Fast-Track Alternative
Certification Programs:
Opportunities and Challenges for Participants and State Officials
Susan Moore Johnson, Sarah E. Birkeland, and Heather G. Peske
Harvard Graduate School of Education Project on the Next Generation of Teachers
November 2003
Authors:
Mary Bassett, Gene Campbell, Eric Hirsch, Kelly Hupfeld, & Robert
Reichardt, with assistance from Ann Foster and Andrea Jachman
Executive Summary
Among the challenges to having a quality teacher in every Colorado classroom,
every day is the challenge of maintaining a sufficient supply of teachers.
Almost 15 years ago Colorado began establishing new and innovative alternative
routes for preparing teachers. These alternative systems have become an important
source of new teachers within the state. Despite their prominence, little attention
has been focused on alternative preparation programs. For this reason, the
Alliance for Quality Teaching, under a grant from the Donnell-Kay Foundation,
conducted this first study of alternative preparation in Colorado since 1996.
This report is intended to be a first step in better understanding alternative
preparation within Colorado and in moving alternative teacher preparation from
an experiment to an established component of the teacher preparation system.
Background
Colorado school districts hire between 6,500 and 7,000 teachers annually.
These new hires can be categorized based on whether they already have teaching
experience and whether they were trained inside or outside of Colorado. Between
40 and 50 percent of these hires are actually new to teaching; The rest have
some teaching experience. About half of all teacher hires were trained outside
of Colorado. The end result is that about 1,500 of the teachers hired by Colorado
public schools each year are new to teaching and trained within the state (Reichardt,
2003).
Alternative route teachers are hired because of their content knowledge and
are able to begin teaching before they have completed their preparation. In
other words, alternative programs are on-the-job training, with wide variation
in the amount of training participants receive before they enter the classroom.
In school year (SY) 2002-03, Colorado’s alternative routes produced approximately
650 fully licensed teachers working in public schools and about 100 working
in private schools. This statistic suggests that in SY 2002-03 up to 40 percent
of all new teachers who were trained in Colorado came through alternative routes.
Though often viewed as a stopgap measure, alternative teacher preparation programs
have, in fact, become an important part of the teacher preparation system in
Colorado.
Study Subject
The mission of the Alliance for Quality Teaching is to ensure that Colorado
children have a quality teacher in every classroom, every day. Because of the
growth of alternative programs, the Alliance conducted this study to learn
more about the role alternative teacher preparation is playing in providing
quality teachers.
In particular, this study asked three simple questions:
1. Who is participating in alternative programs, and how were they recruited?
2. What are the alternative programs’ processes in the three areas identified
as key to quality: pre-service training, mentoring, and curriculum?
3. What subjects are alternative teachers teaching, and are they being retained.
Major
Findings
It is clear that some teachers in alternative preparation programs are entering
the classroom without having the opportunity to learn how to teach.
The data collected for this study provided insight into each of these questions
as well as new information about teacher preparation in Colorado. In general,
there was wide variation in alternative program structures and an indication
that alternative programs are being used by some as a last-minute measure to
fill classrooms.
The first finding of this study is that alternative programs appear to be
attracting more males and higher-educated candidates into the teacher workforce.
However, alternative programs do not appear to be working as a tool to increase
the number of minority teachers.
Second, there is wide variation in program processes, with an alarming number
of alternative route teachers that do not appear to be receiving training in
teaching skills before they begin teaching. In other words, it is clear that
some teachers in alternative preparation programs are entering the classroom
without having the opportunity to learn how to teach. There also appears to
be wide variation in what alternative participants are taught during the program
and the amount of mentoring they receive. Some variation is expected as each
program is crafted to meet local conditions and participants’ needs.
What is of concern is that there are few policy mechanisms to ensure a minimum
of skills before alternative route teachers begin teaching and that they meet
the Colorado performance-based teaching standards upon program completion.
Third, the record is mixed as far as alternative programs easing the teacher
shortage in specific subject areas. Alternative teachers are working in some
shortage areas, such as foreign languages and math. However, few are being
trained in special education or vocational education, which also appear to
be facing shortages. At the same time there are many working in art education
and elementary and pre-school education, which are subjects that do not appear
to be facing teacher shortages. Finally, the data showed that the retention
rate of alternative teachers is lower than fully trained teachers, but higher
than those with emergency authorizations.
In the process of conducting this research, two additional lessons became
clear.
First, it is not clear why Colorado needs to have two distinct alternative
routes, i.e., alternative licensing programs (ALPs) and teacher-in-residence
(TiR) programs.
Second, it became apparent that there is much more that can be learned about
all of Colorado’s teacher preparation programs. This research needs to
focus on the quality of all new teachers in Colorado, including those trained
in other states.
Data Collection (Methodology):
In December 2002, the Alliance convened an advisory group to design the study
and evaluate survey instruments. The group met again in April and corresponded
by e-mail to lend diverse perspectives to the data analysis and discuss the
appropriateness of the report recommendations.
An alternative preparation survey formed the foundation of the report. In
January, surveys were disseminated to the official contact in the designated
agency of all 44 alternative licensing programs: 31 alternative licensing programs
and 13 teacher-in-residence programs. The survey probed several areas related
to candidate characteristics, recruitment strategies, program design, candidate
assessment and support, and cost. Programs were encouraged to answer as many
questions as possible. Follow-up faxes and phone calls to non-respondents occurred
in February 2003.
Thirty of Colorado’s 44 alternative programs responded to the survey.
The survey collected information from 68 percent of the alternative preparation
programs: about two-thirds of alternative licensing and three-quarters of TiR
providers. Response rates were higher than average for programs serving suburban
districts and only slightly above half for those serving rural areas. Taken
together, more than four-fifths of alternative route teachers are in programs
that responded to the survey. To conduct the study, the Alliance sought partnerships
with Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) and the Research
and Development Center for Student Achievement at Colorado State University
and Poudre School District (R&D Center).
Data were gathered from a variety of additional sources to complement the
findings of the alternative preparation survey:
• An analysis of the program proposals submitted to the State Board
of Education was conducted for all 44 alternative preparation programs. These
proposals are required to include information related to planned curriculum,
mentoring, cost, etc. Further, if major programmatic changes occur after approval
is granted, notification of the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) is required.
The Alliance analyzed all program files to gather information on mission, recruitment,
curriculum, and candidate support.
•
McREL conducted an analysis of a database that combines information from CDE
human resources (HR), licensure, and school demographic data sets. This process
allowed an analysis of candidates from ALPs from 1999 through 2001. This data
enabled McREL to track ALP participant demographics, placement, and retention.
•
The R&D Center shared data from their three years of studying teacher-in-residence
programs affiliated with Metropolitan State College. Data sources included
focus group transcripts, surveys of principals and TiR candidates, and retention
information.
• The CDE provided the counts of participants in both the alternative licensing
and TiR programs.
• Focus groups were conducted in May 2003 with teachers attending metro
area alternative certification programs. Information gathered from these sessions
was used in conjunction with focus group information from the TiR candidates
assembled by the R&D Center.
Together, these data sources provide a much clearer picture of the types of
candidates enrolled in alternative preparation programs in Colorado, as well
as the types of instruction and support they receive.
There are many technical difficulties in studying these programs and producing
information on alternative teacher preparation. These difficulties nationally
include the use of 30 different titles for initial teacher certification and
more than 50 titles for their second-stage teacher certification (Feistritzer & Chester,
2000). In other words, there are a jumble of approaches and frameworks nationwide
that regulate programs and routes that people can take to enter the profession.
This circumstance creates difficulties in providing an accurate national account
of alternative teacher preparation programs (Feistritzer & Chester, 1998).
These problems also surfaced in conducting this study. A result of using multiple
data sets to study these programs is that not all of the data on program counts,
completer counts, and placements completely agreed. This situation highlights
the difficulty of getting clear data within a decentralized system. Thus, while
the overall trends reported in this report are accurate representations of
what is occurring in Colorado and have been verified using as many sources
as possible, the exact counts are not as precise as would be desired by the
authors of this report.
Recommendations
This research supports four policy recommendations on how to improve alternative
teacher preparation within the state. These recommendations are:
1. The legislature must provide the Colorado Department of Education (CDE)
with the authority and the capacity to hold alternative programs accountable
for ensuring that program participants receive high quality mentoring throughout
their program and can meet the Colorado performance-based standards when they
complete their programs.
Despite the fact that the number of teachers entering the profession through
alternative programs has grown exponentially in the past decade, state capacity
to evaluate and hold programs accountable has remained relatively static. CDE
needs additional authority to create a public reporting system on alternative
programs and a program review system to verify participants meet the Colorado
performance-based standards. The CDE activities should be paid for through
the fees that program participants pay for their licenses.
There appears to be great variation in the mentoring support that alternative
candidates receive. All alternative route mentors should participate in individualized
induction programs based on an assessment of proficiency relative to the performance-based
standards for Colorado teachers.
2. Districts and Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) must structure
alternative programs to bring the best candidates into the teaching workforce,
not just the candidates available when the school year begins. In order to
move in that direction, the legislature should require alternative preparation
programs to publicly report when alternative route teachers are hired and the
amount of training they receive before they enter the classroom.
Hiring that is reactive to vacancies after the beginning of the school year,
instead of active in seeking the best candidates who apply, serves as a barrier
to improving the quality of the overall teacher workforce. In order to best
serve both districts’ and the state’s need for a quality teacher
workforce, alternative programs need to be treated and operated as legitimate
and integral parts of the teacher preparation system. As such, all new teachers
should be deliberately recruited, adequately prepared, fully supported, and
appropriately placed.
Because alternative candidates are working as teachers while they receive
their training, providing some instruction prior to the start of the year regarding
classroom management, teaching to diverse learners, assessment, etc., is essential.
Few programs offer substantial support prior to teaching—an average of
18 hours, or a little more than two days. Eight of the 30 responding programs
offer no orientation or instruction before an alternative candidate has his
or her own classroom. Even when pre-service is part of a program, many candidates
do not attend because they are hired at the last minute or after the start
of the school year. Newly approved regulations for ALPs mention the need for
professional development prior to entering the classroom, but offer no guidelines
and little definition. At the least, the state should require programs to report
when alternative program participants are hired and how much training they
receive before they enter the classroom. Ideally, the state should prescribe
a set of skills or standards teachers must meet before they enter the classroom—skills
that will enhance their likelihood of success from the first day.
3. The legislature should clarify the value added by having two different
alternative routes in Colorado. This clarification can occur through a series
of hearings or by requesting that CDE and other interested parties conduct
a review focused on this issue. If there is no value in having two routes,
then a single program that builds on the strengths of the current programs
should be created. If there is value in having two routes, then each route’s
mission and structures should be clarified to best meet the needs of districts
and program participants.
While ALP and TiR programs were created with different intent and have different
requirements (particularly the duration of the program), there appears to be
little rationale as to why the state should continue to have two different
routes. The only differences appear to be the extent of the relationship with
an institution of higher education (required for both types), program duration,
and the fact that ALPs are used primarily by rural districts with less access
to higher education and TiR programs are more prominent in the metro area and
Pikes Peak region. It is not clear why a district/designated agency or a potential
teacher would participate in one route or the other.
If a new unified alternative program is created, it should maintain these
aspects of Colorado’s current programs beyond what is discussed above:
• A responsibility to ensure high quality faculty, and
• Partnerships between small and rural districts to ensure program continuity
and capacity.
4. Colleges and universities, CDE, the Colorado Commission on Higher Education
(CCHE), and districts must work together to gather and create additional information
to evaluate teacher preparation program quality and learn how to improve teacher
preparation throughout the state.
There are existing resources within the state to start moving this agenda
forward. First, the first and third year study holds the potential to provide
valuable information about new teachers within the state. Now may be the appropriate
time for a cooperative review of the entire study to examine whether and how
this study can meet the state’s and districts’ needs.
Second, current state level data sets, including the human resources (HR) and
licensure data sets at CDE and the CCHE student record data system (SURDS),
should be analyzed and combined to provide new information on placement, retention,
and subjects taught by alternative route teachers.
Third, CDE (through the Colorado Student Assessment Program) and/or districts
(through their own assessment programs) must begin linking student assessment
data to teachers. It is only through this link that we can begin to learn about
the impact of training programs on student learning. This process will take
time and technical expertise, because multiple years of data as well as sophisticated
analysis are required to make fair judgments about programs. Mandating that
districts link their assessment data to preparation programs would be very
costly. However, some districts may wish to cooperate on this issue as part
of a larger project to learn more about issues affecting teacher quality.
Making the data accessible to researchers and other users outside of government
agencies will increase the use of data. Organizations outside of the government
can apply additional technical and financial capacity to existing data to learn
about programs as well as overall systems. These resources are often available
in non-government agencies, such as think tanks, research organizations, colleges,
and universities.
The sharing of data between agencies and with researchers outside of the government
raises important privacy issues. It will require strict procedures for ensuring
the privacy of individuals represented within the data sets. The federal government
has made recommendations for the content of these procedures (Cheung, 2000;
Cheung, Clements & Pechman, 1997). The state should move ahead with clarifying
these issues and procedures.
Conclusions
Alternative programs in Colorado have shown promise for increasing the diversity
and education level of the Colorado teacher workforce. They have clearly become
an important route for people to enter the profession. There is reason to believe
that alternative programs are an improvement over staffing classrooms with
emergency-authorized teachers because of the requirement to provide the support
and training that leads to a more stable teacher workforce. However, alternative
programs are, in essence, on-the-job training. There are skills that teachers
can and should have before they start their jobs, and students could suffer
while teachers acquire these skills. This potential harm requires that we learn
more about the impact of these teachers on Colorado’s students. For this
reason it is essential that data are collected that link student learning with
a teacher’s route into the classroom.
Moving alternative programs within Colorado to the next stage of maturity
will take time and effort. Alternative teacher preparation programs break down
the historical walls between teacher training and schools and districts. Traditional
programs have a longer history of accountability systems and assessment of
new teacher skills. There are lessons from traditional programs that can be
applied to alternative programs. However, the requirements for alternative
programs must be tailored to fit those programs’ capacities, particularly
those in small districts with little administrative capacity to meet extensive
regulatory requirements.
Finally, under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, alternative route teachers
are considered “highly qualified” while teaching during their alternative
preparation program. This status should not be granted lightly. If alternative
route teachers are going to be considered “highly qualified,” then
a system must be created to ensure that these candidates meet the same standards
as any other teacher. Hopefully, this review occurs before they begin teaching
and certainly by the time they leave the preparation program. At a minimum,
all alternatively prepared teachers should be expected to demonstrate proficiency
relative to these standards before they are given a Colorado provisional or
professional license that indicates they are fully trained to work in a Colorado
classroom.
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