The Much 'Heralded Rise' of Alternative Certification and its 'Neglected Fall'

Almost 10 years ago American newspapers made a great deal of the fact that 59% of Massachusetts’ prospective teachers failed its licensure test -- a ‘flunk heard around the world.’ In the headline’s wake, the state launched a $20,000 signing bonus for the academically able who could bypass traditional teacher education and quickly begin teaching in high needs schools. The headlines further branded quick-entry alternative certification programs as the cure for ‘time-consuming and expensive’ university-based training programs that offer too many Mickey Mouse pedagogical courses. In this month’s Kappan (Table of Contents viewable here), Clarke Fowler’s article exposes the “heralded rise” and the “neglected fall” of the state’s signing bonus and its 7-week new teacher institute (MINT).

Fowler chronicles the facts: First, the $20,000 signing bonus and quick-entry program were insufficient to attract large numbers of talented individuals previously not interested in becoming teachers. Second, the relatively few recruits who became teachers were less likely to teach in high needs schools – and if they did, they were far more likely to leave teaching than other novices. For example, the program accounted for only 1.6 percent of the state’s new recruits when its lead advocate, then-Commissioner of Education, David Driscoll, promised 20-25 percent! In addition, over a 5-year period 44% of the program’s recruits left teaching after just three years. Finally, neither the MINT recruits nor the principals who hired them reported that 7 weeks was enough time to get prepared for the rigors of classroom teaching. Several years ago with no fanfare whatsoever the signing bonus program quietly disappeared. The state’s fast-track program has remained in place but those who are recruited now are not held to the same high selective standards used previously.

However, as Professor Fowler notes in his well-written, data-rich journal article, policymakers seem to have learned very little from the Massachusetts’ alternative certification experience. Similar programs continue to proliferate, as those in charge of teacher education and licensing systems continue to “cling to dogma over data.” The state’s fast track teacher recruitment and training program provides a telling case of how the political interests of adults and their ideology trump the interests of students and evidence of what works.

New models — like the Stanford Teacher Education Program as well as the Boston Teacher Residency Program offer a powerful antidote to fast-track alternative certification programs as well as outdated, non-responsive traditional teacher education programs. Both programs — with the former more university-based and the latter more district-based — aggressively recruit non-traditional candidates and prepare them through a full-year “medical school-like” internship.  We know what to do – now is the time to find the political will to do so.