Alternate Route Preparation: Vermont

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.

Does not meet goal
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2015). Alternate Route Preparation: Vermont results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/VT-Alternate-Route-Preparation-70

Analysis of Vermont's policies

Vermont has no overarching policy that governs the state's alternate routes programs. Currently, there are three alternate route programs in the state: the Peer Review program, the Teacher Apprenticeship Program (TAP) and the Spark Institute for Teaching, which runs two different certification programs.

There are no coursework requirements associated with Vermont's Peer Review. Candidates must show evidence of at least 12 consecutive weeks of student teaching or an equivalent learning experience. An equivalent learning experience is defined as having a substantial amount of supervised experiences working with students in the endorsement area.

The Teacher Apprenticeship Program (TAP) offers candidates certification after completing an eight-month full-time internship that includes student teaching with a mentor teacher. Candidates also take coursework, although TAP provides no description of these courses.

The Spark Institute's Master's in Teaching for Social Justice (MATS) program is a one-year, field-based program that also offers academic seminars. These seminars focus on pedagogy, subject-specific best practices, literacy development, child and adolescent development theory, education law and policy and strategies for all learners. Candidates are paired with a mentor and spend a 12-week period student-teaching full time. The Spark Teacher Education Institute certification, without a master's alternate route program, does not provide specific coursework requirements.

Citation

Recommendations for Vermont

Establish coursework guidelines for alternate route preparation programs.
Vermont should articulate guidelines regarding the nature and amount of coursework required of candidates in all of its alternate route programs. 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 some alternate route programs in the state require mentorship experiences, there are insufficient guidelines indicating that the mentoring program is structured for new teacher success. All three of Vermont's alternate route programs should provide effective induction strategies, like 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 fewer than two years.
South Carolina 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

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

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.