Earlier this month the Minnesota Board of Teaching passed a resolution to allow science teachers to add on another field of science to their license by taking the Praxis test. There was no discussion, although the board did hear an eloquent statement from a chemistry professor from Hamline about the need for teachers and their students to have stronger content knowledge. I think we can all agree that strong content knowledge along with pedagogical skill is important for teachers. Even though these teachers adding new science fields will be “highly qualified” technically, they will not have strong content and pedagogical knowledge. So why was this decision made? It was primarily designed to solve the needs of small, rural schools in staffing. But ease of staffing does not mean that the teachers licensed by a test will be effective. With the renewed focus on the importance of content knowledge in our increasingly competitive world, this decision sends Minnesota in the wrong direction.