Public charter schools in Texas have greater flexibility in their hiring decisions. This allows public charter schools to draw from a wide candidate pool, including content-area experts who may not have a traditional teacher certification, but who do have at least a baccalaureate degree. In fact, more charter school teachers have Masters or PhD degrees than their Independent School District (ISD) peers.
Traditional teacher certification is required for charter school teachers (just like ISD teachers) if they are in special education, bilingual/ESL, or pre-K. Overall, two-thirds of all public charter school teachers are certified, even though most aren’t required to be.