Abstract:
The qualitative, document based research study was designed to identify the prevailing reasons that Georgia K-12 public school teachers experienced certification revocation during a 3-year period from 2007-2010. The Georgia Professional Standards Commission sanctioned 188 K-12 teacher certification revocations during the 3-year period. Emerging themes were identified and analyzed in order to discover the prevailing reasons that Georgia K-12 public school teachers experienced certification revocation. Indications derived from the case document analyses showed that inappropriate relationships with students was the reason a majority of teacher certificates were revoked. The second highest number of certificate revocations occurred due to educator acts of dishonesty. Other major trends or causes for teacher certification revocation included inappropriate electronic communications, drug and/or alcohol issues, and pornography. Case document details are included in Chapter IV, for teaching, attorney review, and researcher study purposes. All 188 case documents indicated that K-12 Georgia public teachers from 2007-2010 only experienced certification revocation for reasons related to character issues, immorality, and/or unethical actions and/or behaviors. An important finding of the study is that there was not a single case document that indicated issues such as ineffective teaching, insubordination, etc. as reasons for certification revocation for K-12 Georgia public teachers in 2007-2010.
