Rhode Island will strengthen its minimum requirements for entry into teacher-preparation programs, the Providence Journal reports, making it the latest in a wave of states seeking to boost potential teachers’ academic profiles.
The state’s board of education will require that each entering class of teacher-candidates score in the top 50 percent on college-entrance exams beginning in 2016-17, and in the top third by 2020. Each cohort must also earn an average GPA of 3.0 to be admitted. (Individual students will need a 2.75 GPA for entry into undergraduate programs and a 3.0 for entry into graduate programs.)
Preparation programs will be expected to follow their graduates more closely, using results from the state’s teacher-evaluation system to see how their newly minted teachers are performing.
The requirements are similar to those adopted recently by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, a national accreditor of teacher-preparation programs.
Quite a few other states are also taking similar steps to raise the minimum-entry qualifications for teacher preparation, as I’ve reported for Education Week.