Important work to address teacher-licensing problems — and do right by Minnesota students — is happening this summer on two tracks: in court and at the Capitol.

— An appeals court panel last week rejected a request from the Minnesota Board of Teaching to dismiss a lawsuit filed by educators who say they have faced undue barriers on the path to state classrooms.

— The 2016 Legislature created a 12-member study group to develop recommendations for the best way to restructure the system. It meets again next week.

The state’s teacher licensure problem is a stubborn one that has played out in recent years, frustrating out-of-state teachers seeking regular, renewable licenses to serve in our classrooms. It’s a problem made urgent as the state faces teacher-recruiting challenges and a daunting gap in school success that falls along racial lines.

Among those expressing frustration are teachers who took the legal route beginning in the spring of 2015.

A Ramsey County judge ruled in December that the Board of Teaching broke the law when it stopped processing applications for teaching licenses through a portfolio system. The ruling ordered the board to immediately begin processing applications for teaching licenses through the portfolio system it abandoned in 2012, the Pioneer Press’ Christopher Magan explained. The decision also rejected claims that district courts do not have jurisdiction over the board’s administrative decision to stop using the portfolio licensing system.

The appellate ruling means that the case, now involving 18 teachers, likely will head to trial, Daniel Sellers, former executive director of the education reform group MinnCAN, told us.

As the court proceedings play out, the teachers remain committed to making their point.

A number of them have been granted licenses since the initial filing “but still argue that their constitutional rights were violated,” Sellers said. They want that to be affirmed but they seek no further relief.

Those who still don’t have licenses are not seeking them through the lawsuit, he explained, but rather what they want “is an agreement from the Board of Teaching that going forward they will change their policies and practices to align with the law.”

The objective of those teachers, Sellers said, is relief “in the form of changed practices, so that other teachers don’t have to go through what they went through.”

The board has argued that teachers should navigate the system using an appeals process that’s laid out in state law. “That’s not what this case is seeking,” Sellers emphasizes: “We’re seeking systemic reforms, and we’re asking the Board of Teaching to follow the law.”

Earlier this year, a six-month investigation by the state’s Office of the Legislative Auditor concluded with a report that called the system “broken.” It said laws are complex and unclear and that — because the Board of Teaching and the state Department of Education share responsibility for licensing teachers — accountability “is diffuse and decision making is not always transparent.”

The report also observed that multiple exceptions to licensure requirements have led to loopholes and meaningless standards.

The lawmakers’ study group acting on the recommendations is co-chaired by Sen. Charles Wiger, a Democrat from Maplewood, and Rep. Sondra Erickson, a Republican from Princeton.

Wiger, Senate Education Committee chair, concurs that the process is “fractured, confusing and time-consuming.” He told us the study group’s focus is on streamlining the process under one entity and that its work will take shape as a recommendation for lawmakers’ consideration in 2017.

As for the urgency, we’ve been told that teacher shortages now extend beyond traditionally harder-to-fill positions — in math, science and special education, for example — to elementaryschool positions in some areas. The profession also faces the challenges of finding candidates to fill positions vacated by retiring baby-boomers and recruiting more teachers of color.

As we’ve observed, a teacher-licensing process that confounds lawmakers, out-of-state teachers and the public has no place in a system that should put students first. Progress on changes that address it are welcome — and long overdue.

 

— St. Paul Pioneer Press, Aug. 18