National Center for Education Information

by C. Emily Feistritzer
Testimony before the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Committee on Appropriations
May 22, 2001

Current projections show the nation will need to hire in the next decade 2.2 million people to teach who are not currently teaching in elementary and secondary schools.

The President, the First Lady and the Congress of the United States have made recruiting and training individuals to teach the nation's children a top priority for American education.

The President's Budget Request for fiscal year 2002 requests $2.6 billion for state grants for improving teacher quality that would combine funding from several existing programs. The proposal would provide a $375 million or 17 percent increase over antecedent programs to help states and local school districts fund their own needs and priorities in developing and supporting a high-quality teaching force.

The current Fiscal year 2001 budget for the U.S. Department of Education includes $31 million specifically for the development of alternative teacher certification programs.

Several states, institutions of higher education and local school districts have been grappling with these issues. Forty-one states and the District of Columbia report having some type of alternative route for certifying teachers now, according to annual surveys conducted by the National Center for Education Information. Approximately 125,000 individuals have been certified through such programs.

The most significant variable in driving the alternative teacher certification movement forward is the changing market for teaching.

There probably isn’t any area of the teaching occupation that has changed more than the profile of individuals entering the profession. The most dramatic change in the past 15 years has been a shift toward people beginning their preparation to teach later in life and later in their academic careers.

A 1999 survey of Institutions of Higher Education that have programs for the preparation of teachers conducted by the Center for Education Information, found that nearly three out of 10 (28 percent) prospective new teachers who completed teacher preparation in 1998 in college-based programs began their preparation to teach after they had already received at least a bachelor’s degree.

Teacher preparation programs historically were designed for undergraduate education majors. Thus, the emphasis has necessarily been on meeting the college or university general requirements for a baccalaureate degree, while majoring in education and taking courses in teacher preparation.

This population of non-traditional candidates wanting to become teachers is growing significantly. How to prepare these people for the occupation of teaching? 

Not only have more and more states instituted legislation for alternative teacher certification, but, also, more and more institutions of higher education have initiated their own alternative programs for the preparation of teachers leading to a license to teach. 

The most dramatic change in the past 15 years has been a shift toward people beginning their preparation to teach later in life and later in their academic careers.

Among the findings of a national survey of institutions of higher education that have teacher preparation programs, conducted by the non-profit organization, the Center for Education Information (CEI), in 1999, were:

• Nearly three out of 10 (28 percent) prospective new teachers who completed Teacher Preparation Programs in 1998 began their preparation to teach at the Post-baccalaureate level, and 72 percent had begun their preparation in Undergraduate programs.
• Two-thirds (65 percent) of institutions surveyed by CEI indicated they have at least one program for the preparation of teachers in which candidates enter at the Post-baccalaureate level.
• Nearly eight out of 10 (79 percent) prospective secondary school teachers who had begun their preparation to teach at the Post-baccalaureate level had degrees in fields other than education. One-half (49 percent) of persons who completed an Undergraduate program prepared to teach at the secondary school level had a degree in a field other than education. Three out of four (75 percent) prospective elementary teachers who began their preparation to teach at the Post-baccalaureate level had a degree in a field other than education. One in three (29 percent) individuals who completed an Undergraduate program prepared to teach in elementary schools had a degree in a field other than education. At the middle school preparation level, 69 percent of the Post-baccalaureate candidates and one-third of the Undergraduates had degrees in fields other than education.
• More than half (55 percent) of the individuals who were admitted into Teacher Preparation Programs at the Post-baccalaureate level within the last year were transitioning into teaching from an occupation outside the field of education. More than one in 10 (11 percent) of those admitted into Teacher Preparation Programs at the Undergraduate level were transitioning into teaching from an occupation outside the field of education.
• More than one-third (36 percent) of persons admitted into Teacher Preparation Programs at the Post-baccalaureate level and 14 percent of those admitted as Undergraduates within the past year had prior teaching-related experience, such as substitute teacher, teacher’s aide, or school paraprofessional.

The CEI survey results clearly show that there is a shift away from the stereotype of recent high school students going to college and majoring in education as the sole source of new teachers. Counting education degrees does not equate to the number of teachers being prepared.

California, New Jersey and Texas have been developing and aggressively utilizing alternative routes for licensing teachers since the mid-1980s. Approximately eight percent of new hires in California enter teaching through the state’s alternative routes. In Texas, 16 percent of its new hires come through the state’s 27 Alternative Routes, and in New Jersey, 22 percent of new teachers enter the profession through the state’s alternative route.

• People coming into teaching through alternative routes tend to be older, people of color, more men, have academic degrees other than education, and have experiences in other occupations.
• Early data indicate that individuals entering teaching through alternative routes have higher retention rates than those entering teaching from traditional college-based programs. Reasons given for this are:
  • Teachers coming through alternative routes generally are older, more experienced and have a strong commitment to helping young people learn and develop. They are making a definitive decision to teach at this point in their lives.
  • Their preparation programs have provided intense field-based, in-the-classroom training and instruction.
  • They have received on-the-job training under the guidance of mentor or master teachers.
  • They have had the support of college faculty, schoolteachers and their peers while actually teaching.

One of the reasons given for the high attrition rate for new teachers in their first few years of teaching is that they receive very little support and professional development as beginning teachers. This issue is directly addressed in the very design of alternative preparation programs, which, if anything, err on the side of getting prospective teachers into classrooms too early.

All of the states that have designed and implemented exemplary alternative route programs report that teachers certified through their alternative routes perform as well, and, in some cases, better, on certification examinations as their counterparts who completed traditional teacher education programs. Administrators in schools where these teachers teach report high levels of satisfaction with their performance. Early evidence indicates that these alternative routes are effective in getting more people of color into teaching and in recruiting, training and placing teachers in classrooms where the demand for teachers in greatest.