Alternate Route Preparation: Colorado

Expanding the Pool of Teachers Policy

Goal

The state should ensure that its alternate routes provide efficient preparation that is relevant to the immediate needs of new teachers, as well as adequate mentoring and support.

Meets a small part of goal
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2015). Alternate Route Preparation: Colorado results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/CO-Alternate-Route-Preparation-70

Analysis of Colorado's policies

Colorado offers one- and two-year alternate route programs. Both alternate routes require that candidates complete 225 clock hours of instruction in teacher preparation courses that meet state performance-based standards and include training in dropout prevention. Specific details of the coursework are not outlined. A program advisory council may exempt candidates from some coursework requirements based on an applicant's previous experience or demonstrated knowledge. 

Although Colorado does not require a practice-teaching opportunity, alternatively licensed teachers are to be supervised by a support team, which includes a qualified mentor-teacher.

Citation

Recommendations for Colorado

Establish coursework guidelines for alternate route preparation programs.
Colorado should articulate guidelines regarding the specific nature of coursework required of candidates. Requirements should be manageable and contribute to the immediate needs of new teachers. Appropriate coursework should include grade-level or subject-level seminars, methodology in the content area, classroom management, assessment and scientifically based early reading instruction. Simply mandating coursework without specifying the purpose can inadvertently send the wrong message to program providers—that "anything goes" as long as credits are granted. However constructive, any course that is not fundamentally practical and immediately necessary should be eliminated as a requirement.

Provide induction experience for all new teachers.
While Colorado requires all alternate route candidates to be paired with mentors, the state should consider further strengthening these guidelines by ensuring a practice teaching prior to teaching in the classroom, intensive mentoring with full classroom support in the first few weeks or months of school, a reduced teaching load or release time to allow new teachers to observe experienced teachers during each school day.

State response to our analysis

Colorado was helpful in providing NCTQ with facts that enhanced this analysis.

The state indicated that all designated agencies’ proposals to offer alternative teacher preparation curricula must be aligned with current state standards for teachers. Alternative teacher preparation programs must undergo a review process and must be authorized by the State Board of Education. Moreover, the curricula do not have to happen via an institution of higher education. Whether the program is 225 clock hours or credit-bearing coursework, the curriculum must be authorized by the Board.

Colorado noted that mentoring for all alternatively licensed candidates, whether they are candidates with a two-year or a one-year alternative license, is mandated by state statute and rule. State rules require that alternative preparation programs provide an orientation to the school and its population, as well as policies and procedures that affect teaching and classroom management strategies and teacher responsibilities prior to the start of the school year.

The state further noted that the alternative preparation routes in Colorado, as well as across the nation, have evolved in multiple ways. In Colorado, there are five alternative preparation programs that are residency models of preparation, allowing alternative candidates to engage in a clinically rich year of learning to teach alongside a mentor in one classroom. Moreover, there are alternative special education programs that must offer content beyond the content outlined above because candidates need to learn the knowledge base of special education.

Research rationale

Alternate route programs must provide practical, meaningful preparation that is sensitive to a new teacher's stress level.
Too many states have policies requiring alternate route programs to "backload" large amounts of traditional education coursework, thereby preventing the emergence of real alternatives to traditional preparation. This issue is especially important given the large proportion of alternate route teachers who complete this coursework while teaching. Alternate route teachers often have to deal with the stresses of beginning to teach while also completing required coursework in the evenings and on weekends. States need to be careful to require participants only to meet standards or complete coursework that is practical and immediately helpful to a new teacher.

Induction support is especially important for alternate route teachers.
Most new teachers—regardless of their preparation—find themselves overwhelmed on taking responsibility for their own classrooms. This is especially true for alternate route teachers, who may have had considerably less classroom exposure or pedagogy training than traditionally prepared teachers. While alternate route programs will ideally have provided at least a brief student teaching experience, not all programs can incorporate this into their models. States must ensure that alternate route programs do not leave new teachers to "sink or swim" on their own when they begin teaching.

Alternate Route Preparation: Supporting Research
For a general, quantitative review of the research supporting the need for states to offer an alternate route license, and why alternate routes should not be treated as programs of "last resort," one need simply to look at the numbers of uncertified and out of field teachers in classrooms today, readily available from the National Center for Education Statistics. In addition, with U.S. schools facing the need to hire more than 3.5 million new teachers each year, the need for alternate routes to certification cannot be underestimated. See also E.R. Ducharme and M.K. Ducharme, "Quantity and quality: Not enough to go around." Journal of Teacher Education, Volume 49, No. 3, May 1998, pp. 163-164.

Further, scientific and market research demonstrates that there is a willing and able pool of candidates for alternate certification programs—and many of these individuals are highly educated and intelligent. In fact, the nationally respected polling firm, The Tarrance Group, recently conducted a scientific poll in the State of Florida, identifying that more than 20 percent of Floridians would consider changing careers to become teachers through alternate routes to certification.

We base our argument that alternative-route teachers should be able to earn full licensure after two years on research indicating that teacher effectiveness does not improve dramatically after the third year of teaching. One study (frequently cited on both sides of the alternate route debate) identified that after three years, traditional and alternatively-certified teachers demonstrate the same level of effectiveness, see J.W. Miller, M.C. McKenna, and B.A. McKenna, "A comparison of alternatively and traditionally prepared teachers". Journal of Teacher Education, Volume 49, No. 3, May 1998, pp. 165-176. This finding is supported by D. Boyd,  D. Goldhaber,  H. Lankford, and J. Wyckoff, "The Effect of Certification and Preparation on Teacher Quality." The Future of Children, Volume 17, No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 45-68.

Project MUSE (http://muse.jhu.edu/), found that student achievement was similar for alternatively-certified teachers as long as the program they came from was "highly selective."

The need for a cap on education coursework and the need for intensive mentoring are also backed by research, as well as common sense. In 2004, Education Commission of the States reviewed more than 150 empirical studies and determined that there is evidence "for the claim that assistance for new teachers, and, in particular, mentoring [have] a positive impact on teachers and their retention." The 2006 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher validates these conclusions. In addition, Mathematica (2009) found that student achievement suffers when alternate route teachers are required to take excessive amounts of coursework. See An Evaluation of Teachers Trained Through Different Routes to Certification: Final Report at: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED504313.pdf


See also Alternative Certification Isn't Alternative (NCTQ, 2007) at: http://www.nctq.org/p/publications/docs/Alternative_Certification_Isnt_Alternative_20071124023109.pdf.