Introduction

Even prior to the emergence of COVID-19, interest in becoming and remaining a teacher was declining, and local educational agencies (LEAs) increasingly have faced difficulties in finding qualified teachers.¹ As with many intransigent public issues, pinpointing solutions is complex. But one thing is clear: current approaches to helping teachers engage in ongoing skill development, and to equitably rewarding teachers with particular skill sets aligned with advanced career opportunities, are often woefully ineffective²—and sometimes even non-existent.

Micro-credentials (MCs) are a recent addition to the mix of solutions being proposed to address these issues. Like many buzzwords in education, this term has been used to describe a variety of different activities related to the recruitment, development, and retention of educators. For the purpose of consistency and clarity, New America defines an educator MC as follows: A verification of a discrete skill or competency that a teacher has demonstrated through the submission of evidence assessed via a validated rubric. Educator MCs are similar to other credentials, like degrees or diplomas, in that they provide public recognition and signaling of knowledge and/or skills held, but they differ in their format and scope: a demonstrated application of one very small, specific competency in practice.

Micro-credentials first began to take hold in the technology sector of the U.S. economy around 2011. As employers’ need for workers with digital coding skills expanded rapidly, many individuals became interested in becoming coders.³ Coding boot camps and other short-term training programs proliferated to help build the necessary skills, but candidates still needed a way to demonstrate these skills to employers in order to land a job. MCs arose as the solution to this problem, because individuals could earn them by demonstrating, via a performance assessment, the application of a discrete skill in a real-world or simulated setting.

A variety of organizations—those providing the boot camps, software companies that developed coding language, and even would-be employers—lined up to offer MCs. Employers placed value on the respective MCs based on whether they could ensure that the MC assessment process was high-quality (i.e., a reliable and valid measure of skills/knowledge held), or they trusted the issuing organization to only bestow MCs on individuals who had truly demonstrated the competency being assessed. The credential earned was typically shared as a “digital badge” that incorporated verifiable data about the performance assessment.

There are three key takeaways from micro-credentials’ origin story:

1. MCs are a way for people to gain recognition and value for holding specific, narrow competencies that are relevant to employment in their current or intended field even if they do not hold a formal credential, such as a college degree or technical certification, in the field.
2. While MCs may be offered in conjunction with professional learning opportunities, their primary function has not historically been as a tool for acquiring new skills and knowledge.
3. People earn MCs by engaging in an assessment of a small, discrete demonstrated competency.

Digital Promise saw the potential for applying MCs in education and joined with BloomBoard to introduce the first micro-credential platform for K-12 educators in 2015. Since then, the number of entities offering MCs to engage teachers in professional learning and offer career growth has multiplied exponentially. As of fall 2020, at least 26 states had begun to use—or experiment with using—MCs to help educators meet requirements for professional development (PD), license renewal, new endorsements, and/or advancement in some fashion.⁴

There are valid reasons for the enthusiasm around high-quality MCs’ potential for educators: they hold potential to move the profession toward a more competency-based model of identifying and rewarding knowledge and skills. But, as with any single tool on which the hope of education improvement is hung, there is also reason for caution. In particular, the number of entities providing offerings labeled “micro-credentials” is growing rapidly, and many do not reflect the definition of educator MC outlined above. And even among those that do, many are still not high-quality, as they do not fully align with best practices.⁵ As such, New America has been working to identify the potential and challenges of educator MCs in order to help educators and decision-makers at all levels make choices that will meet educators’ needs, and even more importantly, the needs of the students they serve.

This brief draws upon its companion report, A National Review of Early Best Practices,⁶ as well as New America’s previous work on educator micro-credentials,⁷ to outline a set of model policy proposals for states to effectively incorporate high-quality MCs* into educator policies and practices for ongoing PD, license renewal, and advancement.

These proposals do not preclude other evidence-based, high-quality systems of educator PD and advancement that may already exist. Rather, this brief should be read first as an acknowledgement that in vast swaths of the educator human capital ecosystem—such high-quality structures and programs do not exist, and second, as a demonstration of how systems could be strengthened and supported, with the implementation of MCs as part of the solution.

*Note: From hereafter, all references to educator MCs in this model policy guide assume that they have been adequately vetted, and ensured to be of high quality. For more details on the elements of a high-quality educator MC, see New America’s companion research report.