Alternate Route Preparation: Tennessee
Expanding the Pool of Teachers Policy
Analysis of Tennessee's policies
Tennessee has standardized expectations for its traditional and alternate route pathways.
The core curriculum must cover knowledge and skills pertaining to all areas (i.e., basic problem solving, understanding the interdependence among fields of study), communication, humanities and arts, social science and technology and mathematical concepts and applications.
All programs must be aligned with InTASC standards. In addition, programs must offer candidates clinical practice, and an orientation must be offered that takes place at the latest within the first three months of a candidate's job-embedded clinical practice. Mentor teachers must be assigned to all candidates as they take part in their clinical experience.
All preparation programs are recommended, but are not required, to provide a core curriculum that is 120 credit hours, or approximately half of the semester hours required to complete a baccalaureate degree.
Candidates are eligible for practitioner licensure, which is valid for three years.
Recommendations for Tennessee
Establish coursework guidelines for alternate route preparation programs.
The state should articulate guidelines regarding the nature
and amount 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.
Strengthen the induction experience for new teachers.
While Tennessee is commended for requiring all new teachers
to work with a mentor, there are insufficient guidelines indicating that the
induction program is structured for new teacher success. Effective strategies
include 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 and release time to allow new teachers to
observe experienced teachers during each school day.
Ensure program completion in less than two years.
Tennessee should consider shortening the length of time it takes an alternate route teacher to earn standard certification. The route should allow candidates to earn full certification no later than the end of the second year of teaching.
State response to our analysis
Tennessee was helpful in providing NCTQ with the facts necessary for this analysis.
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Tennessee
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
- Admission into Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Mathematics
- Early Childhood
- Middle School Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science and Social Studies
- Special Education Teacher Preparation
- Special Education Preparation in Reading
- Assessing Professional Knowledge
- Student Teaching
- Teacher Preparation Program Accountability
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
- State Data Systems
- Evaluation of Effectiveness
- Frequency of Evaluations
- Tenure
- Licensure Advancement
- Equitable Distribution
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
Pensions
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.