Teaching License Handbook

Sources We Use

Every state agency page, statute, rule and test fee page behind Teaching License Handbook, with official links and read dates, and the sources we never use.

These are the sources behind Teaching License Handbook’s rules and figures: each state licensing agency’s own pages and fee schedules, the state statutes and administrative rules in official text, the test vendors’ own fee pages, the teacher compact’s own documents, the federal student aid rules, and three named sources for pay, each with the date we read it. Every page also cites its sources at the claim, so you can check any figure where you see it. How we check explains how rules are read, worded and rechecked.

This page is general information, not legal or career advice. Each state’s licensing agency decides every application, and rules, tests and fees change, often on 1 July. Confirm the current rules with the agency before you pay for a program, a test or fingerprints.

Test vendors’ fee pages

Cited for fees, passing scores and testing years, and paraphrased. Which tests a state requires comes from the state, not the vendor.

The teacher compact

Federal loans and grants

Pay

States with a full page

For each state with its own page: the agency, its fee source, the statutes and rules read, the certificate lookup and the approved-program list, with read dates. Each state page cites more sections at the claim.

California

Colorado

Florida

Georgia

Illinois

Michigan

New Jersey

New York

North Carolina

Ohio

Oklahoma

Pennsylvania

Texas

Washington

Other states and DC

For the 51-state table, the tools and the national pages. Each state’s agency is linked with the date we read it; fields we have not read show “not confirmed” in the table. Pages for these states follow in later batches.

What we don’t use

  • Preparation-program and alternative-certification sellers, and university marketing pages: never a source and never linked. A program is named only where a state’s own law, rule or list names it, and we link the state’s list.
  • “Best programs”, degree-lead, “request info” and program-matching sites, and rankings: never a source, never linked.
  • Test-prep sellers and their “pass rates”: never a source. Test fees come from the test vendor’s own fee pages.
  • Job boards and salary-aggregator sites: never a source. Pay comes from BLS, NEA (labelled as the union’s estimates) and state schedules.
  • Career summary sites, staffing agencies, forums, social media and video sites: never a source. Where official text could not be read, the row says “not confirmed” instead.
  • Figures seen only in search results: not published. A page we could not open is not cited.

If a source we cite has changed, or you know of an official page we should read, please tell us.

Sources on this page checked on 13 November 2026.