Licensure Reciprocity: Utah

Analysis of Utah's policies

Teachers with valid out-of-state certificates are eligible for licensure in Utah. All out-of-state teachers may initially apply for the Level 1 Utah Educator License. Those with three or more years of experience will be promoted to a Level 2 License after one year of experience in Utah and a recommendation from the employing district. The state does not require evidence of effective teaching during previous employment in its reciprocity policy.

Utah does not waive any of its testing requirements. All out-of-state teachers, no matter how many years of experience they have, must meet the state's passing scores on licensing tests.

However, other aspects of the state's policy create obstacles for teachers from other states seeking licensure in Utah. Utah routinely reviews the college transcripts of licensed out-of-state teachers, an exercise that often leads the state to require additional coursework before it will offer a license. States that reach a determination about an applicant's licensure status on the basis of the course titles listed on the applicant's transcript may end up mistakenly equating the amount of required coursework with the teacher's qualifications.

Utah is a participant in the NASDTEC Interstate Agreement, which outlines which other states' certificates will be accepted by the receiving state. This agreement is not a collection of two-way reciprocal acceptances, nor is it a guarantee that all certificates will be accepted by the receiving state, and it is therefore not included in this analysis.

Citation

Out-of-State Educator License Application www.schools.utah.gov/cert/Out-of-State-License.aspx Utah Administrative Code R277-502-7

Recommendations for Utah

Require evidence of effective teaching when determining eligibility for full certification.
To facilitate the movement of effective teachers between states, Utah should require that evidence of teacher effectiveness, as determined by an evaluation that includes objective measures of student growth, be considered for all out-of-state candidates. Such evidence should indeed be a factor for candidates who come from states that make student growth an important factor of a teacher evaluation (see "Evaluation of Effectiveness" analysis and recommendations).

Offer a standard license to certified out-of-state teachers, absent unnecessary requirements. 
Utah should offer standard licenses to certified out-of-state teachers, rather than restricting them to provisional ones until they meet Utah's requirements.

Utah should also consider discontinuing its requirement for the submission of transcripts, because transcript reviews are not a particularly meaningful or efficient exercise. Such review is likely to result in additional coursework requirements, even for traditionally prepared teachers; alternate route teachers, on the other hand, may have to virtually begin anew, repeating some, most or all of a teacher preparation program in Utah.

Accord the same license to out-of-state alternate route teachers as would be accorded to traditionally prepared teachers. 
Regardless of whether a teacher was prepared through a traditional or alternate route, all certified out-of-state teachers should receive equal treatment. State policies that discriminate against teachers who were prepared in an alternate route are not supported by evidence. In fact, a substantial body of research has failed to discern differences in effectiveness between alternate and traditional route teachers.

State response to our analysis

Utah asserted that while coursework and programs are indeed reviewed, a 1:1 course equivalency is not required. Professional judgment is exercised in these reviews with the primary guidance being that if an educator is licensed in an area, he orshe should be licensed in that area in Utah unless there are significant deficiencies. The vast majority of licensure denials, and they are few in number, are typically based on licensure misalignment (i.e., a license in “deaf education,” which Utah does not have absent a special education license), or alternate preparation programs that are deemed insufficient.

Utah also contended that its out-of-state process does not discriminate against candidates who have completed alternate preparation programs. Whether the program is traditional or alternate is not considered. What is considered is whether the completed program is reasonably equivalent to what is required in Utah, with the same professional judgement described above.