Alternate Routes Policy
Pennsylvania offers two alternate routes to certification: Teacher Intern Certification and American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE).
Academic Proficiency Requirements: Pennsylvania's Teacher Intern Certification applicants must have a minimum 3.0 GPA in order to gain program entry. ABCTE applicants do not have to demonstrate academic proficiency requirements via a GPA or a test of academic proficiency, such as the SAT, ACT, or GRE.
All alternate route applicants must pass the Pre-service Academic Performance Assessment (PAPA) basic skills test and can use qualifying scores from the ACT or SAT to meet this requirement as well.
Subject-Matter Testing Requirements: Pennsylvania requires Teacher Intern Certification applicants and ABCTE candidates to pass a subject-matter exam in order to be eligible for certification but not prior to program entry.
Although Pennsylvania requires Teacher Intern Certification applicants to take a subject-matter exam, the state does not require elementary and elementary special education applicants to pass a stand-alone assessment of early reading prior to entering the classroom as the teacher of record, which in turn does not ensure that these applicants adequately understand the five research-based instructional components of early reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Because elementary and special education teacher preparation in reading are assessed in 2-C: Elementary Reading and 4-B: Special Education Reading, these policies are not considered as part of the assessment for Alternate Route Program Entry.
Coursework Requirements: Pennsylvania no longer requires subject-specific coursework requirements for Teacher Intern Certification applicants, and it still does not make this a requirement of its ABCTE applicants.
Increase academic requirements for admission for all candidates.
While Pennsylvania should be commended for its rigorous admissions requirements for the Teacher Intern Certification program, the state should extend these requirements to ABCTE applicants and require a rigorous test appropriate for candidates who have already completed a bachelor's degree, such as the GRE, or a GPA of 3.0 or higher to assess academic standing.
Require applicants to pass a subject-matter test for admission.
Pennsylvania should require all alternate route candidates to pass a subject-matter test prior to admission to an alternate route program. Alternate route programs provide nontraditional candidates with an opportunity to use professional knowledge and skills, including subject-matter knowledge, in the classroom. However, because teachers without sufficient subject-matter knowledge place students at risk, the subject-matter test serves as an important guardrail for alternate route candidates.
Eliminate basic skills test requirement.
Pennsylvania should continue to accept SAT or ACT scores and eliminate the basic skills test requirement. The state's requirement that alternate route candidates pass a basic skills test is impractical and ineffectual, although Pennsylvania is recognized for allowing candidates to use equivalent scores to fulfill this admission criterion. Basic skills tests measure minimum competency—essentially skills that a person should have acquired in middle school—and are inappropriate for candidates who have already earned a bachelor's degree.
Pennsylvania recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis; however, the analysis was updated subsequent to the state's review.
5A: Program Entry
Alternate route teachers need the advantage of a strong academic background. The intent of alternate route programs is to provide a route for those who already have strong subject-matter knowledge to enter the profession, allowing them to focus on gaining the professional skills needed for the classroom.[1] This intent is based on the fact that academic caliber has been shown to correlate with classroom success.[2] Programs that admit candidates with a weak grasp of both subject matter and professional knowledge can put the new teacher in an impossible position, where he or she is much more likely to experience failure and perpetuate high attrition rates.[3]
Academic requirements for admission to alternate routes should set a high bar. Assessing a teacher candidate's college GPA and/or aptitude scores can provide useful and reliable measures of academic caliber, provided that the state does not set the floor too low.[4] States should limit teacher preparation to the top half of the college population.[5] In terms of assessments, relying on basic skills tests designed for those without a college degree is ineffective for alternate route candidates. Appropriate assessments could include the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) or candidates' SAT/ACT scores.[6]
In addition to evaluating incoming candidates' academic aptitude, programs should also determine whether applicants have the content knowledge they need prior to acceptance into the program.[7] This determination prior to admission is important given that most alternative certification programs do not require additional content coursework during the course of their program. This determination should be made by using the state's subject matter licensure test.
In some cases, alternative route programs require candidates to have a major in the subject they will be licensed to teach. While ensuring content knowledge through an adequate test is essential, rigid coursework requirements can dissuade talented, qualified individuals from pursuing a career in teaching. By allowing candidates to prove their rich content knowledge by testing out of coursework requirements, professionals who have a wealth of relevant, subject-specific experience can pass their expertise on to students. With such provisions, states can maintain high standards for potential teachers, while utilizing experts of respective fields, such as differential mathematics and biology. For instance, an engineer who wishes to teach physics should face no coursework obstacles as long as he or she can prove sufficient knowledge of physics on an adequate test. A good test with a sufficiently high passing score is certainly as reliable as courses listed on a transcript, if not more so. A testing exemption would also allow alternate routes to recruit college graduates with strong liberal arts backgrounds to work as elementary teachers, even if their transcripts fail to meet state requirements.[8]