From:   David Kullman
 
To:  Members of the Math Education Committee
 
On Friday, February 7, John Nichelson from the Ohio Department of
Education spoke to the Ohio Mathematics and Science Coalition about
the new Ohio licensure standards.  All persons who begin a teacher
licensure program in the fall of 1998 or later will be required to
meet these standards.
 
His first remarks were that Ohio has increased the content
requirements for middle school teachers and that "we will no longer
have generalists teaching content at the middle school level."  When
questioned about this, he admitted that there will probably be some
self-contained classrooms in grades 4 and 5  "for the next 25 years."
But, he said, such schools will be able to hire some of the presently
certified elementary (grades 1-8) teachers.  Newly licensed middle
school teachers will be "snapped up" by middle schools that use a
teaming approach.
 
The mathematics and science content courses for middle school teacher
candidates who are not working on a concentration in one of these
areas will most likely be limited to their general studies (e.g. Miami
Plan foundation) courses.  If a teacher is assigned to teach subjects
for which he or she is not licensed, it will generate a "red flag" on
the annual ODE reports electronically submitted by that school.
 
What constitutes a "concentration"?  Ohio is aligning itself with the
NCATE standards, and NCATE has adopted the standards put forth by the
learned societies (NCTM in the case of middle and secondary school
mathematics).  Colleges and universities must meet these standards to
get their licensure programs approved.  This approval will be granted
on a content area by content area basis.
 
What is "integrated mathematics"?  Nobody knows.  The word was
probably inserted for purposes of homogeneity (c.f. "integrated
science" et al.).
 
Quite a bit of time was spent discussing the entry year program and
its assessment.  The state will fund the required mentorship
activites.  Current plans are to use PRAXIS III, with the cutoff score
yet to be determined.  Some members of local school boards are
concerned that this may interfere with local autonomy in the matter of
hiring and retaining teachers.