Do States' Add-On Credentialing Policies Provide Shortcuts to Early Childhood Education Licensure?

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 5
  In Poster Session: Early Childhood Workforce Issues

Abstract

Many states have adopted add-on credentialing policies that allow licensed teachers to add an early childhood education (ECE) license without completing an ECE teacher preparation program. Shorter pathways to ECE licensure—namely, licensure testing only or licensure testing and limited coursework—are available for elementary licensees in 19 states, special educators in 16, and all other licensees in 12 states, which represent, respectively, 54%, 45%, and 36% of the population of the states analyzed. Efforts to restrict Grades PreK-3 to ECE licensees only, and thereby ensure that all teachers in the early grades are adequately prepared to teach young children, may be undermined by such add-on credentialing policies. Further inquiry into this (heretofore unexamined) aspect of educator credentialing is warranted.

Author

• R. Clarke Fowler, Salem State University