Georgia’s New Tiered Certification System By Dr. David Hill, Director of Educator Preparation, Georgia Professional Standards Commission
To provide comprehensive, timely and accurate information to educators, PAGE invited the Georgia Professional Standards Commission to provide this article. No organizational endorsement on the part of PAGE should be inferred.
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he Georgia Professional Standards Commission (GaPSC) passed new rules this spring to create a Tiered Certification System for Georgia educators. While many states have tiered certification systems, Georgia’s new system is more comprehensive, including a Pre-Service certificate for candidates in teacher education programs, 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 July. This conversion was done electronically so no action was needed on the part of the educator. The term “professional” is commonly used throughout the nation to describe those certificates that can be renewed. The term “standard” will be used to describe certificates for those who are not evaluated under the statewide evaluation system. Once the Teacher Keys Effectiveness System (TKES) is 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 opportu-
Induction-level teachers will hold non-renewable certificates, which will be converted to renewable professional certificates after three years as teachers demonstrate the ability to raise student achievement.
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nities 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 August/September 2014
