The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) has granted approval to East Stroudsburg University\u2019s College of Education to offer course alternatives to showcase the mandated Basic Skills requirement for all students pursuing a degree in teaching.<\/p>\n
Since 2014, PDE has required teacher candidates to demonstrate basic skills knowledge in three areas \u2013 math, reading, and writing \u2013 or provide evidence through an advanced SAT or ACT score, as part of the state\u2019s teacher certification process. \u201cThese are three standardized tests that students must pay to take in addition to their grade level and content certification tests,\u201d explained Brooke Langan, Ed.D., acting dean of the College of Education. \u201cAs the career market for teachers increases, it is important for our university to understand the needs of our students and that putting out more money to demonstrate a skill that naturally happens during college courses can create an obstacle that deters students from pursuing teaching as a career. We are now approved by our accrediting body (PDE) to allow students to take particular classes in each of these areas in lieu of taking the test.\u201d In order to use any one of these courses as an alternative measure to the Basic Skills test(s), students will need to take the course at ESU and earn a grade of B or better in each.<\/p>\n
\u201cAllowing students to take these courses during their time at ESU gives us the opportunity to better support our teacher candidates academically,\u201d Dr. Langan said. \u201cIt also relieves a huge financial burden for these future teachers as they prepare for life after college.\u201d<\/p>\n
ESU is the only school in Pennsylvania\u2019s State System of Higher Education approved by PDE to allow course grades to exempt students from the Basic Skills testing in all three areas.<\/p>\n
To learn more about the College of Education at ESU, contact Dr. Langan by calling 570-422-3377 or email blangan1@esu.edu<\/a>, or visit esu.edu\/college_education<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) has granted approval to ESU\u2019s College of Education to offer course alternatives to showcase the mandated Basic Skills requirement for all students pursuing a degree in teaching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[143,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-news-release"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20688"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20688"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20695,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20688\/revisions\/20695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}