulations are here

Martinez: recommends adoption of alternative pathway; three year implementation and evaluation
"BOLD five year plan" for diversification of pipeline
Abbott, Associate Commissioner of Educator Effectiveness
maintaining teacher quality: diverse, culturally responsive, well-prepared, and committed to continuous improvement 
working to expand the pipeline; effectively prepare and license; and sustain and retain
alternative licensure pathway waiving communication and literacy skills test
available for three years as Department studies impact and student outcome

four options to fulfill requirement:

1. completion of a Massachusetts-approved Educator Preparation Program
2. License from another state;
3. Master's/Doctorate from an accredited degree program;
4. 2 years of field-based experience and attestation from school or district leader

three implementation period and annual reporting to the Board on impact and progress
will come at no cost to candidates; will be able to take applications in a couple of weeks
first report to Board next spring; spring of 2028 (licensure and employment rates); early 2029 (success in classrooms) then Board will have to consider renewal
one piece of a larger set of initiatives

also technical amendments 

West: if we adopt this, who will still take the exam?
Anyone pursuing provisional licensure who don't have any of the other characteristics above

41% of educators on a waiver would theoretically be eligible

April 2026 Board of Ed: opening comments and Miliken Award

The Board of Ed has their regular April meeting today beginning at 9 AM. The agenda is here; the livestream will come up on their channel over here. 

flowers in downtown Boston yesterday

Today is the first meeting at which the new Secretary, Steve Zrike, will be present in that capacity. As a reminder, Zrike was Salem superintendent, though most of his appearances at the Board of Ed previously were in his prior-to-that position as Holyoke receiver. As an offhand observation, today is the eleventh anniversary of the Board voting the Holyoke Public Schools into receivership; I don't know if there's a balance to that or not. 

Also as a reminder, the Secretary is a single member and a single vote on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (as well as the two other education boards, Early Ed and Care, and Higher Ed), serving at the pleasure of the Governor, who appoints him*

I will update this post as we go

March Board of Ed: teacher licensure and preparation

 Hills: "a really good Board conversation broke out" when it was proposed 
anyone having an issues, we should postpone the vote until April
"and no, individually answering questions is not the same as the Board discussion"
yeah, there is an uncomfortable amount of offline discussion...

Martinez: good intentions within the law
part of a larger initiative
"this by itself will not solve it all"
make sure we're doing research on it, monitoring it

memo is here; summary of public comment is here 

March Board of Elementary and Secondary Education: opening comments

 The Board of Ed meets today at nine. Their agenda is here; the livestream is here. 

I'm joining this one remotely, as I spent yesterday at the Fordham Education Law Symposium, which was great, and maybe I will write about that here at some point. 

Board of Ed for January: on educator prep

 There is a memo here.

Erin Hashimoto-Martell
Claire Abbott who is really soft and hard to hear
there are over 1200 preparation programs; 62 sponsoring organizations; 4300 completers on average each year
periodic formal review done by DESE (itself; not outsourced); approval generally is for seven years

Board of Ed for November: proposed amendments to educator licensure

 strikethrough of proposal is here
memo is here

alternative licensure pathway
revised subject matter knowledge requirements
updates in various sections

Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for September: opening comments

 The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meets today for its regular September meeting. This is the first meeting with the new commissioner, Pedro Martinez.

The agenda can be found online here. The livestream will come up over here. I'll update once they start.

you'd never know that this was below the Revere Beach Parkway, would you?

May Board of Ed: educator licensure

 Tutwiler: one additional change from public comment

Claire Abbott: permanently offer alternatives to the MTEL 
new endorsement in media arts
change to "comprehensive health"
bilingual as alternative to SEI endorsement
increased flexibility for 12 credit option
all emergency license extension beyond June 30, 2027

Liz Bennett: "robust set of public comment" mostly through survey tool
mostly supportive of proposed revisions
LEADS Act is separate and distinct
"working to build out these proposed alternative licensure pathways"
plan to bring proposed regulation to Board in upcoming school year

one change to expand list of CTE licenses that are prerequisite for Media Arts endorsement

Craven: have never seen this level of detail in public comment feedback

Stewart: can you say more about emergency license?
Devine (this is going over things that already happened but aren't happening anymore)

have seen real shifts in number of teachers on emergency licenses; assume shift to regular licenses

Hills: guidance for when you might not use alternative assessments
Abbott: don't have a target on a percentage
"really want to be sure that if you're interested in becoming a teacher, you have options"
"that's really the goal"
did see a higher number of emergency license teachers accessing the alternative during the pilot
as researchers noted, population of those accessing alternatives may shift over time
Hills: "just throwing in my two cents" like the idea of expanding ways of having teachers
"not just because we have a supply-side issue" but it's a good process

ROLL CALL: 9 in favor, Tutwiler abstain

May Board of Ed: opening comments

Today's meeting is being hosted by Methuen High (which has a stunning auditorium, and I'd quite like to have a box seat for Board of Ed meetings always, thank you). The agenda, which is regulation central, can be found here. 

If this box seat had an electrical outlet, it would be close to perfect.

updating as we go once they start...this will not start on time. 

FAQ on superintendents in Massachusetts: round two

 It's probably "round too many to count" but it's round two recently. 

UPDATE: MassLive notes that Worcester could have a next superintendent by the end of the day.

Do superintendents have to already have their superintendent’s licensure to be appointed superintendent?

No. They should be eligible for licensure, but they don’t have to already have the license. Depending on what licensure they already have, it can be a fairly straightforward process to get the superintendent’s license, particularly if they already have an administrator level license (passing the MTEL* if they haven’t; attesting the experience already completed, or completing the experience).

Massachusetts educator licensure, by the way, is a publicly accessible system found online here. 

So there is an experience requirement for a superintendent’s license?

Yes. Many of us are familiar with student teaching, which is the equivalent experience for teaching. For an administrative license, the state requires either (this is straight from DESE):

• equivalent or internship of 300 hours in the role of Superintendent/Assistant Superintendent

  
  

  
  

  
  

   -or-

  
  

  
  

  
  

   
• Completion of three full years of employment under a valid Massachusetts administrator license

  
  

You may note that this doesn’t require teaching experience. The reflexive requirement of teaching experience is how we have ended up with these former Teach for America “I did my two years in the Bronx” types being put forward for administrative posts when they have no significant experience in public education nor any particular value for or of it. Beware of check box requirements like these. 

Can the Committee wait to appoint a superintendent?

Ideally, no, as transition time is very much a best practice (as I’ve already noted, that is why you see searches wrapping up now). Additionally, if past practice holds, the School Committee will be getting the FY26 budget next week, and one would hope that the Committee would ensure they’re ready to move on to that.

Regardless, there must be a superintendent in place July 1.

I will update if I see more to answer.

________________________________________
*The MTEL is the test (or set of tests, really) that are taking by all those pursuing any educator licensure in Massachusetts; it has been required since 1998. Any of us with licenses earned before 1998 did not take the MTEL to get them; if we pursue additional licenses, we then have to take the MTEL as part of it.
There isn't a different test for a superintendent; it is the Communication MTEL, which is required of all educators, that those pursuing any new administrator license must take.

February Board of Ed: teacher regulation

 last night, they discussed the proposal to continue the alternative assessment pilot, post-pilot

new endorsement in media arts

new name and level in comprehensive health, preK-8 and 9-12
(changing from Health/Family Consumer Science in all levels)

flexibility to allow for the bilingual education endorsement to serve as an alternative to the Sheltered English Immersion endorsement

increase flexibility for 12 credit option; at least 6 of 12 to address subject matter knowledge

emergency licenses no longer extended beyond June 30, 2027

remove outdated language

proposal is to open to public comment through April 4
Board planned vote on May 20
sent out for public comment 

Things to read from this week

 Related reminder that if daily education news is of interest, part of my job for MASC is putting together a daily education news collection; it's called The Daily Ed and goes out via email. Today's is here, and there's a link to sign up at the bottom.

• Content warning for what happens when an AR-15 is used on human bodies: the Washington Post has put together a piece called "Terror on Repeat: A rare look at the devastation caused by AR-15 shootings". They talk about why here. 
  
  
• The year that many kids were learning from home resulted in fewer suspensions and fewer arrests, per the latest release from the Office of Civil Rights, flagging what U.S. Education Secretary Cardona says is "a reminder that we have a lot of work to do." Chalkbeat has that story here.
  
  
• The pandemic also caused Massachusetts (among others) to put into place emergency licensure for teachers. WBUR looks at a study from BU on what that has looked like in the classroom. The short version is similar impact on classroom learning as other new teachers, and greater diversity in the profession.
  
  
• History of Education Quarterly has a special edition on the SCOTUS ruling of San Antonio v. Rodriguez; that was the school funding lawsuit which essentially found that it was not a violation of the 14th amendment not to redistribution school funding across school district bounds (that's not necessarily a great summary). Professor Jack Schneider, who co-edited, did an epic twitter thread which gives read-only links to the pieces! I plan to read them all! School funding and finance aficionados, rejoice!
  
  
• There's a good look in the New Republic on how the Christian Right may have miscalculated in their push on religious charter schools.
  
  
• And as Tennessee considers turning down all federal funding, so they don't have to abide by the federal requirements that go along with it, this is my periodic reminder from me that grants are not free money; they're a contract.

June Board of Ed: amendment to educator licensure

 proposed for passage today: which you can find some things on here

over 350 comments received from a variety of people 

1) Proposed amendments to allow Initial and Professional license holders to obtain a Provisional license in special education areas and in English as a Second Language. 

2) Proposed amendments to create a new grade span, PreK-2, for two licenses: Teacher of Students with Moderate Disabilities and Teacher of Students with Severe Disabilities.

3) Proposed amendments to permit Provisional licensure applicants to meet a requirement through a demonstration of knowledge, as an alternative to meeting the requirement by taking a course or seminar. 

4) Proposed amendment to create a new Provisional license for school nurses. 

Hills: a comment, not a question
really little evidence that shortages are going to disappear in short to medium term
if there are changes that might help address some of those staff shortages, I'd be open to hearing them

passes

Live from the April Board of Ed

 vote to solicit public comment on proposed amendments to educator licensure regulations

Rouhanifard: discussion across the country on teacher shortages, only had real data more recently from a few states; do we have any data on actual shortages?
Riley: special ed, ESL, not just education: nursing
"Be a little more flexible than we have been in the past, with the understanding that at some point we'll probably tighten back up"
Moriarty: 150 hour internship? model?

• initial or professional license holder can obtain a provisional license in special ed or ESL
• create a new preK-2 license for moderate and severe disabilities
• permit "demonstrate of knowledge" as a way to prepare and maintain students with disabilities for general classrooms
  
• create a new professional license for school nurse

Hills: always leave this conversations asking what's the trade off here?
any reason you want to state, things we want to be concerned about
"don't consider these life-altering massive changes to our education system...what am I missing?"
A: that's why we have this public comment

Canavan: question about the labor shortage
wonder about nurses having to pass the communications MTEL
Seems an unnecessary barrier, given what is happening in the nursing field
"not within regulation" but is written into the law

Moriarty: I advocate for every adult in the building having strength in communication and literacy
adults should regard it as a "development milestone" of third grade reading
(there is literally not basis in psychological development to support this)
does MTEL evaluate that "that's a stretch"
we talk about trauma: what about trauma of not being able to perform at grade level
(what the heck?)

Lombos: not necessarily a labor shortage, but workers not being paid what they are worth, when they are using their feet to leave their professions (to a smattering of applause, which is not a thing that happens often)

October Board of Elementary and Secondary Education: educator licensure

 presentation is here
update on the MTEL alternative pilot
plus a set of licensure proposals including a vote to consider extending the pilot

 the National Center for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (which they make CALDER, which isn't actually the acronym, people) panel: James Cowen, Dan Goldhaber, Roddy Theobald is here
Claire Abbott of DESE: in October 2020, Board voted for a three year pilot for alternatives to the MTEL
hope to establish more opportunities for educators to demonstrate necessary skills and so forth
written report in October of 2021, mostly on types of alternatives just then made available
today: most recent data coming out of the pilot
types of alternatives, who is accessing them, and preliminary rates

A few notes for early September: passing on from the Superintendent

Screenshot from the Superintendent's Twitter; 
Wednesday, she rode the bus in the morning.

A few updates from Dr. Monárrez this week: 

• There is now a draft MOU on the policing liaison model for the Worcester Public Schools. That is being looked at by the Safety Task Force this week with the intention, as we heard at our last meeting, of it coming to the Committee for our September 15th meeting.
  
  
• Families can expect to have an opportunity to continue to learn more about the district's sex ed curriculum at their Know Your School nights, getting accurate information about what is actually being taught from our staff who know it (editorial comment from me: as opposed to rumors that circulate online and elsewhere and link to things that aren't actually our curriculum).
  
  
• We have some updates in the grant department: "The Department has been moved back under Finance and Operations with a newly restructured staffing model. The Superintendent has recently appointed Danielle Parillo to be the new Director of Grants Management. Danielle will be joining us from the Providence Public Schools where she has worked for the past ten years, most recently as the Executive Director of Innovation and Accountability. A start date is still to be finalized. Two grant developer and two grant compliance positions are in the process of being filled. A contract coordinator position was on the school committee agenda last evening and an additional financial analyst position will be filled."
  
  
• Northeastern University will partner with WPS to recruit emergency, waivered, or provisionally licensed educators into teacher licensure programs. Funds will be used to develop MTEL workshops specifically aimed at meeting emergency licensed educators’ academic needs. Northeastern has the capability to offer a PlusOne program to paraprofessionals who need to complete their Bachelor’s Degrees.
  

...I think maybe I'll give Transportation its own post? For ease in finding it?

Board of Ed: educator regulation amendment for flexibility

 which you can find the memo on here
Brian Devine: is providing some flexiblity
Stewart: training to help them be successful? 
Devine: induction and mentoring required to be provided by district
Stewart hope there is good support within districts and schools

passes

Board of Ed: regulations on teacher licensure

 also being proposed to go out for public comment
subject matter knowledge through trade exams

Chuang: in some cases vocational teachers are being tested twice
DESE to work collaboratively with the field; look to see which tests might be redundant
Hills: are there any tests that are not state board tests? are any industry tests that would be below ours?
Will be reviewing all to determine equivalency

Sent to public comment

flexibility for licensure

Riley notes extension of what has been done previously
Devine: up 50% of their time in an area in which they are not licensed
long-term sub was 90 days or more required a license or a waiver
does not apply to special education or EL
West asked if we have any data on what this has done to the field
maybe we shouldn't think of this as only an emergency response?
Devine: 15 districts have 10% or more of their workforce covered by this
Wall: will have some data from the emergency licenses
West: take-up has been important in a few settings
not a huge part of what we're doing to support districts through their staffing challenges

Sent to public comment

April 2021 Board of Education on pandemic adjustments

 ...which is going to include competency determination and several other things

Curtin: four pieces up for vote: two for action; two for public comment
competency determination of class of 2022: this year's juniors
Spring administration of MCAS last year; no fall retest; didn't have chance in January
have had no opportunities to take test to date
recommending that competency determination be modified for this year's juniors
science competency determination already modified; English and math 'still out there'
without this modification would never have enough opportunities to take the test before graduation
have opportunity to take test this spring or next fall for scholarship opportunities
demonstrated by passing class in relevant subject

West: inclined to support
parallel to last vote due to extraordinary circumstances
treating students more equitably; how else can more be done
districts to encourage students to "learn where they stand" relative to standards we have laid out for them
worried that general opportunity to take the assessment may not translate into a general opportunity students may not be aware of
Curtin: can take back question of districts to offer not only for scholarships but for diagnostic reasons
Stapel: can work on sample letter home
West: "Framing in a positive way"

Hills: very tailored approach
"I don't see any room to move there"
will not approve any limits or any end of MCAS "not in this universe, not in any universe"

Lombos: "I'm on the other end of this"
"I'm in this job because I believe in change."
"I think that MCAS is something I'd like to discuss at the Board level"
anti-racist training...if we switch our thinking to think about MCAS and alternative assessment through a lens of equity, it's much more nuanced than that
"embracing 'and'"
"there's ways to have this discussion, not just dig in"

West: reconvene and jump start process of consideration of competency

Rouhanifard: right solutions given the circumstances
what are new and innovative assessments
think there isn't as much distance between positions as portrayed
were it not for the pandemic, would be talking more about what the Commissioner is working on

Coughlin: this is exactly the type of thing that shows students there are people caring about them
there are very genuine concerns about MCAS that need to be discussed.

Fernández: a lot of change has happened in the past year
tremendous amount of funding coming from federal government
hope we'll be continuously thinking that we're in this "now or never moment"
looking at how we educate our students, higher level where we are interrogating and thinking about what this moment allows us to think and do differently

Vote on CD change for class of 2022 passes

certificate of attainment for class of 2021
Curtin: three times for taking a test is still an issue because we haven't offered it
Would amend to one attempt only
can be made via Board vote as it is a policy, not a regulation
if students have transferred in and have had NO chances to take it, that still qualifies
and passes

solicit public comment on regs on accountability
refrain from accountability issuance for 2020-21 year
classification of all schools and districts each fall; allows to refrain from running that
U.S. DoE waiver for federal accountability received April 6
West: "not changing any schools rating or designation or not having any?"
Curtin: for the purposes of offering assistance and offering federal dollars, "we actually have to maintain the list" 
"we actually will maintain the list"
Moriarty: can hear a lot of calls around nature of MCAS, "I think accountability is another" discussion that needs to be had
"it's accountability for places like Lawrence and Holyoke that are level 5" (they aren't; there's no Level 5)
"haven't been able to take action...and we know they can't change themselves because they never do"

Hills: think language isn't as clear; understand intent
are you certain that two sentences are in conflict?
Curtin: thought they weren't; we will be sure they aren't

Peyser: but reports will come out publicly
Curtin: will report out pieces publicly
would not be "packaged together in the algorithm that spits out some sort of label"

passes, thus out for public comment

charter school 10%
Curtin: creation of list of charter school applications lags a bit
the 2020 administration was cancelled "and need to technically solve for that problem"
two years of data need to be included; regulation does not contemplate there being no data
allow for use of two most recent years for which test scores were released
practical impact is to freeze most recent list (2018 and 2019 data); already been used, already public

passes, thus out for public comment

educator licensure
extension of two shifts: teaching outside of area (50% rather than 20%)
3% increase seen statewide
plus using a long-term sub for a full year
Curtin: only 10% of teachers who were teaching out of field
went from 10 to 13%

Passes, thus out for public comment 

The Board of Ed meets Tuesday, April 20, 2021

 You can find their agenda online here. Note that IT BEGINS AT 1 PM!!

There is, of course, an update on pandemic learning (that memo doesn't say anything new). One question is if the Commissioner will publicly say what he has already told the superintendents privately: that he'll expect high school students back five days a week May 17. As that is less than two weeks before most seniors are done for the year, as well as being in the middle of MCAS, it's additional demonstration that this continues to be about checking a box rather than ensuring students have the best education that can be provided. 
Of course, as one of the members of the Board has recently been spending his time and press reach denigrating the work of local districts whilst demonstrating how little he knows about it, perhaps that isn't surprising. 

The big news on the agenda, as Commonwealth broke earlier this week when the agenda posted, with additional coverage so far by The Herald News and The Boston Globe, is a proposed change in the admission regulations for regional vocational schools. We did know this was coming, as they had an extensive presentation in their special evening meeting in February, clearly laying the groundwork for a change. It's important to note that regional vokes can, even now, admit their students by lottery; they just have chosen not to. As the Department noted in their February meeting, and as advocates have noted for some time, this results in schools whose demographics don't reflect the districts they serve, in many cases, as well as not necessarily meeting the real needs of students. 
Commonwealth's summary of the proposed change is solid:

Under new regulations being proposed by Riley, vocational schools will not be allowed to use admissions criteria that disproportionately exclude students in those protected classes unless they can demonstrate that those criteria are “essential to participation” in voc-tech programs and there are no other admission standards that could be used that would not have that effect. 

The strikethrough version of the proposed reg change is here. Note that the vote proposed Tuesday is to open public comment; the vote would be taken in June. 

The World Languages frameworks have been out for public comment and are coming back for a vote at this meeting. 

There's then a list of modification that the Department is requesting due to the pandemic, some of which we knew about:

• there's the competency determination for the class of 2022; this is the junior class not having to take the ELA and math MCAS (which they would normally have taken last spring) in order to graduate. 
• there's also a proposed modification to the certificate of attainment, which is the recognition that a senior has met all local graduation requirements and has tried to pass the MCAS at least three times; this would modify that to one for this year's seniors.
• there's also a request that the Board send out for public comment a change to the regulations such that the Department would not issue new accountability determinations for 2020-21. The proposed change to 602 CMR section 2 is to add a subsection 11: 
  

  (11) Commissioner’s authority to refrain from issuing annual performance determinations for districts and schools The Commissioner may, for good cause arising from the state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic, direct the Department in the fall of 2021 to refrain from issuing any or all of the reported measures and annual performance determinations for school year 2020-2021, as described in 603 CMR 2.03 (2) – (3). The Commissioner may direct that schools and districts maintain their most recent accountability determinations for an additional year.   

  That, one assumes, then becomes an easy thing to delete later. 

• There is also a proposed change to the charter school regulations (also proposed to go out for public comment): no MCAS means no lowest 10% of districts from which to draw in determining where charter schools can go. This would freeze the current list.
• There is also a request to send out for public comment a change in 603 CMR 7 on educator licensure, extending the current changes another year. Those are the ability for a teacher to teach out of field of licensure up to 50% of their time (usually it is 20%) and allowing a long-term sub for the entire school year without a state waiver. 

There is, finally, a budget update.

Off agenda, but for information, there is a report on grants and a report on charter school matters.