Georgia’s New Tiered

By Dr. David Hill, Director of Educator Preparation, Georgia Professional Standards Commission

The Georgia Professional Standards To provide comprehensive, Commission (GaPSC) passed new timely and accurate information rules this spring to create a Tiered to educators, PAGE invited the Certification System for Georgia educators. Georgia Professional Standards While many states have tiered certification Commission to provide this systems, Georgia’s new system is more comarticle. No organizational prehensive, including a Pre-Service certificate endorsement on the part of for candidates in teacher education programs, PAGE should be inferred. as well as an advanced tier that recognizes teacher excellence and provides opportunities for teacher leaders to take on significant instructional leadership roles in schools. Implementation will be staged over the next several years. All Georgia educators who held Clear Renewable certificates found that their certificates were converted to Standard Professional certificates in early Induction-level teachers will hold non-renewable July. This conversion was done electronically so no action was needed on the part of the educertificates, which will be converted to cator. The term “professional” is commonly used throughout the nation to describe those renewable professional certificates that can be renewed. certificates after three The term “standard” will be used to describe certificates for years as teachers those who are not evaluated demonstrate the under the statewide evaluation system. Once the Teacher Keys ability to raise student Effectiveness System (TKES) is achievement. fully in place, teachers evaluated under the state evaluation system will demonstrate their ability to impact student performance. Multiple years of proficient or exemplary performance will allow these teachers to convert to performance-based certificates. In the past two years, the GaPSC staff has made numerous presentations at various meetings throughout the state to help educators understand the impact of a tiered certification system. In addition, focus groups were used last summer to get educator input. A task force of Georgia educators worked for a year to create a certification system that will support improved student achievement, as well as provide opportunities for teachers to grow professionally without having to leave the classroom.

The tiered certification rules are designed to accomplish several goals. Since the new rules link certification to the statewide evaluation system, one purpose is to raise student achievement by linking educator performance to improved student achievement. During the five-year certificate renewal cycle, teachers must demonstrate proficient or exemplary performance for at least four of the five years in the cycle. Summative performance ratings below proficient must be reported to GaPSC. Educators with any combination of two or more summative performance ratings of “needs development” or “ineffective” are not eligible for renewal until the performance deficiencies have been satisfactorily remediated.

A second purpose is to improve teacher preparation by raising the requirements that teacher candidates must meet to enter the profession. The new rules create a Pre-Service certificate that all teacher candidates must hold to student teach in Georgia schools. Holding the PreService certificate will bring the student teacher under the Georgia Code of Ethics for Educators. In addition, teacher candidates will need to successfully complete a nationally normed content pedagogy assessment, edTPA, as well as complete a modular program with accompanying assessments on educator ethics.

A third purpose is to provide a support system for early-career teachers through differentiated support during a three-year induction period. Induction-level teachers will hold nonrenewable certificates, which will be converted to renewable professional certificates after three years as teachers demonstrate the ability to raise student achievement. As new teachers enter the profession, they will bring with them edTPA results (out-of-state educators may have a different pedagogy assessment) scored across 15 different rubrics allowing school systems to better meet the learning needs of early-career teachers.

Finally, the new-tiered certification system Continued on page 20

Continued from page 18 is designed to provide opportunities for teachers to grow, yet remain in the classroom. High-performing teachers will be recognized through Advanced Professional and Lead Professional certificates. Lead Professionals will make up a corps of teacher leaders trained to support early-career teachers and serve as leaders in school-learning communities. Lead Professionals will have advanced preparation in teacher leadership either through a degree or one of several endorsements that equip teachers with skills in leading professional learning, coaching, mentoring and other teacher leader functions. Advanced Professional certificate holders will also hold advanced degrees or a National Board Certification. Both Lead Professionals and Advanced Professionals must demonstrate the ability to raise student achievement.

The implementation timeline began with the conversion of Clear Renewable certificates to Standard Professional certificates. Georgia also began issuing Induction certificates at that time, and then on July 1, 2015, Lead Professional and Pre-Service certificates will be issued for the first time. Advanced Professional certificates will not be issued until sufficient TKES data is available and the state is confident in the reliability of this data.

So, what really changes under a tiered certification system? First, Georgia moves from a state where teachers leave the classroom in order to grow professionally. Now, teachers may choose to make a career in the classroom knowing they have the opportunity to become Lead or Advanced Professionals. Second, by singling out early-career teachers with an Induction certificate, the state has the opportunity to create a strong support system that might encourage more teachers to remain in the profession. For many years, data consistently showed that about 40 percent of teachers leave the profession by the end of their fifth year. Providing a strong induction system with differentiated support may help reduce the number that leave. Third, more emphasis is placed on improving teacher preparation. The Pre-Service certificate is designed to significantly raise standards for those who will enter the profession. Fourth, the system makes a distinction between teachers who are the teacher of record and can therefore produce Teacher Effectiveness Measures (TEM), and those teachers who are not the teacher of record and do not produce TEM scores. Being in a position that allows the teacher to generate a TEM score is what distinguishes the performance-based professional certificate from the standard professional certificate.

What doesn’t change under the new certification system? For one, when Clear Renewable certificates were converted to Standard Professional certificates in July, the validity periods for individual educators remained unchanged from current

validity periods. Second, even though the Master Teacher program will be ending, the Advanced Professional certificate will actually take its place. Third, educators who are certified and work in service fields such as media and counseling will have standard professional rather than performance-based certificates. Building-level administrators will fall under the performance-based rules because they work in positions that generate data under Leader Effectiveness Measures (LEM). Fourth, under current law, educators with two un-remediated, unsatisfactory summative evaluations cannot renew their certificates. The new certificate system is based on the same law, so school systems will still report weak performance to GaPSC. What is new is that state law has created a statewide evaluation system and specifies that two ratings—needs development and ineffective—will be reported to GaPSC. A Professional Learning Task Force is currently working to define what is meant by “remediating” needs development and ineffective evaluations.

GaPSC will work cooperatively with PAGE and other organizations to keep educators informed as the new rules are implemented. Dissemination of information regarding tiered certification implementation is posted on the GaPSC website at gapsc.com under the “Policies & Guidelines” section of the home page with a link titled “Upcoming Certification Changes.” GaPSC has sent notices to educators through its MyPSC accounts to give them a heads up on the changes taking place. Certification Outreach Training is periodically held for school system HR staff. This means school system HR departments are the first place educators should direct their certification questions. Because the rules supporting tiered certification are so comprehensive and fundamentally change the certification structure in Georgia, an advisory group representative of Georgia educators will meet periodically during the first several years of implementation to review the certification system and provide advice to GaPSC on adjustments that may be needed once implementation is underway. n

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