National
Center for Alternative Certification: Building a One-Stop Clearinghouse
for Routes to the Classroom
Jon has worked for 25 years for the Federal Aviation Administration. He
has coordinated activities involving local, state, and regional offices
and has ushered program initiatives through the federal budget process
to get them funded. Who better to teach U.S. government as a second career?
Where does he go to find out how to become certified to teach?
Unfortunately, the traditional paths that many would-be educators
must take to achieve their teacher certification have kept them,
and their talents, away from where they are most needed: our nation’s
classrooms. These traditional paths simply take too long or don’t
fit in with a working person’s schedule. Alternative certification
programs can be a perfect solution—but only if potential
teachers know about them. Until now, there’s been no one
place for such individuals to go for information.
Enter the National Center for Alternative Certification (NCAC),
a one-stop clearinghouse of information for people like Jon. The
clearinghouse, launched in February, can be accessed through http://www.teach-now.org,
an interactive website that provides prospective teachers with
the information they need to find an alternative certification
program that’s a good fit for them.
For example, if Jon wants to teach in Maryland, he can go to the
Teach Now! website and select Maryland in the State Program Profiles
search bar. He will then click on Alternative Teacher Certification
Routes in the State, and then on Resident Teacher Certificate.
He will find out, that to enter a program in a school system, he
will need: a liberal arts bachelor’s degree in the subject
to be taught at the secondary level; a 3.0 grade point average
in the major to be taught; and qualifying scores on the Praxis
I and II tests. He will also need 135 clock hours of study in teaching
skill areas such as models of teaching, planning, and classroom
management.
Eventually there will be a search engine, similar to what you
might find on Amazon.com, to match a person’s interests and
background with alternative certification programs that meet his
or her criteria. There will be descriptions of all alternative
certification programs in the country on the searchable database.
For example, every district in Florida has been mandated to develop
its own alternative certification program, and these individual
programs will be part of the database.
In addition to the website, NCAC will have a toll-free call center
to walk potential teachers through the stages of alternative certification.
The content on the NCAC website is based on the National Center
for Education Information’s comprehensive guide, Alternative
Teacher Certification: A State-by-State Analysis. The publication
is currently available at the NCAC website, free of charge.
Starting in Fall 2004, NCAC will provide technical assistance
and outreach to states, localities, and others interested in creating
alternative route programs. In addition to organizing workshops
and conferences, teams of individuals with experience in research-based
implementation of alternative routes will be available to provide
technical assistance.
Another feature of NCAC is the annual conference to foster face-to-face
communication with colleagues and explore the latest research and
policy issues around alternative teacher certification. The first
annual conference was February 1-3, and presenters included a diverse
panel of federal education officials, researchers, state policy
makers, and local project leaders.
The National Center for Alternative Certification is supported
by a $2.25 million grant from the Office of Innovation and Improvement.
