Student teaching is the supervised classroom assignment at the center of a teacher preparation program: you plan and teach real lessons in a cooperating teacher's classroom while your program evaluates your work.
State licensing rules build it into the license, and the placement rules — written state by state — decide where you can do it, including whether a private or charter school can host you.
What is student teaching?
Student teaching — Texas's licensing rule also calls it clinical teaching — is the supervised classroom assignment at the center of an educator preparation program.
Texas's rule (19 TAC §228.2) defines it as a supervised teacher assignment through an educator preparation program, in the classroom of a cooperating teacher, that may lead to completion of a standard certificate.
The rule also limits where the placement happens: a public school accredited by the TEA, or another school the TEA has approved for the purpose.
During the placement you are a preparation candidate, not yet a licensed teacher: the assignment exists so your program can judge your readiness from the work you do in a real classroom.
That work spans the three tasks the edTPA portfolio assessment is built to score — planning, instruction and assessment — using evidence from your placement, including unedited classroom video.
The assessment was developed by Stanford's SCALE, is administered by Pearson, and Stanford is its exclusive author and owner.
Whether that portfolio sits on top of your placement is a state question, and states keep rewriting it.
According to edTPA's state pages (October 2026), edTPA is a licensure requirement for initial license applicants in Tennessee and North Carolina, for Oregon's Preliminary Teaching License, and for Alabama educator preparation program completers.
New York dropped it as a certification requirement as of April 27, 2022, instead requiring registered preparation programs to embed a teacher performance assessment in clinical experience.
Connecticut and Utah have since dropped it too, according to the same state pages, and Illinois eliminated it by law in 2023 — a law written to run through August 31, 2025, so confirm with the Illinois State Board of Education what applies now.
You become a student teacher by enrolling in an educator preparation program, which arranges the supervised placement as part of your training.
The licensing rules then build it in.
Montana's Class 2 Standard Teaching License requires a bachelor's degree and a teacher preparation program that included student teaching.
Mississippi's traditional-route standard license requires an education degree with student teaching, plus State Board-approved licensure assessments — Praxis, and Foundations of Reading for elementary candidates.
Delaware's Tier One Initial License, valid for 4 years, requires a bachelor's degree from a regionally accredited four-year college, a passing score on a content-readiness exam, and student teaching or an allowed alternative (Delaware Code Title 14, § 1210(a)).
The line is even visible in degree design: WGU describes its educational-studies bachelor's as not including student teaching and not leading to a teaching license, while its licensure-track programs prepare students for licensure in any state.
How long does student teaching last?
Our research did not confirm a typical national length, so treat any fixed week-count figure you find online as unverified for your own route.
What the rules we read do show is how differently states measure the requirement.
Delaware's statute names its alternatives — 91 days of long-term teaching is one example — alongside student teaching itself (Delaware Code Title 14, § 1210(a)).
Texas defines a separate internship route as a supervised classroom teacher assignment lasting one full school year (19 TAC §228.2).
Those are an alternative and a different route, not the length of the classic placement.
How long the classic placement runs is a question your program's placement handbook and your state's licensing rule answer together, and they are the two places to ask before you plan a move, a lease or a second job around a placement date.
Can you student teach at a private school?
Sometimes — but only because a state rule or a state agency says so, and the rules are written state by state.
Our research did not confirm a list of states that accept private-school placements, so no page can promise you one.
Texas shows the gatekeeping version: its rule places clinical teaching at a public school accredited by the TEA "or other school approved by the TEA for this purpose" (19 TAC §228.2).
A private-school placement in Texas therefore counts toward a certificate only if TEA has approved that school for the purpose, and our research did not verify which private schools hold that approval.
Kentucky's rule contemplates private-school placements directly: KRS 160.151 requires a KBE-certified nonpublic school to run national and state criminal background checks and a clear child abuse and neglect check on new certified hires and student teachers assigned to the school.
That section covers certified nonpublic schools, not non-certified ones.
The independent-school market gives the question its practical edge, because NAIS says independent schools do not always require state certification of their teachers.
NCES's 2020-21 teacher survey found 66% of private school teachers had taken a course in lesson planning before their first year, against 78% of public school teachers.
That comparison is evidence that many private school teachers enter without a full education-school program — though one missed course is a marker of that, not proof of a skipped placement.
That splits your planning in two.
If the school you want does not require a license, the placement rules may never come into your job search.
If you want the license — for a public or charter job later, or for the schools that ask for one — the state's placement rule applies to you like anyone else's.
The credential also travels: Mississippi's standard license is transferable between districts or eligible nonpublic schools, so a license earned through a clinical placement remains usable at eligible nonpublic schools there.
The wider context — which private schools hire, what they pay and how their hiring seasons run — is our private school teacher career guide.
Confirm the placement before you count on it
Can you student teach at a charter school?
First, the map: as of September 2025, 47 states plus DC had laws permitting charter schools.
Nebraska, South Dakota and Vermont are the states without one.
A charter school is a public school created under a state's charter law, so this is really the same question as any placement site, governed by the same state rules.
The two states whose rules we read put their charter schools inside the licensure system, with the exceptions their laws write in.
Delaware requires educators working in its charter schools to be licensed and certified under Chapter 12 of Title 14, except as otherwise provided (Delaware Code Title 14, § 507(c)(3)).
One exception: in a school year when no qualified alternative certification exists for a content area, a Delaware charter school may hire teachers who are not fully certified, with at least a bachelor's degree in that area, making up no more than 35% of its teachers.
Montana's public charter schools are subject to Title 20 and the rules that bind noncharter public schools, except as the charter part of the code provides, so the state's teacher-licensure chapter reaches their teachers (MCA §20-6-811(1)(c)).
The national workforce is more mixed: in 2020-21, 75.3% of public charter school teachers held a regular state teaching certificate, and 11.5% held no certification.
The placement question is still each state's clinical-placement rule plus your program's placement policy.
Texas names public schools accredited by the TEA, or other schools approved by the TEA, as clinical teaching sites (19 TAC §228.2).
Our research did not find state rules that name charter schools as approved clinical-placement sites.
So before you commit to a charter placement, put the question directly to your preparation program and your state education agency: does a classroom in this charter school count?
Is student teaching paid?
The routes the rules describe as paid are internship-shaped.
Texas's rule defines its internship as a paid supervised classroom teacher assignment for one full school year (19 TAC §228.2).
The clinical teaching definition in the same rule — the classic student teaching placement — carries no pay term.
Beyond Texas, our research did not establish how often clinical placements come with pay, or how they interact with program tuition.
Treat it as a question to ask every program you consider.
If income during training is a hard requirement for you, compare residency-style programs and teaching fellowships alongside the internship route, and ask each how pay, placement and licensure fit together.
Can you skip student teaching (residency, experience waivers)?
Sometimes, and some of the rules name the doors themselves.
Delaware's Initial License asks for student teaching or an allowed alternative, with the statute's own examples being 91 days of long-term teaching or enrollment in the Alternative Routes program (Delaware Code Title 14, § 1210(a)).
Mississippi's alternate route is built for holders of a non-education bachelor's degree who pass the required assessments and complete an approved alternate route program.
Its first license is a one- or three-year nonrenewable license that must be converted to the five-year standard license.
Montana's provisional Class 5 licenses (ARM 10.57.424) let a degree-holder work in a Montana school district while completing requirements, available to current Montana residents or to people who have been offered a job by a Montana P-12 school.
Class 5B runs three years for a bachelor's degree-holder enrolled in an educator preparation program, and Class 5 licenses are non-renewable.
Mississippi's alternate route and Montana's Class 5 are routes for teaching while you finish, not waivers, and our research did not establish whether either one drops the student-teaching component — ask the state education agency.
Texas's internship is another door: a paid, one-full-school-year supervised classroom teacher assignment under the same rule (19 TAC §228.2).
California runs the purest experience waiver: three to five years of full-time teaching at a regionally accredited private school, plus a completed preparation program that excluded student teaching, can qualify a teacher for a Preliminary credential (CTC leaflet CL-834).
Six or more years of that experience with satisfactory evaluations, in the subject area of the credential sought, can also qualify — and only regionally accredited private school experience counts.
Mississippi's accredited private schools add a lane of their own.
Teachers certified or working toward certification in a nationally recognized alternative program may be exempt from Mississippi licensure for up to three years — the standards name Notre Dame's ACE, Teach For America, AmeriCorps and ACSI.
The exemption runs in State Board-accredited nonpublic schools and requires approval from the MDE Office of Licensure.
Skipping the placement entirely is possible too: WGU's educational-studies bachelor's simply omits it.
The program's own description draws the line — it does not lead to a teaching license.
Career information, not legal or licensing advice: placement, waiver and licensing rules are set by each state's education agency and by individual preparation programs, so confirm the current rules with your state education agency and your program before you plan a route.