https://doi.org/10.1177/0888406418761533 Teacher Education and Special Education 2019, Vol. 42(2) 101–116 © 2018 Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0888406418761533 journals.sagepub.com/home/tes Article Teacher licensure is a proxy for quality. It is granted by states to designate individuals deemed to be fully qualified to practice the pro- fession. Licensure requirements are typically linked to educator preparation program (EPP) approval standards, so that EPPs seek state pro- gram approval so graduates qualify for state licensure (Lilly, 1992). Although licensure is the purview of states, federal legislation has influenced state policy increasingly in the last 15 years (Geiger et al., 2014), most recently and notably in the highly qualified (HQ) requirements of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). NCLB established a minimum standard for teacher licensure, standards, and EPP approval. States employ various licensure structures for special education teachers (SETs). No two are quite alike, and change is not uncommon. States may differentiate SET licensure on the basis of disability categories, levels of severity, and age and grade bands, alone and in combination, or they may offer a generalist license and not differentiate at all. Presumably, SET licensure structure affects flexibility in hiring fully qualified SETs, so that more generic structures facilitate hiring fully quali- fied personnel. By contrast, teacher educators may prefer differentiated structures so that preparation content may be more focused and in-depth. Cataloging state licensure structures is chal- lenging because terminology differs from state to state. For states with categorical distinctions, different terms may be used to describe the same group of students. For example, four states cur- rently offer a license for teachers of students 761533TES XX X 10.1177/0888406418761533Teacher Education and Special EducationSindelar et al. research-article 2018 1 University of Florida, Gainesville, USA Corresponding Author: Paul T. Sindelar, University of Florida, 1408 Norman Hall, Gainesville, FL 32611-7050, USA. Email: pts@coe.ufl.edu The Landscape of Special Education Licensure, 2016 Paul T. Sindelar 1 , Tiffany L. Fisher 1 , and Jonté A. Myers 1 Abstract With vetted data from state department of education websites, the authors undertook to update previous studies of special education licensure. They organized state licensure structures by the presence or absence of (a) grade bands and (b) differentiations (by category or severity). They assessed the impact of structure on student outcomes and special education teacher (SET) shortage, and sought commonalities in structures of effective states. They found that almost all states differentiate licensure for preschool teachers and teachers of students with visual or hearing impairments. Most states also offer a generic license. Currently, fewer states use other disability categories than was true in the past, and more states now use grade and severity distinctions. Structure was unrelated to student outcomes and SET shortage, and the authors found only two commonalities among effective states. As a unit of analysis, state may be too coarse, and the authors argue for within-state time series analysis as an alternative. Keywords special education teacher certification, teacher certification reform, teacher certification, special education