Yesterday, Delaware Governor Jack Markell signed a bill that raises the bar on admission to teacher prep programs. The bill comes right out of the NCTQ playbook, giving wannabe teachers two ways to meet state standards: either earn a 3.0 GPA (essentially a GPA that places them in the top half of their high school or college cohort), or submit passing scores on a test given to anyone attending college, not one that's been administered only to other prospective teachers. In other words, give us evidence that you did reasonably well on the SAT or ACT, not the notoriously easy Praxis I basic skills test.
As shown in the map below, Delaware is living up to its "First State" moniker by requiring that prospective educators come from the top half of the college-going population.
GPA requirements for admission to teacher prep programs are shown in states in yellow; states in red fail to set unconditional GPA requirements for initial program admission
While a handful of states have set GPA requirements, all still fall below the 3.0 threshold, and some delay the requirement until after the candidate has been admitted and completed a large portion of the professional coursework, when research shows that very few teacher candidates earn grades below an A in education courses.
More on this topic is available in the State Teacher Policy Yearbook.