Certification Examination Preparation

Raising Texas Teachers is a Charles Butt Foundation initiative aims to improve the status of the teaching profession by enhancing the recruitment of a talented and diverse teacher workforce through the Charles Butt Scholarship for Aspiring Teachers, supporting retention of teachers in the classroom, and partnering with university-based teacher preparation programs to raise the overall quality of teacher preparation across the state by promoting continuous improvement in the field. 

Through the Foundation’s partnerships with teacher preparation programs, faculty teams identify common areas for improvement and form cross-university groups called Educator Preparation Program Improvement Communities (EPPICs). Each EPPIC spent two years listening to mentor teachers, teacher candidates, and other stakeholders, testing interventions on their own campuses, and learning from what other universities were finding.

Each EPPIC shared a write-up of their findings. The post below shares what one of these EPPICs discovered. To learn more, click here. 

If [teacher candidates] can’t get past this [test], they won’t be able to be teachers. And we serve a lot of first-generation college students, a lot of multilingual students, students with all kinds of different needs. So when I started this work, that’s what I was thinking — how do we help all of them pass and be teachers?

Removing Barriers Early

At the University of Texas San Antonio, researchers found that many students hadn’t attempted the state certification exam (TExES) simply because they didn’t understand the process or couldn’t afford it. When vouchers were provided, 100% of recipients said the program made testing more accessible, yet 20% of students didn’t even know the vouchers existed. Meanwhile, East Texas A&M changed the purpose of their diagnostic exam from a gatekeeping tool (only allowing students to take the real exam if they got a certain score on the diagnostic) into a study guide, giving students their score data before their first attempt at taking the real exam. Through these interventions, East Texas A&M saw an 82% pass rate within two attempts at taking the exam, compared to 55% in the control group across all teachers.

Tiered Support That Meets Students Where They Are

UNT Dallas (UNT-D) applied a Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) model to bilingual preservice teachers preparing for the Bilingual Target Language Proficiency Test (BTLPT), a language-based exam required for bilingual teachers. Faculty committees assigned individualized interventions based on each student’s needs, lifting passing rates from 41% to 53%. Texas State University took a similar approach, surveying 186 candidates and holding focus groups to map barriers: test anxiety, unclear timelines, and affordability topped the list. Their findings directly shaped a new tiered support model built around student voices.

Texas A&M–San Antonio built perhaps the most comprehensive ecosystem, combining early diagnostic exams in a first-year education course, embedded tutoring modules, all-day boot camps, alumni professional development, graduate assistant tutors, online prep software, and student-led study organizations. Since implementation in summer 2024, their TExES pass rate has climbed 5%.

Centering Teachers of Color

Prairie View A&M, a Historically Black College or University, used a blend of faculty-led review sessions, community events, and “Data Digs” to reduce exam hesitancy among candidates of color, achieving a 58% first-attempt pass rate. At UTRGV, where 98% of teacher candidates identify as Latine, embedding exam preparation into an introductory course increased the number of teacher candidates who took the certification exam at the correct point in their certification program from 36% to 51%. Statistical analysis of 731 candidates confirmed that each additional subject passed on a practice exam more than doubled the odds of passing the actual exam.

Two additional programs — Central Texas A&M and Texas Tech — focused on boot camps as structured sensemaking interventions. Texas Tech’s district partnership model reached 122 candidates, with 67 passing on their first attempt.

Key Takeaways

• Use diagnostic exams to guide study plans, not to authorize or block teacher candidates’ ability to take a certification exam
• Embed exam preparation directly into coursework from day one
• Communicate financial support options early and often
• Apply MTSS frameworks to teacher candidates, just as educators do for K-12 students
• Build community- reducing anxiety is as important as building content knowledge
• Center student voices when designing support systems

This EPPIC offers a compelling proof of concept: that the teacher certification pipeline can be made more equitable when institutions commit to listening to their students and acting on what they hear.