You may not have to take this test at all

This is the page on this site most likely to cost us a sale, so we have put it near the top of the licensing cluster rather than in a footnote. If you already hold a qualifying admissions test score, Florida will accept it in place of the General Knowledge subtests, and you do not need to sit the test or buy anything to prepare for it.

Most education graduates hold at least one of these. Very few know the rule exists.

Every score the rule accepts

Transcribed from the text of Rule 6A-4.0021(12). Read the columns rather than the rows, because that is how the arithmetic works out in your favor.

One SAT score can cover three subtests

Look at the SAT column. Evidence-Based Reading and Writing at 560 appears three times: essay, English Language Skills and Reading. A single section score, if it clears 560, takes out three quarters of the test. Add Mathematics at 540 and the whole requirement is satisfied with one score report.

The ACT works the same way with a wrinkle. English 22 covers the essay and English Language Skills, but Reading needs its own 23, so you are reading two section scores rather than one. The GRE splits along the obvious line, with Verbal Reasoning 151 covering the two language subtests and Quantitative Reasoning 147 covering Mathematics.

The two dates that disqualify a score

The ten-year condition is the harder of the two, because it moves. The 2015 and 2016 cutoffs are fixed lines you either clear or you do not, and everyone who took the SAT in high school after March 2016 clears them. The ten-year window catches the same people later. Sit the SAT in your last year of school, come to teaching eleven years later, and the fixed cutoff says yes while the rolling window says no.

Which points at something practical. If your score is close to the edge of that window, the alternative route has an expiry date on it and the certificate application is what stops the clock. That is a reason to apply sooner rather than to study harder.

You can mix and match

The rule works subtest by subtest, and passing scores are required in each content area. That means an alternative score can cover the subtests it qualifies for while you sit the rest. Somebody with SAT Mathematics at 540 and Evidence-Based Reading and Writing below 560 covers Mathematics with the score they have and sits three subtests, at $97.50 rather than $130.

Whether that is worth doing is a judgment call. Three subtests is most of the preparation anyway, and there is an argument for sitting all four to have a single clean Florida result on file. We would take the exemption. It is money and an afternoon.

What we are not telling you

The rule sets minimum scores that may be used to satisfy the requirement. The Department decides whether your particular score qualifies, and this page is not that decision. We are also not a Florida-approved teacher preparation program and cannot certify anything about your route. Send your score report to the Bureau of Educator Certification and let them rule on it before you cancel a test appointment.

One more limit worth naming. This exemption covers the general knowledge requirement only. It does nothing for the subject area examination or the professional education test, and it is not a route to a certificate on its own.