As a state representative, one of my goals is to ensure our students receive the best education possible. This year, House Republicans made it a priority to increase education funding and empower teachers and school districts to find innovative ways to meet the educational needs of their students. This is why I am concerned about a potential proposal impacting federal statute that could limit a school’s ability to help students become college ready.
Federal regulations require universities to be accredited through the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) which allows them to provide their students federal student aid assistance. This federal funding for college students makes the HLC accreditation important for universities to obtain but could soon negatively impact high school students attempting to earn dual credit.…show more content… The proposal would require these educators to hold at least a Master’s degree in the discipline/subfield of the course they teach. If an educator holds at least a Master’s degree or higher in a discipline/subfield, other than that in which they are teaching, then they must have completed at least 18 graduate credit hours within that field.
For example, if you are an English teacher with a Master’s degree in Education, you would no longer be eligible to teach dual credit English or Speech courses. If you are this same teacher, but have less than 18 hours of graduate credits earned in English, then you are still considered ineligible to teach English dual credit courses –regardless of the undergraduate credits you may have earned. If this proposal is adopted by HLC, schools would have a significantly lower number of qualified, dual credit
