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When Micro Goes Macro: A Nationwide Review of States’ Educator Micro-Credential Policies

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Conclusions and Recommendations

With smart policy design and implementation, high-quality micro-credentials offer states an innovative tool for improving the stability and capability of their educator workforces that models the type of personalized, competency-based learning they increasingly strive for with students.

For prospective and novice educators, high-quality micro-credentials offer a way to demonstrate skill-based readiness for the classroom to preparation and credentialing entities, as well as future employers, so states can remove unnecessary barriers to entering and remaining in the profession while maintaining high standards for student learning. For current educators, high-quality micro-credentials offer the ability to engage in relevant, active professional learning that helps them help their students, instead of one-size-fits-all workshops, as well as straightforward opportunities to showcase their skills to advance in their careers. For schools, they offer the prospect of more satisfied, more effective staff members and fewer vacancies. And for students and their families, high-quality micro-credentials help the educators leading their learning better support them in meeting their full potential.

In order for micro-credentials to produce these positive outcomes, states should consider six actions, which draw upon New America’s extensive prior research on educator micro-credentials.1

1. Develop a formal, rigorous, and transparent process for ensuring the quality of educator micro-credentials. Educators, LEAs, and policymakers must be confident that engaging in a given micro-credential is a valuable use of educators’ time, and that the attainment of a given micro-credential is an accurate indicator of an educator’s competency in that area. At the heart of quality lies a focus on learning and applying desired competencies in educators’ daily practice, rather than on coursework or seat time. Without this crucial foundation, the potential of micro-credentials to positively influence these aspects of the educator pipeline will be lost.

State spotlight: Illinois,2 North Carolina,3 and Wyoming4 are examples of states trying to explicitly define micro-credential quality and review potential micro-credential offerings relative to those standards before they can satisfy state policy.

2. Ensure that the design of educator policies involving micro-credentials, including any associated incentives, is clearly driven by the intended goal of the specific policy, and revisit policies that are not achieving their goals. For example, the primary objective of using micro-credentials for ongoing professional learning is to develop educators’ skill in their current roles, while the primary objective of using them for advancement is validating educators’ skills for entry into a new role. As a result, two different but complementary approaches to incentives and currency will be needed to effectively shift behavior, and support educator success.

State spotlight: As an early adopter of educator micro-credentials, Arkansas currently incorporates them in four different policy areas and has designed each policy to reflect its specific goals (e.g., for professional learning vs. advancement).

3. Communicate with educators clearly—and repeatedly—about what high-quality micro-credentials are and how they can help them and the students they serve. The existence of a policy does not necessarily translate into uptake of a policy. To be motivated to earn micro-credentials, educators need to understand the distinction between the micro-credential itself (which, like any other credential, is what is earned upon completion of the required activity) and the process they will engage in to earn it (which should reflect the best evidence and practices on adult learning), as well as the benefits they and their students stand to reap from each of these. It is also important to clarify the difference between micro-credentials and digital badges, which some educators perceive as meaningless, or even faddish.5

State spotlight: Arkansas,6 Delaware,7 and Utah8 each host websites explaining to educators what micro-credentials are and reasons to explore them.

4. Curate high-quality micro-credential offerings to align with educators’ and students’ learning needs. Educators should have some discretion in choosing what professional learning and/or advancement opportunities to pursue based on their own interests and goals. However, states should help guide these choices by providing educators with a set of high-quality options likely to help them, and in turn their students. Rather than putting the onus on educators and their LEAs to locate a relevant micro-credential and submit it to the state for vetting, states should consider proactively curating a discrete set of vetted high-quality micro-credentials for educators to choose from, at least in the initial rollout. In addition to promoting more consistent micro-credential quality, this focused approach will allow schools, LEAs, and regional educational service agencies to better support educators throughout the micro-credentialing process and enable educators to collaborate on micro-credentials to meet common individual and school goals.

State spotlight: Illinois9 and Nevada10 provide curated lists of the micro-credentials that educators can engage with to satisfy state license renewal policy requirements.

5. Provide local education leaders the training necessary to support educators in successfully earning high-quality micro-credentials. Most educators do not have experience with the type of applied learning that high-quality micro-credentials call for, including local education leaders. Without professional learning supports, educators who attempt to earn high-quality micro-credentials might not succeed in doing so, leaving the full potential of this tool untapped and making educators hesitant to engage with them in the future. Local leaders will need assistance with thinking through how to make shifts in their schools that can support educators in earning micro-credentials that ultimately benefit students. For example, leaders can help ensure that instructional coaching and curricular materials reinforce the evidence-based practices and applied learning that educators are being asked to demonstrate to earn high-quality micro-credentials.

State spotlight: While this research did not attempt to assess this aspect of policy implementation, states such as Wyoming11 have produced materials that reflect the need for incentives and support for educators to choose to engage with micro-credentials.

6. Deploy data to better understand and harness educator micro-credential potential. Data are key, whether they are being used to assess stakeholders’ experience with micro-credentials or evaluate the relationship between earned micro-credentials and changes in instructional practice or student achievement. Without data, policymakers will have difficulty assessing whether their micro-credential policies are on track to meet their goals or how to adjust policy design and/or implementation if not on track.

State spotlight: Arkansas and Tennessee are two early adopter states that relied on data from pilots to make revisions to their educator micro-credential policy efforts.12

For more insights on designing effective state policy with educator micro-credentials, see New America’s Harnessing Micro-Credentials for Teacher Growth: Model State Policy Guide.13

Citations
  1. These recommendations are adapted and updated from Tooley and Hood, Harnessing Micro-Credentials for Teacher Growth: A National Review of Early Best Practices, source; and Tooley and Hood, Harnessing Micro-Credentials for Teacher Growth: A Model State Policy Guide, source.
  2. In Illinois, professional development providers seeking to offer micro-credentials must submit documentation that their course is aligned with the state’s rubric, which includes evaluation of the micro-credential’s design, alignment to the state teaching and learning standards, and the process for evaluation and evidence submission, according to the Illinois State Board of Education, “Illinois Educator Microcredential Framework,” source.
  3. In fall 2024, North Carolina’s State Board of Education officially authorized the use of the Quality Assurance Standards (QAS) for LEAs to vet which micro-credentials educators can count toward relicensure requirements, and the Department of Public Instruction is currently working to use the QAS and associated rubric to develop educator micro-credentials for AI, digital data privacy, and integration of digital learning standards into curriculum (per email correspondence with Myra Best, digiLEARN’s executive director, on April 8, 2025).
  4. Wyoming’s administrative rules specify aspects of quality control for educator micro-credentials; see Program Approval Standards for Endorsement Areas, Wyoming Professional Teaching Standards Board, source.
  5. Earners of micro-credentials are awarded a digital badge as proof of their accomplishment, but not all digital badges are obtained by earning micro-credentials. Digital badges can be awarded for something as simple as attending a conference training or completing a multiple-choice assessment, while earning high-quality micro-credentials requires successful application of the given competency. A 2015 survey of teachers by Digital Promise found that, of 19 distinct micro-credential benefits highlighted, teachers were least interested in displaying digital badges or sharing them on social media. See “Findings,” Tooley and Hood, source. Additional educator perspective on digital badges was gleaned from RTI’s NC Feasibility Study Report to the North Carolina Partnership for Micro-Credentials and “Micro-Credential Focus Group: Emerging Framing Ideas” (prepared for digiLEARN, unpublished, November 2020).
  6. Arkansas Department of Education, Division of Elementary & Secondary Education, “Professional Learning Through Micro-Credentials,” source.
  7. Delaware Department of Education, “About DDOE Micro-Credential Programs,” source.
  8. Utah State Board of Education and The Utah Education Network, “Move Your Professional Learning Forward,” source.
  9. See Illinois State Board of Education list of approved micro-credentials on its “Professional Learning” page, by expanding the second accordion menu at the bottom of the page, “List of ISBE-Approved Microcredentials,” source.
  10. The Nevada Department of Education offers 50 micro-credentials on its “Nevada Professional Learning” page, source.
  11. The Wyoming Department of Education has published the Wyoming Digital Learning Plan, which discusses how districts and schools can “provide incentives and/or support for educators to receive licensure, certifications, and micro-credentials for digital learning." See Wyoming Department of Education, Wyoming Digital Learning Plan: 2023–2028, source.
  12. Arkansas initially used micro-credentials as part of its teacher induction program for beginning teachers and Tennessee had a pilot that used micro-credentials for relicensure. See Jenny DeMonte, Micro-Credentials for Teachers: What Three Early Adopter States Have Learned So Far (American Institutes for Research, 2017), source; and Tooley and Hood, Harnessing Micro-Credentials for Teacher Growth: A National Review of Early Best Practices, source.
  13. Tooley and Hood, source.

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Conclusions and Recommendations

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When Micro Goes Macro: A Nationwide Review of States’ Educator Micro-Credential Policies