Last month, the SBOE Subcommittee on School Initiatives unanimously rejected a rule approved by the State Board for Educator Certification that would have significantly reduced the number of pre-service training hours from 180 to 110 for those seeking to teach Career and Technical Education in the areas of Trade and Industrial Workforce, Marketing, or Health Sciences. (The full SBOE board also voted to reject the rule.)

HB 3349 was passed by the Legislature in 2017 to provide abbreviated training for trade and industrial courses.  However, this rule significantly expanded the intent of the bill by reducing training in two new areas not deliberated before the Legislature and by allowing training to be provided by entities not verified by TEA to provide educator preparation. Pedagogical content knowledge is a critical factor in teacher training, and a teacher knowing how to teach a certain content area is a proven predictor of student success. Content and pedagogy are integrated, and we support the School Initiatives Subcommittee members rejecting a rule that would have diluted the amount of training received by candidates.

After it was rejected by the SBOE, the rule was then re-drafted by SBEC staff and sent back to SBEC as a discussion item at its board meeting October 5th. This time, the rule maintained the 180 hour pre-service training requirement and removed the expansion of the abbreviated training from Marketing and Health Sciences. The board made no changes to the proposed rule and voted in favor to formally propose the rule at its December 7th meeting.