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Could you pass a 100-question U.S. citizenship test?
Aspiring Tennessee teachers may soon have to do that to earn their state licensure under new legislation currently being considered in the General Assembly.
The Tennessee Civics Education Act would require aspiring Tennessee teachers to score 70% or higher on a 100-question U.S. civics test to earn their practitioner teaching license, adding a new testing prerequisite on top of existing licensure requirements like the PRAXIS exam.
The bill would require the Tennessee Department of Education to craft the test using 100 questions from the standard U.S. citizenship test, which requires applicants to answer 12 out of 20 questions correctly drawn from a 128-question pool.
Lawmakers have not settled on which Tennessee teachers the proposed law would apply to, though. While the Senate version of the bill would apply to all aspiring teachers, House lawmakers on Tuesday applied an amendment that would limit the test to teachers seeking licensure in grade 6 -12 in social studies, history, government, or civics subjects.
Tennessee would enforce the new testing requirement as early as January 2027, if the measure ultimately passes into law.
Tennessee Republicans have largely backed the bill, advancing it through its first committee hurdles last month and giving it another favorable vote in the House Education Committee on Tuesday.
Sen. Brent Taylor, a Memphis Republican who is sponsoring the Senate version of the bill, said any K-12 teacher in the state should have a “functioning understanding of what it means to be an American and how our system of government works.”
“I don’t think it’s too much to ask somebody who’s going to spend eight hours a day with our students, teaching them, that they understand American civics,” Taylor said.
Democrats have largely opposed the measure due to concerns with additional licensing burdens for Tennessee teachers.
“Teachers already have a lot of steps they have to take for licensure,” said Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari, a Democrat from Memphis.
Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.
