Liberal
Arts Grads And Career Changers Finding More Paths Into Public School Teaching
On February 3, 2000, the National Center for Education Information
(NCEI) released a report on the status nationwide of alternative certification
programs -- programs that lead individuals to a teaching license besides
traditional undergraduate or graduate degrees in education. According
to NCEI, states' interest in such programs is escalating, as more career
changers and people with noneducation degrees seek entry into public school
teaching as a career. This week, Education World writer Kristine M. Conner
shares examples of such programs and provides an overview of the debate
over alternative certification. Included: On-line
resources to help educators find state-specific information on certification
requirements and alternative certification options.
After earning her M.A. in American history four years ago, Alicia Freitag
immediately went to work in collections management for the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, D.C. This seemed like a natural career choice,
given the museum work she had done as a VISTA volunteer and during her
graduate studies at the University of Vermont. But when she started teaching
U.S. history at an evening school for adults earning their high school
diplomas, Freitag was hooked. She decided that, instead of working with
objects, she wanted to work with people and spend her days talking about
history.
Freitag knew she wanted to teach in a public school, but she dreaded
the thought of enrolling in yet another degree program. "I thought I'd
have to go through a long, drawn-out graduate program in education," she
recalled. "The idea of quitting my job and going to school full-time didn't
appeal to me, nor did enrolling in night school and continuing to work
full-time for three or more years." And she didn't want to delay her entry
into a classroom environment.
Freitag soon discovered The
Fairfax Transition to Teaching Partnership, an alternative certification
program based at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Students
spend one year interning at a Fairfax County (Virginia) public school
-- substituting, observing, assisting teachers, and working with students
one-on-one and in small groups -- and take summer and evening courses
required for certification. At the end of that intensive year, they are
certified to teach at the secondary level.
Freitag is now teaching history to 10th and 11th graders at Mount Vernon
High School in Alexandria, Virginia, which was also where she completed
her internship. She was grateful to find a program that wasn't "too big
of an interruption" in her career path and financially feasible as well,
offering her a stipend and tuition remission. "I benefited from the combination
of learning education theory and being able almost immediately to practice
it in the classroom," she told Education World.
NEW REPORT TRACKS ALTERNATIVE CERTIFICATION
More than ever before, aspiring teachers like Freitag are likely to
find paths into public school teaching that don't require enrolling in
a traditional undergraduate or graduate degree program in education. That's
according to a study released on February 3, 2000, by the National
Center For Education Information (NCEI), based in Washington, D.C.
In a news release on the study Alternative
Teacher Certification: A State-by-State Analysis 2000, the NCEI
reported that, in the past two years alone, 14 states have either passed
or introduced legislation to establish alternative programs that prepare
and certify individuals with bachelor's degrees (and often advanced degrees)
who want to become teachers.
"States are really stepping up to the bat, with ten new alternate route
programs being developed in the last year alone," NCEI president and study
author Emily Feistritzer told Education World the day after the study
was released. "On-the-job training seems preferable to having candidates
with other degrees go back to school for a few years and not even step
into the classroom for an extended period of time."
According to Feistritzer, the "old way" of training public school teachers
-- putting undergraduates through an education major -- does not suit
many of today's candidates, who get interested in the profession only
after completing a degree in science or the humanities or spending several
years pursuing another career.
That was exactly the point Feistritzer made in The
Truth Behind The "Teacher Shortage," an editorial published in
The Wall Street Journal (January 28, 1998) in which she questioned
conventional wisdom that the United States would face a teacher shortage
in the next decade, needing to find 2 million new teachers simply to keep
up with demand. The candidates are there, she asserted, but often "locked
out" by an "elaborate system" of certification requirements.
WHO IS GETTING CERTIFIED THROUGH ALTERNATIVE ROUTES?
The NCEI's recent analysis found that, "compared with recent college
graduates who come into teaching from a traditional teacher preparation
program, those entering teaching through alternate routes
Have degrees in subjects other than education;
Are more likely to have work experience in occupations other than
education;
Tend to be older;
Are more likely to be people of color;
Are more likely to be men."
That diversity, Feistritzer told Education World, is one of the greatest
advantages of alternative certification. Traditionally trained teachers
tend to be young, white females who want to teach in the suburbs, but
alternative candidates tend to be more diverse and more open to teaching
in urban and rural districts.
"Alternate route programs provide opportunities to deal with the reality
of supply and demand" on a local level, Feistritzer said. Administrators
can target their specific needs: more teachers, more ethnically diverse
teachers, or those who can teach math and the hard sciences.
Anita Scovanner Ramsey, director of the Fairfax Transition to Teaching
Partnership, agrees that alternative certification programs can help remedy
the shortage of teachers in certain disciplines and from certain ethnic
groups. They also can attract talented humanities and science graduates
who might otherwise pursue other professions.
"There are tremendous economic barriers to going into teaching if it
isn't done at the undergraduate level," Ramsey told Education World. "And
it's hard to justify taking loans and losing a salary to go to school
full-time," especially when most candidates can anticipate making less
as a teacher than they did in their previous jobs -- or than they would
in another field.
The Transition to Teaching Program generally attracts career changers
in their late 20s to early 50s. "We get a lot of attorneys, people from
Capitol Hill, lobbyists and speechwriters, people who worked in nonprofits,"
Ramsey said. Often they are people who "wanted to make a difference" but
weren't satisfied in their chosen careers. Programs like this make the
change more feasible.
James Morris, a former journalist, editor, and book publisher who now
teaches government at West Springfield (Virginia) High School, said that
he would not have made the change if it were not for the Transition to
Teaching Program. "I could afford neither the money nor the time to go
the traditional route," he told Education World. And he appreciated the
hands-on nature of the program: "You are put right to work, day one, in
a classroom, and by the end of the year, you feel like you are a teacher."
TROOPS TO TEACHERS
Many states are looking to another group of career changers, former
military personnel, to step into teaching vacancies. The Troops
To Teachers Program (TTT), established in 1994 as a result of military
downsizing, has helped 3,000 service members make the transition from
the military into the classroom. About half have gone through traditional
certification programs (i.e., degree programs in education), with the
other half completing alternative certification programs that typically
involved a combination of courses and classroom work.
George Willett, Ph.D., who directs the Washington State Troops to Teachers
Program, told Education World that former military personnel have the
qualities essential to good teaching: "They have maturity, they are experienced,
they're team players, they have skill in crisis management, and they have
an expectation of discipline in themselves and others." Pointing to a
recent Education Week article about Chicago school districts'
plans to recruit teachers from overseas, he stressed that retired service
members, most only in their 40s, are a "highly qualified" pool that can
be tapped for such hard-to-fill positions. According to a Profile
Of Troops To Teachers, on which Willett and Feistritzer collaborated,
military personnel are more likely to be willing to teach in urban areas
and more likely to specialize in math and science.
NOT ALL ALTERNATIVE PROGRAMS ARE CREATED EQUAL
A word of caution, though: Alternative is a blanket term applied
to any certification program besides a standard undergraduate or graduate
degree program, and they are not all created equal.
Marcey Altman, a 12th-grade English teacher at West Springfield High
School, recalls an experience she had eight years ago in the Dade County
(Florida) school district. Faced with shortages due to new limits on class
size, the district offered provisional certification to candidates who
promised to take five education courses over three years and participate
in a beginning teacher program. Altman had already taken those courses
in college, so all she had to do was hand in a portfolio of ten lesson
plans at the end of the year and be evaluated by a fellow teacher three
times. After three years of teaching, her provisional certification would
have become total certification. Based on that experience, she sees real
danger in school districts' "hunger" for teachers to fill certain slots,
because it presses them to let untrained individuals teach as long as
they promise to take a certain number of education courses. Shortages
give them the incentive to let standards slide.
Obviously, emergency certification programs like the one Altman describes
and an intensive, university-based experience like the Fairfax Transition
to Teaching Program are at either end of a vast spectrum. Project director
Anita Ramsey is quick to point out that her program represents the best
example of what alternative certification can be. But it is certainly
not the norm. And it is hard to define exactly what the norm is, since
every state determines its own certification requirements. In her words,
"Nobody marches to the same drummer."
American Federation of Teachers president Sandra Feldman voiced her
concerns about the quality of alternative certification routes in Ignoring
Standards, a column she wrote in August 1998. Feldman expressed support
for "good alternative certification programs that bring talented career
changers into teaching" but emphasized that alternative certification
is a slippery slope. She wrote, "those who think that programs like these
will take care of the teacher-quality problem are not looking at the realities
of the situation. In districts where attracting new teachers is already
a chronic problem, 'alternative' means 'emergency.' It means lowering
standards, allowing any warm body to teach. The sad truth is, there aren't
enough Einsteins or former military officers -- or even idealistic young
graduates -- who want to become public school teachers." Feldman's statement
summarizes what many perceive as the central problem with alternative
routes to certification: ensuring quality across the board.
RECOGNIZING A QUALITY PROGRAM
In her May 13, 1999, testimony before the House Committee on Education
and the Workforce, Feistritzer acknowledged that the term alternative
teacher certification can mean many different things, "from emergency
certification to very sophisticated and well-designed programs that address
the professional preparation needs of the growing population of individuals
who already have at least a baccalaureate degree and considerable life
experience and want to become teachers." She also defined components that
are part of high-quality alternative certification programs:
Good programs have a strong academic course work component.
Good programs are field-based, meaning that individuals get into classrooms
early in their training.
Teacher candidates work with qualified mentor teachers.
Candidates usually go through their program in cohorts, not as isolated
individuals.
Most good programs are collaborative efforts among state departments
of education, which have responsibility to license teachers; colleges
and universities that historically have had the responsibility for educating
and training teachers; and school districts, which actually hire teachers.
Feistritzer told Education World that she sees more and more states
evolving toward such a university-based model. The earliest programs that
emerged in the mid-1980s, she noted, tended to be district-based and run
by school personnel. But that's changing. Alternative certification programs
are emerging as a trend in higher education. About 250 colleges and universities
now offer such programs for students with noneducation bachelor's degrees.
Programs such as CalStateTEACH (part of the California State University
system), the Military Career Transition Program at Old Dominion University,
and Project Promise at Colorado State University generally combine course
work, mentoring, and on-the-job experience.
The bottom line, says Feistritzer, is that "school administrators need
to take advantage of the alternatives that states are setting up for them."
At a time when, according to her research, nearly one-third of people
in teacher-preparation programs already have bachelor's degrees, giving
them alternative routes to certification "makes a whole lot of sense."
ADDITIONAL ALTERNATIVE CERTIFICATION RESOURCES
National
Center For Alternative Teacher Certification Information This not-for-profit
organization helps state departments of education, school districts,
legislators, and other education-related groups establish alternative
certification programs to help remedy teacher shortages. Operating within
the Houston-based Haberman Educational Foundation, it focuses on improving
the quality of teaching for bilingual, diverse, poor, urban, and rural
students in hard-to-staff areas. NCATCI's Alternative Teacher Certification:
History Handbook and How To is available for purchase through the
Web site.
The
Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC): Becoming A Teacher
This site provides links to alternative certification information as
well as individual state education departments nationwide. Through the
education department Web sites, you can access state-specific information
on requirements for teacher licensing, certification, and testing. ERIC
is a comprehensive clearinghouse on teaching and teacher education based
in Washington, D.C.
National
Association For Alternative Certification NAAC seeks to expand public
school teaching certification options. Although the Web site is not
kept up-to-date, it does include some useful links to alternative certification
programs nationwide.
I
Already Have A Bachelor's Degree, How Can I Obtain A Teaching License?"
This 1998 ERIC Digest article provides a general overview of some of
the steps involved in pursuing an alternative route to certification.
The article includes an extensive bibliography of books and articles
on alternative certification.
CalState Teach
At California State University California State University's alternative
certification program is an Internet-based academic program that allows
elementary school teachers who are working with "emergency" credentials
to obtain full certification in 18 months.
Liberal
Arts Grads And Career Changers Finding More Paths Into Public School Teaching