Every music education coordinator in Alabama has had some version of this conversation: A candidate completes the coursework, passes juries, completes the methods sequence, and still cannot move forward to internship and certification because their best Praxis score is a few points short.
In the previous issue, Ted Hoffman examined Praxis Music: Content Knowledge (5113), offered practical guidance for teacher candidates, and noted that Alabama’s passing score of 161 is among the highest nationwide (Educational Testing Service [ETS], 2026d). His question was how candidates can meet that standard. A second question belongs to the state rather than the candidate: Does Alabama’s high passing score produce more qualified music teachers, or does it only prevent otherwise qualified candidates from entering the profession?
A Moving Target
Alabama’s qualifying score has fluctuated over time. Prior to 2018, the threshold was 150, which then increased to 161. During the post-pandemic staffing crisis, Alabama temporarily lowered the cutoff to 156 in 2022 (Alabama State Board of Education, 2022), before reinstating the 161 standard in 2024. These policy changes did not affect candidates’ actual performance; they only influenced how that performance was categorized. For example, a candidate with a score of 160 would have been accepted before 2018, rejected when the cutoff was 161, accepted again during the temporary adjustment, and rejected once more when the standard returned in 2024. Nothing about the candidate’s performance changed; only the line Alabama used to determine who could enter the classroom.
Two Institutions, One Consistent Pattern
Alabama now has reinforcing evidence from two music teacher-education programs. Carl Hancock and Sara Horan from The University of Alabama examined 241 Praxis scores between 2005 and 2022 (Hancock & Horan, 2023), while I reviewed 223 attempts by Alabama State University candidates from 2012 to 2025 (Greene, 2026a). Despite using different candidates and methods, both studies showed that changes in the qualifying score had little impact on average performance but substantially lowered pass rates and increased retesting.
The ASU data show what that pattern looks like at the candidate level. First-attempt scores averaged 149.7, with a standard deviation of 12.4 points, placing Alabama’s current qualifying score of 161 nearly a full standard deviation above the average first attempt. In plain terms, a candidate can perform substantially better than the ASU average and still fail. Figure 1 extends this comparison by applying four possible qualifying scores to each candidate’s first attempt and highest observed score. At 161, only 19.6% of candidates would pass on the first attempt, while 35.1% would eventually qualify based on their highest score. For comparison, the first-attempt and eventual pass rates would be 46.4% and 66.0% at Alabama’s former score of 150, and 27.8% and 46.4% at its temporary score of 156.
The comparison that matters most sets the passing score to 154, the median qualifying score across all states that use the Praxis 5113. At the national median, 34.0% would pass immediately, while 50.5% would eventually qualify. Put plainly, moving from 161 to the national median increases the simulated first-attempt pass rate from about one in five to one in three and the eventual pass rate from about one in three to one in two. At the candidate level, that difference represents 15 ASU candidates who completed the same coursework, juries, and methods sequence and earned scores that half the states using the examination would accept (Greene, 2026a).
These findings still require appropriate caution, but the institutional context strengthens their relevance. The University of Alabama is the state’s Capstone institution, while Alabama State University is Alabama’s leading HBCU music-education program and an important pipeline for Black music teachers. Together, they represent distinct and consequential parts of the state’s teacher-preparation landscape, so the consistency of their findings carries more weight than the programs alone might suggest. Even so, the simulations cannot predict precisely what an actual policy change would produce, and neither study follows candidates into the classroom. The studies therefore cannot establish that someone who scores 161 will teach more effectively than someone who scores 160. Broader research offers little reason to assume such a difference: Licensure-test scores are, at best, modest and inconsistent predictors of classroom effectiveness, and higher scores do not necessarily correspond with better teaching or student outcomes (Cowan et al., 2020; Goldhaber et al., 2017).
Choosing 154 would not mean abandoning Praxis or lowering the standard to average performance. It remains above ASU’s average first-attempt score, and candidates would still complete the same examination, coursework, juries, methods preparation, field experiences, and student teaching. It would simply move Alabama from the nation’s highest threshold to its midpoint while allowing 14 additional ASU candidates to pass on their first attempt and 15 additional candidates to qualify eventually. In a state already struggling to staff its classrooms, future music teachers plainly need strong content knowledge. What remains unsettled is whether setting the passing line nearly a full standard deviation above ASU’s average first-attempt score improves teacher quality enough to justify narrowing the pipeline.
The Cost of Retaking
At ASU, retakes accounted for nearly two-thirds of all attempts under the 161 requirement (65.7%), compared with 46.4% when the requirement was 150. Each attempt costs $130, and ETS requires candidates to wait at least 28 days between retakes. ETS’s Free After 3 program does not eliminate the cost of the first three attempts: candidates must complete three paid administrations and receive scores for each before becoming eligible for a free retake. A candidate who needs that first free attempt has already paid $390 and cannot reach a fourth administration until at least 84 days after the first, even before score reporting, test availability, and academic calendars add further delay (ETS, 2026a, 2026b, 2026c).
At ASU, candidates cannot begin student teaching or submit the $300 edTPA portfolio until they pass the Praxis (edTPA, 2026; ETS, 2026b). Those who retested and eventually succeeded typically needed several attempts, and some needed as many as eight (Greene, 2026a). For a candidate ready to teach, another attempt can incur extra costs: another fee, nearly a month of waiting, a delayed semester, and a later start to earning a salary. The exam fee is only part of the overall expense; delayed certification can also increase tuition and living costs, postpone employment, and reduce income.
The retake process offered no dependable or timely route to licensure. Forty-seven candidates tested again, and only about half of them eventually passed. Scores increased by an average
of just 4.62 points between the first and second attempts, while approximately 23% of candidates scored lower and another 6% earned the same score. Although some candidates made substantial gains, most improved only a few points at a time, often requiring multiple paid attempts and repeated 28-day waiting periods. The result was a system in which continued access to the profession depended partly on a candidate’s ability to absorb additional fees, preparation demands, and certification delays, none of which has been shown to predict greater effectiveness in the classroom (Greene, 2026a).
The Shortage Cycle
When a prepared music education graduate is delayed by a near-miss, the opening in a school does not wait. Alabama’s Fall 2025 shortage survey counts a position as unfilled even when it is staffed by someone holding a Substitute License, an Emergency Certificate, a temporary career-technical certificate, or an out-of-field assignment (Alabama State Department of Education, 2025b). The state’s Emergency Certificate is available in instrumental and choral music when a certified teacher cannot be found. It may cover as many as four school years, but it does not, by itself, lead to professional certification (Alabama State Department of Education, 2025a). This creates a mismatch: Alabama can prevent a program completer who misses the Praxis requirement by one point from receiving full licensure while permitting a district to staff the same classroom through an emergency route. The records do not show that Praxis caused any particular emergency hire. They do show how a high passing line can intensify a shortage cycle. As Hash (2021) notes, schools unable to hire licensed music teachers sometimes turn to under-licensed staff or remove music from the curriculum altogether.
Stopgap staffing can also make vacancies more likely to recur. In the most recent national data, teachers holding temporary, waiver, or emergency permits, or no certification, left their schools at a rate of 20.1%, compared with 14.7% among fully certified teachers. Among teachers with one to three years of experience, the rates were 24% and 17%, respectively (Tan et al., 2026). These figures combine several credential types and do not isolate Alabama music teachers, but they show why relying on temporary staffing may keep the vacancy cycle turning.
Students bear the consequences of that instability. Kloss (2013) documented a nearly 9% decline in marching-band participation in the year after a director change, while students described loss, mistrust, disrupted traditions, and classmates leaving the program. In general education, Ronfeldt, Loeb, and Wyckoff (2013) found that higher teacher turnover reduced mathematics and English language arts achievement across more than 850,000 New York City elementary-school observations, including among students whose own teachers remained. That study was not about music, so its exact effects may not be directly transferable. It nevertheless shows why staffing instability is more than an administrative problem. Turnover disrupts relationships, continuity, collaboration, and learning.
Racial and Demographic Consequences
National data do not provide statewide Praxis 5113 pass rates by race, so they cannot establish the precise racial effect of Alabama’s policy. The ASU evidence, however, makes the demographic stakes difficult to ignore. Approximately 97% of the candidates in the ASU sample were Black. Applying 161 rather than 150 to their highest observed scores reduces the number who would qualify from 64 to 34. Thus, the higher threshold excludes 30 candidates from this predominantly Black licensure pipeline, measured against the best scores those candidates actually achieved.
That loss occurs within an already narrow national pipeline. From 2010 through 2024, only 4.2% of reported bachelor’s degrees in music teacher education went to Black students. HBCUs awarded more than one-quarter of those degrees, but their share fell from 36.6% during 2010–2014 to approximately 21% during the following decade (Greene, 2026b). When one of the relatively few preparation pathways serving Black candidates loses prospective teachers to repeated examination barriers, the effect cannot easily be offset elsewhere.
The rule may be identical for every candidate, but its consequences are not demographically neutral. Alabama’s public-school population is 46.8% students of color, while its teacher workforce is only 20.9% teachers of color, a 25.9-percentage-point gap. The Black student–teacher gap is also substantial: Black students account for 32.2% of enrollment, but Black teachers make up only 17.3% of the workforce (National Center for Education Statistics, 2021, 2022). A policy that disproportionately constricts a predominantly Black preparation pathway risks widening a representational gap the state already needs to close.
Who Bears the Costs and Who Benefits?
The costs and benefits of the 161 requirement fall on different parties. Candidates pay the fees and absorb the delays. Preparation programs provide additional advising and remediation. Districts wait longer for fully certified applicants, and students may encounter vacancies, emergency staffing, or interrupted programs. ETS, meanwhile, receives $130 for each of the first three attempts. Alabama sets its own qualifying score; ETS does not. But if the state cannot demonstrate that requiring 161 produces better teachers or better student outcomes than a lower, professionally defensible score, then the additional failures and retakes that requirement generates impose real costs on candidates, programs, districts, and students without a demonstrated return.
A multistate standard-setting recommendation is an input into state policy, not evidence that the recommended score is appropriate for Alabama. ETS states that passing scores vary by state or agency and are not set by ETS (Educational Testing Service, 2026d), which leaves responsibility for Alabama’s requirement with the state. Following a vendor-generated recommendation without examining Alabama-specific candidate performance, teaching effectiveness, shortage conditions, preparation-program outcomes, and demographic consequences transfers the costs of the decision to candidates and schools while transferring the resulting examination revenue to the vendor.
What Alabama Can Do
Alabama should place the burden of proof on the 161 requirement. The relevant question is not whether Praxis measures useful content knowledge; it does. The question is whether candidates scoring 150 through 160 become less effective teachers than those scoring 161 or higher, and whether any demonstrated difference is large enough to justify the additional fees, delays, pipeline losses, staffing instability, and demographic consequences documented here. The available ASU data donot answer that question, and the broader research reviewed here provides at most modest, context-dependent evidence linking higher licensure-test scores to classroom outcomes. A score requirement cannot be defended merely by calling it a higher standard; if the higher number has not been shown to improve teaching, it functions primarily as a higher barrier. Until Alabama produces outcome evidence supporting 161, the choice it faces is between a multiple-measure system grounded in evidence and an unvalidated threshold that excludes otherwise prepared candidates, with the consequences falling disproportionately on candidates of color, on districts facing a smaller pool of licensed teachers, and on students exposed to vacancies and unstable staffing.
The state could move its passing score closer to the middle of the states using Praxis, allow candidates to begin student teaching and other field experiences while continuing to work toward passage, and reduce the cost of repeated testing. Coursework, juries, methods preparation, field experiences, and Praxis would all remain part of the certification process. The difference is that a one-point near-miss would no longer automatically outweigh years of academic, musical, and pedagogical preparation or prevent otherwise qualified candidates from reaching classrooms before districts turn to emergency staffing.
Any policy change should be accompanied by a commitment to determine what happens after the test. Alabama could follow candidates from Praxis through program completion, licensure, hiring, classroom performance, and retention. It should also report emergency certificates and out-of-field assignments by subject so policymakers can determine whether shortages are easing or merely being covered. Do candidates who score 161 or higher become more effective teachers or remain in the profession longer than candidates who fall a few points short? If so, the state would have evidence supporting the higher requirement. If not, a policy that screens out more candidates should not be mistaken for one that produces better teachers.
Teacher-preparation programs should not have to answer these questions alone. Hancock and Horan closed their AMEA session by proposing a partnership among Alabama programs. In the next issue, Ted Hoffman and I will outline what programs could study together and what they should ask the state to reconsider. None of this lowers expectations, excuses inadequate preparation, or removes Praxis from the certification process. It asks only that Alabama’s requirements rest on evidence. Somewhere in the state this fall, a candidate who has finished the coursework, passed the juries, and completed the methods sequence will come up a few points short. Alabama should be able to say what those points measure.
REFERENCES
Alabama State Board of Education. (2022). Resolution to modify certain passing scores as a precondition for initial certification and program admission. https://www.alabamaachieves.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/SBOE_2022613_RESOLUTION-TO-MODIFY-CERTAIN-PASSING-SCORES-AS-A-PRECONDITION-FOR-INITIAL-CERTIFICATION-AND-PROGRAM-ADMISSION_V1.0.pdf
Alabama State Department of Education. (2025a). General information – Emergency Certificate. https://www.alabamaachieves.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/TEA_OA_20251031_EmergCertGenInfo_v1.pdf
Alabama State Department of Education. (2025b, September 25). Teacher shortage areas – Fall 2025 update [Memorandum]. https://www.alabamaachieves.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/StateSuperIn_Memo_FY25-2085_Teacher-Shortage-Areas-Fall-2025-Update_v1-0.pdf
Cowan, J., Goldhaber, D., Jin, Z., & Theobald, R. (2020). Teacher licensure tests: Barrier or predictive tool? (CALDER Working Paper No. 245-1020). CALDER Center. https://caldercenter.org/publications/teacher-licensure-tests-barrier-or-predictive-tool
edTPA. (2026). Fees and payment options. https://www.edtpa.com/PageView.aspx?f=GEN_OperationalFees.html
Educational Testing Service. (2026a). Free After 3. https://praxis.ets.org/free-after-three.html
Educational Testing Service. (2026b). Manage your Praxis test appointment. https://praxis.ets.org/manage-praxis-test-appointment.html
Educational Testing Service. (2026c). Music: Content Knowledge (5113). https://praxis.ets.org/test/music-content-knowledge-5113.html
Educational Testing Service. (2026d). Passing score requirements. https://praxis.ets.org/scores
Goldhaber, D., Gratz, T., & Theobald, R. (2017). What’s in a teacher test? Assessing the relationship between teacher licensure test scores and student STEM achievement and course-taking. Economics of Education Review, 61, 112-129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2017.09.002
Greene, R. J. (2026a). Raising the bar, shrinking the pipeline: Praxis 5113 qualifying scores and Alabama’s music teacher shortage. Arts Education Policy Review. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/10632913.2026.2666039
Greene, R. J. (2026b). Sustaining the Black music teacher pipeline: HBCUs and music education degree completion in the United States [Manuscript submitted for publication]. Music Department, Alabama State University.
Hancock, C. B., & Horan, S. (2023, January). A trend analysis of teacher education policy decisions on music Praxis scores, pass rates, and retakes [Paper presentation]. Alabama Music Educators Association Professional Development Conference, Birmingham, AL.
Hash, P. M. (2021). Supply and demand: Music teacher shortage in the United States. Research & Issues in Music Education, 16(1), Article 3. https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/rime/vol16/iss1/3
Kloss, T. E. (2013). High school band students’ perspectives of teacher turnover. Research & Issues in Music Education, 11(1), Article 3. https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/rime/vol11/iss1/3
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Ronfeldt, M., Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. (2013). How teacher turnover harms student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 50(1), 4-36. https://doi.rg/10.3102/0002831212463813
Tan, T. S., Wei, W., Carver-Thomas, D., & Garcia, E. (2026). Teacher turnover in the United States: Who moves, who leaves, and why. Learning Policy Institute. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/teacher-turnover-united-states-report