Abstract
By analyzing data from the Schools and Staffing Survey, the authors empirically test four of the core assumptions embedded in current arguments for expanding alternative teacher certification (AC): AC attracts experienced candidates from fields outside of education; AC attracts top-quality, well-trained teachers; AC disproportionately trains teachers to teach in hard-to-staff schools; and AC alleviates out-of-field teaching. Although there are some differences in the backgrounds of alternatively and traditionally certified teachers, the findings suggest that AC programs have not substantially changed the pool from which new teachers are drawn. Findings further indicate that AC programs do not attract a disproportionate number of candidates to teach in difficult-to-staff schools, nor are they effective means for solving the problem of out-of-field teaching.
The issue of teacher quality has taken its place at the top of the reform agenda for America’s schools. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) requires that by the end of the 2005–2006 school year all children be taught by a highly qualified teacher. There is much debate, however, about just what constitutes highly qualified (Cohen-Vogel & Herrington, 2005). For some, qualified is synonymous with meeting a set of professional standards. These “professionalists” suggest that to improve competence, teacher candidates should graduate from accredited institutions, pass licensing examinations that include both content and performance components, and be certified when they obtain advanced levels of competence (Darling-Hammond, 2000; National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 1996, 2003). For others, however, such standards are viewed as a disincentive, a road block that deters high-quality candidates from pursuing jobs in teaching (Abell Foundation, 2001; Ballou & Podgursky, 2000). Quality teaching, to “deregulationists,” is not produced in schools of education. Instead, teaching will be enhanced only when alternative routes to certification are embraced, regulations over who can teach are limited to a baccalaureate degree in an academic field, and principals are empowered to hire from the open market.
The term alternative teacher certification (AC) has historically been used to refer to every licensure avenue outside of traditional college-based programs. In 1984, New Jersey was looking to replace its emergency certification, which typically granted people without the requisite criteria for regular certification permission to teach while taking courses at night or during summer breaks. The state developed a new design, one that would serve as a model for state programs throughout the country (National Center for Education Information [NCEI], 2003). As a result of New Jersey’s actions and the specification of certification types in the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), AC is now associated with programs (many state funded) that train nontraditional teacher candidates through school-based programs (with some collaboration with postsecondary institutions) and rely on partnering trainees with mentor teachers.
Initially, AC emerged out of concerns about an impending teacher shortage (Lutz & Hutton, 1989). Analysts argued that greater K–12 student enrollments, fewer college-educated women entering the teaching field, and high numbers of teacher retirements would bankrupt schools of educators. The premise of AC was that by relaxing the entry requirements, a new pool of potential teachers could be tapped—persons who would consider teaching were they not required to return to a university to fulfill a host of requirements beyond their baccalaureate degrees.
Over time, as attention has become less focused on the overall supply of teacher candidates, the arguments for AC have broadened. Indeed, in 1989, Texas policy makers eliminated a condition in the original bill establishing the state’s AC program that required participating districts to demonstrate a teacher shortage (NCEI, 2003). By the middle of the 1990s, according to Neumann (1994), the case for AC included the premise that “some AC programs are equivalent to traditional certification programs, and interns in these programs are as good as first-year, certified teachers” (p. 92). Today, AC is advanced not only as a means to fill vacancies in critical shortage areas but also for improving teacher quality (Cohen-Vogel & Hunt, in press).
In this article, we use data from the SASS to test four core assumptions embedded within arguments for AC. These are that AC programs will (a) attract people from outside of education to teach, (b) improve the quality of teacher candidates, (c) fill positions in hard-to-staff schools, and (d) help alleviate out-of-field teaching. With federal policy focused on teacher quality vis-à-vis NCLB, such questions take on new significance.
Unpacking Core Assumptions: An Analytical Framework
According to Darling-Hammond (1990), the discussion surrounding AC has been fed not by systematic study but instead by competing political factions lobbing “assertions and counter-assertions grounded in mythology and half-truth” (p. 123). Fifteen years later, Humphrey and Wechsler (2005) characterized the literature in much the same way: “The debate over alternative certification has fueled a variety of assumptions about participants and programs that are based on opinion or on the limited research base” (p. 1). Our study adds to the literature by testing some of the core assumptions on which arguments for AC are built and examining the qualifications and assignments of teachers certified through alternative programs, providing useful information to policy makers and school administrators as they work to improve America’s schools. Before describing the data and methods used, we explore each of the four assumptions, their sources, and, where available, their prior empirical study.
AC Programs Attract Experienced Candidates From Outside the Field
Today, the case for AC is built largely on the premise that such programs attract professionals from outside of education. For its part, the Bush administration, in speeches and policy documents, characterizes AC as opening doors for nontraditional recruits to enter into teaching and promotes alternative programs that seek to bring professionals from other fields into the classroom (Cohen-Vogel, 2005; Cohen-Vogel & Hunt, in press). A related assumption maintains that “almost always, nontraditional applicants studied something other than education in college” (Ballou, 1998, p. 314). According to the NCEI (2003), people coming into teaching through alternative routes tend not only to have experience in occupations outside of education but also to have academic degrees in other fields.
In general, researchers agree that many AC programs are designed to draw individuals with diverse occupational and educational experiences into the field (Johnson, Birkeland, & Peske, 2005). The designs of the programs notwithstanding, findings from studies of the background characteristics of AC teachers are mixed. Some research has found that experienced people certified through alternative programs are making career changes from fields outside of teaching (Ballou, 1998) and that the pattern has positive implications for America’s schools (NCEI, 2003). But others have shown that most AC teachers are not career changers. Shen (1997), for example, found that over 50% of AC teachers came right out of college, and another 23.8% already held teaching or other education-related positions. Similarly, in their study of participants in seven alternative certification programs, Humphrey and Wechsler (2005) found that 42% were either in education or were full-time students immediately before entry into the programs. Only about 5%, 2%, and 6% came from careers in mathematics or science, law, and finance or accounting, respectively. In five of the seven programs, 6 in 10 participants had prior experience working in a classroom. Moreover, Lutz and Hutton (1989) found that among AC interns selected by the Dallas Independent School District, 31% were unemployed at the time of their original application.
AC Programs Attract Top-Quality, Well-Trained Teachers
Top quality is difficult to define. In NCLB, quality is conceptualized as a function of the qualifications teachers possess. For teachers to be “highly qualified,” they must be fully certified or licensed, have a bachelor’s degree, and show subject knowledge competence usually by passing a state test. NCLB specifies that to meet the requirements, teachers or prospective teachers who have not yet obtained certification may do so through traditional or alternative programs. Specifically, it states that teachers must obtain “full state certification as a teacher (including certification obtained through alternative routes to certification)” (§ 9101). Moreover, NCLB authorizes the federal government to provide funds to states for the development and expansion of nontraditional, “alternative” teacher training programs.
In this context, AC has been advanced by advocates and some high-level federal officials as a way to attract the nation’s “best and brightest” (Paige, 2002). The NCEI (2003), for example, argues that “alternative routes for preparing and licensing teachers are attracting large numbers of highly qualified, talented, and enthusiastic individuals to the teaching profession” (p. 7). Among government officials, Secretary of Education Rod Paige (2002), after asserting in his first annual report on teacher quality that “there is little evidence that education school course work leads to improved student achievement” (p. 19), highlighted the successes of AC programs in his many subsequent speeches and reports (Cohen-Vogel & Hunt, in press). In 2002 in testimony to the House Subcommittee on Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations, Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education Sally Stroup depicted AC programs such as Teach for America (TFA), Troops to Teachers, and Transition to Teaching as programs “that open up the teaching profession to talented individuals.”
Research testing these assumptions is thin and inconclusive (Berry, 2001). Findings from a national study showed that a lower percentage of AC teachers than traditionally certified (TC) teachers had baccalaureate and master’s degrees (Shen, 1997, 1998). Using a different indicator, however, a case study of AC interns in Texas showed that they had higher pass rates on the Examination for the Certification of Educators in Texas (ExCET) than graduates of TC programs (Cornett, 1990). According to a Mathematica study of 216 teachers in 17 schools, 70% of participants in the TFA program, a selective program that recruits from colleges and universities across the nation, received their bachelor’s degrees from a most, highly, or very competitive college or university, compared to only 3.7% of a comparison group of novice TC teachers (Decker, Mayer, & Glazerman, 2004). Similarly, a recent study of participants in seven AC programs including TFA found that they are more likely overall to have graduated from a most, highly, or very competitive university than from a noncompetitive one (Humphrey & Wechsler, 2005).
AC Programs Disproportionately Train Candidates for Hard-to-Staff Schools
In his December 2, 2003 speech at the Innovations in Education Exchange Series, Secretary Paige remarked that “our poor and minority students have a disproportionate share of new, unqualified or underqualified teachers . . . just as we have a student achievement gap, so too do we have a teacher quality gap.” Research confirms that teachers, by almost any measure (e.g., skill set, certification in subjects taught, teaching experience), are inequitably distributed across schools (Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2002; “Quality Counts,” 2003) and that schools with higher proportions of minority and poor students have less qualified teachers than their low-minority, wealthier counterparts (Boyd, Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2005; Darling-Hammond, 1988). Scholars suggest that the teaching gap results from teachers’ preferences about where to teach, enabled perhaps by seniority provisions in collective bargaining agreements, making some schools harder to staff (Cohen-Vogel & Osborne-Mapkin, in press; Neumann, 1994).
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2001) reports that about 83% of schools reported having a teaching vacancy during 1999–2000. To fill the vacancies, about 18% of schools reported hiring less-than-qualified teachers to fill the positions, almost 10% reported assigning teachers from another grade level, and over 31% used long- or short-term substitutes. Schools with higher proportions of minority students reported having a harder time fully staffing their schools. To fill a vacancy, one quarter of schools where minorities represented at least 30% of the student body reported hiring a less-than-fully-qualified teacher, compared to 13% of schools with minority enrollments under 30% (NCES, 2001).
To address the problem, NCLB (2002) requires that states include in their compliance plans a section specifying what steps they will take to ensure that poor and minority children “are not taught at higher rates than other children by inexperienced, unqualified, or out-of-field teachers.” In an analysis of federal policy documents, Cohen-Vogel and Hunt (in press) found that nontraditional routes to the classroom are celebrated for their potential to alleviate the inequitable distribution of teacher resources. According to the U.S. secretary of education’s first annual report on teacher quality, “Teachers certified through alternative routes . . . are more apt to take challenging assignments” (U.S. Department of Education, 2002, p. 16). The report says that 24% of Troops to Teachers participants, a federal program established to assist eligible military personnel to transition to careers in public schools, serve in inner-city schools, compared to 16% of teachers nationwide. Embedded in the documents is the assumption that AC will fill the very shortages that make the system inequitable.
Other policy (see, e.g., Education Commission of the States, 1999) and advocacy organizations (e.g., The Teaching Commission & Learning Point Associates, 2005) see AC as holding promise for recruiting and preparing teachers for harder-to-staff urban schools (Stoddart, 1990; Zumwalt, 1996). Indeed, proponents argue that AC “is proving to be a big answer” to the question of how to recruit, train, and place teachers in high-demand areas (NCEI, 2003). Despite such statements, few researchers have systematically studied the placements of AC teachers. In an early study of AC teachers in Texas, Lutz and Hutton (1989) found that compared with TC first-year teachers, AC participants were not assigned to schools with greater proportions of low-income students. A recent analysis of 13 AC program sites in four states found that few were successful in placing candidates in high-needs schools (Johnson et al., 2005). Even among AC participants who desired to teach in city schools, many accepted positions in suburban schools when urban districts were slow to post openings and make offers. An evaluation of the DeWitt Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund’s Pathway to Teaching Careers Program by the Urban Institute, however, showed that a large proportion of Pathway graduates took teaching positions in high-need districts after completing the program, although an unspecified number of graduates had already been teaching in these schools as paraprofessionals and substitute teachers (Clewell & Villegas, 2001). We found no study that has looked specifically at certifications of teachers in schools that, regardless of location or enrollment characteristics, are difficult to staff.
AC Alleviates Out-of-Field Teaching
Even if AC programs are found to train new and better candidates for hard-to-staff schools, some contend they do little to address the root causes of low teacher quality: teacher departure and out-of-field assignments (Ingersoll, 1997; Theobald & Laine, 2003). T. M. Smith and Ingersoll (2004) compared the turnover patterns of AC and TC teachers and found that teachers who do not follow traditional education and certification tracks are more likely to leave the profession at the end of their first year of teaching. Up until now, however, research has not empirically addressed the relationship between certification type and out-of-field teaching.
Out-of-field teaching, what Albert Shanker (1985) called “the dirty little secret” of America’s schools, occurs when teachers teach subjects other than those in which they were trained. Evidence suggests that out-of-field teaching is widespread, especially in secondary schools where one fifth of students enrolled in English classes, 27% of students in mathematics classes, 39% in life science classes, and over 56% in physical science classes are taught by teachers with no major or minor in the field. The situation is worse in high-minority, high-poverty schools (Ingersoll, 1999; Ingersoll & Gruber, 1996; Wirt et al., 2004).
When faced with shortages, principals report that they hire less qualified candidates, rely extensively on substitute teachers, and/or assign teachers trained in another field to the understaffed area. Indeed, NCES (2001) reports that 10% of principals surveyed during the 1999–2000 academic year reported filling vacancies by assigning teachers with a previous assignment to another subject or grade level. Assigning teachers to teach out of field affects teachers’ morale and commitment (Ingersoll, 1999) and compromises their effectiveness in the classroom (Ingersoll, 1995, 1996; Monk, 1994; Monk & King, 1994). Goldhaber and Brewer (1997), for example, found that students taught by teachers with a major in mathematics scored higher on tests in that subject than those whose teachers did not have a mathematics major.
A commonly held view, especially among news columnists, is that out-of-field teaching is a function of poor preparation (Ingersoll, 1998, 1999). To address the problem, critics call for the reform of teacher education, reforms that include using AC to ease entry into teaching for those with undergraduate majors in an academic discipline. According to Ballou (1998), “Often [non-traditional applicants] are liberal arts majors who will be teaching the subject in which they majored” (p. 314). Advocates characterize AC programs as tailor-made and designed to prepare individuals who hold baccalaureate degrees and have work experiences outside education to teach in schools where demand for their subject-area expertise is greatest (Kwiatkowski, 1999; NCEI, 2003). Others, however, suggest that AC programs that lower training standards may contribute to out-of-field teaching “by further eroding the already-low status of teaching” (Ingersoll, 1999, p. 34). Low status can lead to high rates of teacher turnover and, consequently, misassignment.
Empirical studies that examine the fit between teachers’ preparation fields and their teaching assignments have not yet considered whether fit is mediated by teachers’ certification type. Recent evidence suggests that the same hiring practices used by districts to place TC teachers apply to AC candidates and may lead to eventual mismatches between the jobs that AC participants seek or are trained for and the initial assignments they find (Johnson et al., 2005).
Method
Data
We use data from the 1999–2000 administration of the SASS. The nationally representative SASS collects data on the staffing, occupational, and organizational aspects of elementary and secondary schools in the United States. The Census Bureau collects the SASS data for NCES from a random sample of schools stratified by state, public/private sector, and school level. Each cycle of SASS has included separate, but linked, questionnaires for administrators and a random sample of teachers in each school.
There were 9,605 teachers surveyed in the 1999–2000 SASS who had been hired for their first teaching position between the 1995–96 and 1999–2000 school years. We focus on these novice teachers to consider the population most affected by recent changes in certification laws and programs. Most of these novice teachers, 6,728, reported holding a regular, standard or,advanced professional certificate obtained through a traditional route or a probationary certificate (the initial certificate issued after satisfying all requirements except the completion of a probationary period). Another 1,201 teachers reported either having provisional certification because of ongoing participation in an AC program or having obtained their regular, standard, or advanced certification through an AC program. Our analyses focus on the differences between these TC teachers and those certified through alternative routes. The remaining 1,676 teachers in the subsample held either temporary certificates (requiring additional college coursework and/or student teaching before regular certification can be obtained), emergency certificates, or no certification. Among the 2,215 first year teachers sampled (i.e., those hired during the 1999–00 school year), 1,326 held advanced/regular/probationary certification and 273 had alternative certification. Our analyses uses data weighted to compensate for the over- and undersampling of schools and teachers in the complex stratified survey design. Teachers are each weighted by the inverse of the probability of their selection in order to obtain unbiased estimates of the national population of public school teachers in the year of the survey.
Measures
Below, we describe how we measure the following variables: (a) teacher certification type, (b) teacher academic qualifications, (c) teacher professional experience, (d) level of preparedness to teach, (e) hard-to-staff schools, and (f) out-of-field assignment.
Teacher certification type
To measure teacher certification type, we rely on items from the teacher questionnaire of the SASS. In 1998, Ballou argued that responses to the 1993–1994 SASS questions asking teachers whether they possessed alternative certifications were contaminated with measurement and response error, based on reinterview analyses of teacher certification items from an earlier SASS administration. This reinterview study found the AC items to have IOI values (a measure of response variance) in the high range (above 50%). Changes to the item were subsequently made for the 1993–1994 administration. In 1993–1994, respondents were asked whether they had a teaching certificate in their main teaching assignment field. Those answering “yes” then marked one of seven boxes delineating the type of certificate that they held. Possible responses included “advanced professional certification,” “regular or standard state certificate,” “the certificate offered in your state to persons who have completed what the state calls an ‘alternative certification program,’” and “provisional or other type given to persons who are still participating in what the state calls an ‘alternative certification program.’” A rein-terview study in 1994 indicated improvement (i.e., moderate response variance). For the 1999–2000 administration, the item was changed again following recommendations made by the Bureau of the Census in a report for the U.S. Department of Education (Bushery, Schreiner, & Sebron, 1998). In particular, changes were made that permitted respondents to indicate that their regular, standard, or advanced professional certificates were obtained through alternative routes.
As in 1993–1994, respondents in 1999–2000 were asked whether they had a teaching certificate in their state in their main assignment field. If so, they were asked to check one of five boxes—two less than in the earlier administration—describing the type of certificate held. Among the response choices for certification type was “provisional or other type given to persons who are still participating in what the state calls an ‘alternative certification program.’” Advanced professional certification and regular or standard state certificate were collapsed into one response category and “the certificate offered in your state to persons who have completed what the state calls an ‘alternative certification program’” was omitted from the list. In this administration, all teachers who reported holding a regular, standard, or advanced professional certificate were asked how it was earned. Possible responses included “As part of a bachelor’s degree program,” “As part of a ‘5th year’ program,” “As part of a master’s degree program,” “After I began teaching, as part of an alternative program,” “Before I began teaching, as part of an alternative program,” “Through continuing professional development,” or “Other.” Teachers were also asked about certification in “other” teaching assignment fields, although they were not asked if their “regular certification” in these fields was obtained through an alternative route.
We classify teachers’ certification type in their main assignment field as alternative for those who reported obtaining regular certification through an alternative program either before or after beginning teaching and for those who reported holding provisional certification given for current participation in an alternative program. This definition classifies those certified through 5th-year or graduate programs as TC, as these programs change the route to certification but not the standards of certification themselves. Teachers who reported holding advanced, regular, or standard state certification in their main assignment fields and did not mark that they earned the certification through alternative programs are referred to here as traditionally certified. The reinterview study following the 1999–2000 administration did not include any certification items, so we could not assess the test–retest reliability of these questions (see U.S. Department of Education, Appendix H: Response Variance in the 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey in Schools and Staffing Survey: Data Users Manual).
Academic qualifications
In this study, academic qualifications are measured by items from the SASS that ask for the number and type of degrees earned and name of the institutions from which bachelor’s degrees were awarded. Barron’s (2000) classifies institutions into one of several categories (e.g., “very competitive,” “competitive,” “less competitive”) using factors that include median entrance examination scores, SAT and ACT scores, and the percentage of applicants accepted.
Professional experience
To best capture the professional experiences from which new TC and AC teachers are coming, we examine the past year’s work activities of first-year teachers (n = 2,215) only—those who report that their first teaching position (either full-time or part-time) at the elementary or secondary level was in 1999 or 2000. SASS did not survey teachers about work experiences extending back beyond the prior school year.
Preparation to teach
Preparation to teach is operationalized using items asked of the subset of teachers hired between 1995–1996 and 1999–2000. The variables include whether or not new teachers’ preparation for teaching included (a) coursework in how to select and adapt instructional materials, (b) coursework in learning theory or psychology, (c) observation of other classroom teaching, and (d) feedback on their teaching. These preparation domains could have been completed as part of a traditional or alternative certification program. Teachers were also asked how much practice teaching they had (none, less than 4 weeks, 5–9 weeks, 10 weeks or more) and how well prepared they felt in their first year of teaching to (a) handle classroom discipline and management, (b) teach subject matter, (c) use computers in classroom instruction, (d) use a variety of instructional methods, (e) plan lessons, (f) select curriculum materials, and (g) assess students.
Hard-to-staff schools
Herein, hard-to-staff schools report not being able to fill vacancies or that filling vacancies during the 1999–2000 survey year was “very difficult” or “somewhat difficult.” We look separately at vacancies in general elementary, special education, and core subject areas (i.e., English and language arts, social studies, mathematics, biology and life sciences, physical sciences).
Out-of-field teaching
To calculate out-of-field teaching, we use created variables in the 1999–2000 SASS restricted-use data set. A teacher is considered to be out of field for a particular course if the subject matter of the course (e.g., mathematics) does not match the major or minor of any degree that the teacher holds. The analyses presented here pertain only to teachers in middle school, high school, or combined schools whose classes are organized for departmental instruction (i.e., teachers teach subject matter courses to several classes of different students all or most of the day). As the number of teachers classified as out of field is sensitive to the operational definition (Ingersoll, 1999), we use multiple measures and assess the sensitivity of our findings to each definition of in-field teaching. For example, we calculate different versions of a match between field and subject taught, including having a major in the subject as well as a broader version that includes a major or minor.
Analyses
To test whether AC programs train teacher candidates from outside of education, we use t tests to compare differences in the proportion of first-year AC and TC teachers with education degrees and who entered teaching either directly from college or university programs, from another job in education (e.g., teaching in a private school), or from non-education-related occupations. To examine whether AC recruits more “top-quality,” “well-trained” teachers, we compare the academic qualifications, selectivity of undergraduate institutions, and preparation of first-year teachers who are either still enrolled in an alternative program or have gained regular certification in their main assignment field through AC programs to those of TC first-year teachers. We consider the placement of teachers certified through AC and TC programs to assess whether AC teachers are more likely to teach in hard-to-staff schools. Specifically, we compare the percentages of AC and TC teachers working in urban, poor, and minority schools as well as schools that report difficulty filling teacher vacancies. Finally, to examine whether AC teachers are more likely to teach subjects in which they were trained, we compare the percentages of AC and TC teachers teaching at least one course outside of their major and/or minor degree fields during the 1999–2000 academic year.
Standard errors were estimated using a balanced repeated replication procedure that incorporates the design features of the complex survey sample design (McCarthy, 1969; Särndal, Swensson, & Wretman, 1992) as implemented in the AM Statistical Software Version 6.03 Beta. As the likelihood of making a Type I error increases with the number of comparisons made from the same sample, we minimize the risk by applying a Bonferroni adjustment (Klockars & Hancock, 1994). The Bonferroni method adjusts downward the alpha level of each individual test to ensure that the overall risk for making a Type I error remains at .05. We implicitly make 70 comparisons between the characteristics of AC and TC teachers from the same sample. To maintain the risk for making a Type I error at .05, we lower the alpha for each test to .000714286, corresponding to a t value for a double-sided test ≥ 3.384.
To compare the practical significance of the differences between AC and TC teachers, we report (a) the differences in the percentages of each group across the categories of our measures, (b) odds ratios, and (c) odds ratios converted to effect sizes. Odds ratios are a means of expressing differences in dichotomous variables across groups (Valentine & Cooper, 2003). Formally, an odds ratio is calculated by dividing the odds of an event occurring (e.g., having a master’s degree) in one group (AC teachers) by the odds of the event occurring in another group (TC teachers). A 5 percentage point difference between groups for a rare event returns a larger odds ratio than a 5 percentage point difference for a more common event. To convert odds ratios to effect sizes for mean differences between continuous variables, we divided the natural log of the odds ratio by 1.81 to convert the logistic distribution underlying the odds ratio to a normal equivalent deviate (an approximation of Cohen’s D; Chinn, 2000). We report and interpret differences between AC and TC teachers that are both statistically significant and “practically significant” (Thompson, 2002). We also report the odds ratios and effect sizes for differences that we consider practically significant even when they do not attain statistical significance, to not imply that differences between AC and TC teachers do not exist just because we might not have the power in our sample to detect them.
Findings
Training Experienced Candidates From Outside the Field
Table 1 shows data on first-year teacher responses to “What were you doing last year?” A significantly lower percentage of first-year teachers certified through AC programs (36.3%) than those traditionally certified (57.1%) were enrolled in college the prior year, with the odds of being enrolled about a third lower for AC than TC teachers (t = −4.90, odds ratio = .64, d = 0.25). Another 14.7% and 19.2% of first-year AC and TC teachers, respectively, reported that they had been teaching in a public school during the past school year. The difference was relatively small and not statistically significant (t = −1.50, odds ratio = .77, d = 0.15). These individuals may have been substitute teaching or may have first been hired as teachers during the spring of 1999.
Although not statistically significant, there were substantively important differences between AC and TC teachers in their prior experiences teaching in private school, preschools, and at the university level, as well as in other jobs in education (see Table 1). Compared to their TC counterparts, first-year AC teachers had more than four times the odds of teaching in private schools (t = 1.06, odds ratio = 4.33, d = 0.81), twice the odds of teaching in preschools (t = 1.23, odds ratio = 2.36, d = 0.47), and about four and a half times the odds of teaching at the university level (t = 1.60, odds ratio = 4.67, d = 0.85) during the prior school year. AC teachers also had about twice the odds of entering public school teaching from nonteaching jobs in education, compared to TC teachers (12.5% vs. 6.3%, t = 1.76, odds ratio = 1.98, d = 0.38). Fewer than one fifth of both groups of first-year teachers reported working outside of the field of education in the prior year. The odds of AC teachers (17.7%) doing so were more than three times that for TC teachers (5.5%) (t = 3.20, odds ratio = 3.21, d = 0.65).
Another way to consider whether AC programs attract candidates from fields outside of education is to analyze the percentage of AC teachers with degrees in education-related fields (see Table 1). To consider degrees earned prior to entry into teaching, we examined first-year teachers, as they are unlikely to have both begun and completed a degree (e.g., master’s degree in education) by the spring of their first year of teaching (when they responded to the questionnaire). Although a smaller percentage of AC (53.2%) than TC teachers (84.1%) reported holding at least one degree with a major or minor in education (t = −6.51, odds ratio = 0.63, d = 0.25), what is notable is that over half of all first-year teachers certified through AC programs did so. Removing teachers with minors in education changed the finding only slightly. Among AC teachers, 49.5% majored in education. Restricting the comparison as Ballou (1998) did to holders of bachelor’s degrees also showed 50% of first-year AC teachers as having majored in education (data not shown). Removing major field codes that, although education related, may lead to a degree in education but not necessarily to a teaching certificate (Shen, 1998) did not substantially change the finding. That is, when we excluded from our definition of education degree major fields of study coded in the survey as “Other Education” (namely, counseling and guidance, curriculum and instruction, educational administration, educational psychology, and other education), almost 48% of novice AC teachers said education was their major field of study. When those reporting a major in special education, early childhood education, and prekindergarten were removed from our definition of education degrees, 41% of AC teachers reported studying education as their major field of study. Still, one third of teachers certified to teach through AC studied education in college even when our analysis was restricted to general education (i.e., kindergarten, elementary education, secondary education) and core subject area fields (i.e., English and language arts education, foreign language education, mathematics education, reading education, science education, social studies and social science education).
Recruiting More “Top-Quality,” “Well-Trained” Candidates
In 1999–2000, the percentages of first-year AC and TC teachers who attended selective undergraduate institutions were similar across the two groups. Compared to first-year TC teachers (16.3%), first-year AC teachers (10.1%) had a third less odds of holding a master’s degree, although the difference was not statistically significant (t = −2.64, odds ratio = .62, d = 0.26). First-year AC teachers reported considerably less practice teaching than their TC counterparts (see Table 2). Although the majority of both AC and TC teachers had 10 or more weeks of practice teaching (68.0% and 88.7%, respectively; t = −5.59, odds ratio = .77, d = 0.15), 15.7% of first-year AC teachers reported having “no practice teaching” at all, compared to only 1.3% of first-year teachers with traditional certification (t = 6.23, odds ratio = 12.08, d = 1.38). In other words, the odds of a first-year AC teacher having no practice teaching prior to entering the classroom were 12 times the odds of a TC teacher having no practice training. There were no practically significant differences between the responses of first-year AC and TC teachers, however, to whether their preparation covered the selection and adaptation of instructional materials, learning theory or psychology, observation of classroom teaching, and feedback on their teaching.
Differences between first-year AC and TC teachers on how prepared they felt in their first year of teaching were not statistically or practically significant for any of the seven preparation domains (data not shown).
Filling Hard-to-Staff Schools
In 1999–2000, there were no statistically or practically significant differences in the percentages of novice AC and TC teachers working in urban, high-poverty (50% to 100% of students are eligible for the Free and Reduced Price Lunch program), or high-minority (50% to 100% of students are identified as non-White) schools. We also found no evidence that novice AC teachers are more likely than their TC counterparts to work in schools that report a very or somewhat difficult time filling a vacancy or could not fill a vacancy in core subject areas, general elementary, and special education (see Table 3). Results were similar if comparisons were restricted to schools that report a very difficult time or could not fill a vacancy (data not shown).
Alleviating Out-of-Field Assignments
There were also no statistically or practically significant differences between the percentages of novice AC and TC teachers teaching one, two, three or more, or at least one course outside of their major fields (see Table 4). When we expanded the definition of out-of-field teaching and analyzed data from teachers who taught at least one course outside of their major or minor degree fields, the incidence of out-of-field teaching declined slightly for AC and TC teachers, but differences between the groups remained non-significant (data not shown).
The odds that a novice AC teacher held a mathematics or science degree were one and a half times the odds of a novice TC teacher (14.6% vs. 10.0%, t = 3.55, odds ratio = 1.46, d = 0.21). However, AC teachers were no more likely than either TC teachers with majors in mathematics or science or other subject degree holders to be teaching subjects in which they had majored.
Summary
Our analysis of the SASS data did not support the claim that AC programs principally train experienced people from fields outside of education. Overall, one third of AC teachers reported working in education during the past school year, and another 36% came to teaching directly from college, challenging the argument that AC teachers bring to the classroom a rich professional experience. Moreover, the percentage of AC teachers with at least one degree in education exceeded 50%. We also did not find that AC recruits teachers with better academic qualifications and training. Overall, AC teachers were no more likely than TC teachers to hold graduate degrees or attend selective undergraduate institutions. Nor did our findings suggest that AC programs attract a disproportionate number of candidates to teach in urban, poor, minority, or difficult-to-staff schools or are an effective means for solving the problem of out-of-field teaching.
Discussion
Although failing to confirm each of four core assumptions embedded in current arguments for AC, our findings neither endorse nor dismiss AC as a source of supply for new teachers. But they do raise some important questions, questions with implications for policy and practice.
After Ballou’s (1998) analysis of the 1993–1994 SASS data found, like ours, that a sizeable proportion of AC teachers had bachelor’s degrees in education, he discredited the SASS data and studies based on them: “One sure sign that there were many false responses to the survey is the number of people who claimed they held alternative certificates who nonetheless indicated elsewhere on the survey that their undergraduate degree was in education” (p. 314). The limitations of the survey items notwithstanding, this explanation overlooks other possible alternatives. Perhaps in the face of substantial curricular requirements and high program entrance standards—which may delay the start of coursework until the junior year—undergraduates, aware of AC programs, are choosing to graduate on time with a degree in education but without a certificate to teach. Furthermore, could our finding that AC teachers often have experience in education mean that a sizeable number of teachers certified through AC programs may be using this pathway to transition from lower pay and status positions—preschool and substitute teaching or paraprofessional positions—into regular full-time teaching? If so, AC may be more potent as a fast-track option for those already in education than as an incentive for career changers. These explanations are merely speculative, and a closer look at these issues is clearly warranted.
Other important questions are raised by our findings about opportunities for AC recruits to practice teaching. Although the majority of AC teachers had 10 or more weeks of practice teaching, a substantial percentage of AC teachers had no practice teaching before beginning their first teaching jobs. What are the consequences for these teachers and the students that they teach? Although intensive supervision during the first year of full-time teaching is supposed to reduce the need for preservice practice teaching, several early studies found that the majority of AC candidates may not receive the supervision and mentoring services promised by the programs (Cornett, 1990; J. M. Smith 1990a, 1990b). Prior research suggests that mentorship, collaboration with other teachers, and administrative support all have a positive impact on the development of effective teaching strategies (Darling-Hammond, Gendler, & Wise, 1990; Hawley & Rosenholtz, 1984) and commitment and retention among new teachers (Johnson, Berg, & Donaldson, 2005; Kardos, 2004; T. M. Smith & Ingersoll, 2004). Moreover, we know little from the SASS data about the substance of the practice teaching opportunities available to AC and TC teachers. More studies are needed to fully capture information about the preservice instruction of AC teachers, their on-the-job training, and the practice teaching opportunities available to them.
In terms of their assignments, AC teachers do not disproportionately teach in urban, high-minority, or high-poverty schools. Nor are AC teachers more likely than TC teachers to fill positions in schools that report difficulty filling vacancies in core subjects, general elementary, or special education. It may be that district hiring practices mask variation across certification types in teachers’ preferences about where to teach, preferences that are not covered in the SASS. According to Johnson et al. (2005), AC participants who desired to teach in urban schools eventually accept jobs from suburban systems that make offers in a more timely manner. AC teachers, we find, are also as likely as TC teachers to be assigned to teach courses out of field. It is likely that the same organizational constraints that sway principals to assign TC teachers to subjects in which they have little expertise (Ingersoll, 1999) also lead to AC teachers being misassigned.
Given that the reinterview study following the 1999–2000 administration to measure simple response variance did not include survey items concerning credential status, the reader should exercise care in drawing firm conclusions, and future research might use different methodologies to understand the characteristics and life trajectories of AC teachers. Moreover, our findings should not be interpreted to mean that AC programs cannot be better designed and coupled with other reforms to attract high-caliber individuals with diverse professional backgrounds, to fill hard-to-staff schools, and to reduce the incidence of out-of-field teaching. For example, districts that reinforce their AC programs with targeted recruitment strategies and incentive systems may then be more able to diversify the professional backgrounds and improve the academic qualifications of their recruits. Furthermore, if teacher training programs of any type are to be successful in recruiting individuals to teach in harder-to-staff schools and reducing out-of-field teaching, improvements in the hiring and assignment practices of some districts may be needed.
Footnotes
Tables
This research was supported by a grant from the American Educational Research Association, which receives funds for its AERA Grants Program from the National Center for Education Statistics and the Institute of Education Sciences, and the National Science Foundation under NSF Grant No. RED-0310268. Opinions reflect those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the granting agencies.