Admit it — you’re watching for news from St. Mary’s
Hospital, London, where the royal
baby is due to make an appearance at any moment. (And possibly kicking
yourself for it!) Let us distract you for a minute with a development that the
media hasn’t covered.
Flash back to June 6, 2012, when we saw this intriguing story
in the News Observer: New
licensing test in the works for N.C. teachers . We were excited (and
pleasantly surprised) to see that North Carolina was considering adopting the
Massachusetts Test for Educator Licensure (MTEL), considered to be one of the
most rigorous certification exams here in the states. A vote to approve
adoption of the test was expected, but time passed and we never heard more about the initiative. (No. It had nothing to do with our attention
being on the royal pregnancy in London.)
We suspect that we are not alone in learning just now that
on December 6, 2012, the North Carolina Board of Education changed the state’s
testing requirements. According to its website, as of July 1, 2014, all elementary
and special education general curriculum program completers are required to
pass the MTEL.
This big news has not received the fanfare it deserves!
We’ve reached out to Angela Quick, Deputy Chief Academic
Officer, and Susan Ruiz, Section Chief, Licensure, to learn more about how the initiative advanced and how North Carolina teachers
and prep programs have received the news. No word yet. Any readers in NC have
more insight?
In the meantime, we’ll try not to be too distracted waiting
for news from Buckingham Palace.
