The SABES Handbook
for Attaining
The Massachusetts Adult Basic Education*
Teacher's License

The license...

  in a nutshell...

To earn the ABE Teacher's License, you will have to meet certain requirements and standards. The license is competency based, so your prior education, experience, and training in the ABE field can count. In fact, you should not assume that you have to "go back to school" or take a set series of SABES courses.

You'll be completing an application packet to send to DOE, for either the provisional or the professional level of the license, and then receiving back from them a letter stating which requirements and standards you have to meet. If you are applying for the professional level, you'll collect evidence in a "performance portfolio" to address them. Your portfolio will be assessed by a Review Panel, some members of which will be experienced ABE teachers.

SABES has developed this Website and many supporting resources to help you obtain your license. Reading through sections of the official DOE Guidelines would be time well spent.

The next page provides some important facts about the license. Go there now.

*The terms "Adult Basic Education" and "ABE" are meant to include all content areas (ESOL, math, reading literacy, etc.), teaching contexts (CBOs, community colleges, libraries, Corrections facilities, etc.), and delivery modes (classroom, one-on-one tutoring, online, etc.) of our field.