A commenter wrote:
I'm as angry as the next person, but I disagree with your interpretation.
There are two separate sections in the law, Subpart C Section 1 which applies to "Valid for Life" certifications and Subpart C Section 2 for "Professional" certificate holders.
The permanent certificate holders need to register every five years to continue teaching.
Professional certificate holders have to do 100 hours every five years instead of 175. The hours we can submit are subject to the Commissioner's approval now.
So it still sucks, but not quite as much as you've described here.
I was working off the Jessica Bakeman summary of the education provisions in the budget, not the actual budget language.
Here is what she wrote:
TEACHER CERTIFICATION:Teachers and administrators with lifetime certification must register with the state every five years.
Applicants for registration must complete 100 hours of continuing education or professional development every five years. “The department shall issue rigorous standards for courses, programs and activities that shall qualify as continuing teacher and leader education,” according to the bill.
Principals or teachers who perform observations for the purpose of the state’s teacher evaluation system may count those hours toward the total.
If educators don’t complete the state-approved professional development, they will not be able to maintain certification.
The Capital NY article suggests that lifetime certification holders must do the 100 hours of PD or risk losing their licenses.
But the budget langauge is different than the way Bakeman wrote it up at Capital NY.
Here is the actual langauge in the budget (sorry for the mish-moshed excerpt - I'm doing this during lunch!):
Section 1. Section 3006 of the education law is amended by adding a
9 new subdivision 3 to read as follows:
10 3. Registration. a. Commencing with the two thousand sixteen--two
11 thousand seventeen school year, any holder of a teaching certificate in
12 the classroom teaching service, teaching assistant certificate, or
13 educational leadership certificate that is valid for life as prescribed
14 by the commissioner in regulations shall be required to register with
15 the department every five years in accordance with regulations of the
16 commissioner. Such regulations shall prescribe the date or dates by
17 which applications for initial registration must be submitted and may
18 provide for staggered initial registration and/or rolling re-registra-
19 tion so that re-registrations are distributed as equally as possible
20 throughout the year and across multiple years.
21 b. The department shall post an application for registration on its
22 website. An application shall be submitted for a registration certif-
23 icate. Except as otherwise provided in this section, the department
24 shall renew the registration of each certificate holder upon receipt of
25 a proper application on a form prescribed by the department. Any certif-
26 icate holder who fails to register by the beginning of the appropriate
27 registration period may be subject to late filing penalties as
28 prescribed by the commissioner. No certificate holder resuming practice
29 after a lapse of registration shall be permitted to practice without
30 verification of re-registration.
c. Any certificate holder who is not engaging in the practice of his
32 or her profession in this state and does not desire to register shall so
33 advise the department. Such certificate holder shall not be subject to
34 penalties as prescribed by the commissioner for failure to register at
35 the beginning of the registration period.
36 d. Certificate holders shall notify the department of any change of
37 name or mailing address within thirty days of such change. Willful fail-
38 ure to register or provide such notice within one hundred eighty days of
39 such change may constitute grounds for moral character review under
40 subdivision seven of section three hundred five of this chapter.
41 § 2. The education law is amended by adding a new section 3006-a to
42 read as follows:
3006-a. Registration and continuing teacher and leader education
44 requirements for holders of professional certificates in the classroom
45 teaching service, holders of level III teaching assistant certificates,
46 holders of professional certificates in the educational leadership
47 service. 1. a. Commencing with the two thousand sixteen--two thousand
48 seventeen school year, each holder of a professional certificate in the
49 classroom teaching service, holder of a level III teaching assistant
50 certificate and holder of a professional certificate in the educational
51 leadership service shall be required to register every five years with
52 the department to practice in the state and shall comply with the
53 provisions of the continuing teacher and leader education requirements
54 set forth in this section.
2006--B 113 A. 3006--B
1 b. Any of the certified individuals described in paragraph a of this
2 subdivision who do not satisfy the continuing teacher and leader educa-
3 tion requirements shall not practice until they have met such require-
4 ments and have been issued a registration or conditional registration
5 certificate.
6 c. In accordance with the intent of this section, adjustments to the
7 continuing teacher and leader education requirement may be granted by
8 the department for reasons of health certified by a health care provid-
9 er, for extended active duty with armed forces of the United States, or
10 for other good cause acceptable to the department which may prevent
11 compliance.
12 d. Any certificate holder who is not practicing as a teacher, teaching
13 assistant or educational leader in a school district or board of cooper-
14 ative educational services in this state shall be exempt from the
15 continuing teacher and leader education requirement upon the filing of a
16 written statement with the department declaring such status. Any holder
17 of a professional certificate in the classroom teaching service, holder
18 of a level III teaching assistant certificate and holder of a profes-
19 sional certificate in the educational leadership service who resumes
20 practice during the five-year registration period shall notify the
21 department prior to resuming practice and shall meet such continuing
22 teacher and leader education requirements as prescribed in regulations
23 of the commissioner.
24 2. a. During each five-year registration period beginning on or after
25 July first, two thousand sixteen, an applicant for registration shall
26 successfully complete a minimum of one hundred hours of continuing
27 teacher and leader education, as defined by the commissioner. The
28 department shall issue rigorous standards for courses, programs, and
29 activities, that shall qualify as continuing teacher and leader educa-
30 tion pursuant to this section. For purposes of this section, a peer
31 review teacher, or a principal acting as an independent trained evalu-
32 ator, conducting a classroom observation as part of the teacher evalu-
33 ation system pursuant to section three thousand twelve-d of this article
34 may credit such time towards his or her continuing teacher and leader
35 effectiveness requirements.
Nothing in this section shall limit the ability of local school
37 districts to agree pursuant to collective bargaining to additional hours
38 of professional development or continuing teacher or leader education
39 above the minimum requirements set forth in this section.
40 c. A certified individual who has not satisfied the continuing teacher
41 and leader education requirements shall not be issued a five-year regis-
42 tration certificate by the department and shall not practice unless and
43 until a registration or conditional registration certificate is issued
44 as provided in subdivision three of this section. For purposes of this
45 subdivision, "continuing teacher and leader education requirements"
46 shall mean activities designed to improve the teacher or leader's peda-
47 gogical and/or leadership skills, targeted at improving student perform-
48 ance, including but not limited to formal continuing teacher and leader
49 education activities. Such activities shall promote the professionaliza-
50 tion of teaching and be closely aligned to district goals for student
51 performance which meet the standards prescribed by regulations of the
52 commissioner. To fulfill the continuing teacher and leader education
53 requirement, programs must be taken from sponsors approved by the
54 department, which shall include but not be limited to school districts,
55 pursuant to the regulations of the commissioner.
The department, in its discretion, may issue a conditional regis-
2 tration to a teacher, teaching assistant or educational leader in a
3 school district or board of cooperative educational services in this
4 state who fails to meet the continuing teacher and leader education
5 requirements established in subdivision two of this section but who
6 agrees to make up any deficiencies and take any additional continuing
7 teacher and leader education which the department may require. The dura-
8 tion of such conditional registration shall be determined by the depart-
9 ment. Any holder of a professional certificate in the classroom teaching
10 service, holder of a level III teaching assistant certificate or holder
11 of a professional certificate in the educational leadership service and
12 any other certified individual required by the commissioner to register
13 every five years who is notified of the denial of registration for fail-
14 ure to submit evidence, satisfactory to the department, of required
15 continuing teacher and leader education and who practices without such
16 registration, shall be subject to moral character review under subdivi-
17 sion seven of section three hundred five of this chapter.
The language in the budget does seem to say that "lifetime" certification holders have to "register" every five years but the 100 hours of professional development does not apply to them, only to professional certification holders - as the commenter at Perdido Street wrote in his comment.
You can imagine how easy it is to mistake what's actually in the budget, though, given that the bill itself was not released until very late in the budget process and the governor released this as part of his press release for the budget agreement finalized last night:
The State currently requires teachers to pass a teacher “bar” exam – and will now also require teachers to complete 100 hours of continuing education and recertify every five years or lose their licenses.
Gee, that does make it sound like everybody's got to do the 100 hours of PD or lose their licenses, doesn't it?
No wonder there's confusion over what's actually happening with permanent certification.
One way or the other, someone stuck a new mandate into the budget that forces teachers with permanent certification to "register" that permanent certification every five years, thus rendering it essentially no longer "permanent."
And you have to wonder, why is that suddenly in the budget?
I don't remember hearing Cuomo clamor about that as part of his Opportunity Agenda.
So, why is it there?
