A Review of Texas Educator Preparation Program Policy, 2019-2023

Abstract

In 2020, Templeton et al. published what was then the first attempt to document the broad and sweeping policy changes the Texas legislature passed from 1995 to 2019 to govern and regulate educator preparation and certification. Many of the challenges in undertaking such a task then persist to the present day, including the continued lack of a time-stamped, searchable version of the Texas Administrative Code (TAC), which details the rules governing educator preparation and certification. The persistence of such challenges in tracking the evolution of the rules necessitates an update to Templeton et al.’s (2020) work. The purpose of this paper is to document the policy changes affecting educator preparation programs (EPPs) and teacher certification in Texas from 2019 through June 2023. In this update, I focus primarily on changes to the policies guiding candidate, program, and certification requirements, specifically Chapter 227, subareas of Chapter 228, Chapter 230, and Chapter 232 of the Texas Administrative Code. Accompanying this update is a brief covering accreditation, accountability, and personnel assignment policies.