Agency: State Board of Education

Line Item: Educator Licensing

Function

Through the Educator Licensing and Professional Practices Act, the Legislature regulates the criteria to be a teacher.

Intent language from the 2004 General Session requested that the State Board of Education submit an educator licensing fee plan that provided enough revenue to support the costs of the USOE--Educator Licensing Section. Since this time, the fee schedule has been updated desired expenditures and revenues.

In the 2007 General Session, the Legislature moved educator licensing to its own line item. This line item contains all revenue from teacher licensing fees deposited into the Professional Practices Restricted Account. In addition to creation of the line item, all FTEs associated with this program were moved from the USOE line item. By taking these actions, the Legislature required the Educator Licensing section to operate exclusively from fee revenue generated through the licensing process (a separate line-item prohibits the USOE from supplementing the operation of the division with state revenues, or other revenues available to the agency).

Statutory Authority

The following statute establishes requirements for the State Board of Education regarding Educator Licensing Fees:

• UCA 53A-6-101 et. seq.
  • Establishes that the State Board of Education will levy fees for new, renewed, or reinstated licenses or endorsements for educators.
  • Requires that the Board "shall pay the expenses of issuing licenses and of Utah Professional Practices Advisory Commission (UPPAC) operations."
  • Outlines that fee payments are credited to the Professional Practices Restricted Subfund in the Uniform School Fund and the Board shall cover the costs of collecting license fees from the restricted subfund.
  • Requires submission of an annual report to the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee detailing the fund, fees assessed and collected, and expenditures.

Performance

The following two graphs represent performance measures associated with Educator Licensing.

The first shows the trend in licensing educators from 2011 to 2013. Overall, the number of licensed educators continues to increase.

The second graph looks at whether an increase in licensing educators is associated with better school performance. The index on the vertical axis captures the average difference between the professional staff FTE (a measure of licensing) and school grades. The box part of the boxplot captures the 25th and 75 percentile of the licensing index, while the line in the middle of the box represents the median licensing score. The "whiskers" represent the bottom and top non-outlier LEAs. The plotted dots represent outliers. Overall, if there were a relationship between educator licensing and school grades, "A" schools would be higher up on the vertical "educator licensing index", while "F" schools would be lower on the "licensing index".

Special Funds

The Educator Licensing section at USOE receives restricted Uniform School Fund revenue from the Professional Practices Restricted Subfund. Fees paid by educators to be licensed in Utah under UCA 53A-6-105 are deposited in the Professional Practices Restricted account. Funding generated through licensing fees supports the operations of processing educator licenses and the Utah Professional Practices Advisory Commission.

Funding Detail

For more detail about a particular source of finance or organizational unit, click a linked entry in the left column of the table(s) below.