Education

REPORT: Around 1,000 DC Public Schools Teachers Aren’t Licensed To Teach

Shutterstock/ABO PHOTOGRAPHY

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Rob Shimshock Education Reporter
Font Size:

Around 1,000 D.C. Public Schools teachers are not licensed to teach, according to a Thursday report.

About one out of every four D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) teachers for the 2017-2018 school year does not hold a teaching license, reported NBC Washington.

“How do we ensure the teachers coming into D.C. Public Schools are properly trained and prepared for the students, without licensure?” D.C. State Board of Education member and father of a middle school student Joe Weedon asked. “Licensing (of teachers) is the safety net.”

If teachers do not have licenses, Anne Arundel County Public Schools and Prince George’s County Public Schools deem them substitutes.

“Licensure is just one of many components we look at to determine whether a teacher is meeting our high standards,” a DCPS spokesman told NBC Washington. “Even before they receive an offer letter, teachers must complete a rigorous selection process that identifies the teachers with the greatest potential to thrive in DCPS classrooms.”

The district said it will require all 2018-2019 hires to apply to the Office of State Superintendent for their licenses before teaching. D.C. Public Schools did not respond immediately to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s inquiry regarding whether it will make current teachers obtain licenses.

Schools can avoid hiring teachers who have had their licenses revoked due to misconduct. The National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification maintains a database of around 80,000 such cases. Since teachers who never received licenses cannot have them revoked, the database does not account for unlicensed teachers.

“Licensure requirements exist for a reason,” Gaston de los Reyes, whose children attend Oyster-Adams Bilingual School, said. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense that the District hasn’t embraced a good credentialing system.”

D.C. Public Schools has made headlines for other scandals during the 2017-2018 school year. Teachers at the district’s Ballou High School generally did not lower the grades of students with excessive absences and awarded 50 percent, instead of zero percent, for uncompleted work. D.C. Public Schools increased its graduation from 53 percent in 2011 to 73 percent in 2017, but its 2018 projected rate was 42 percent. The school passed an emergency measure earlier in June allowing students who have missed more than six weeks of classes to graduate anyway. (RELATED: DC Graduation Rate Cut Nearly In HALF After Corruption Scandal)

A June report revealed that 50 of D.C.’s 115 public schools do not feature locks on classroom doors.

Follow Rob Shimshock on Twitter

Connect with Rob Shimshock on Facebook

Send tips to rob@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel