Alternate Routes to Teaching

Rich Scott knew what he wanted to do when he retired from the Navy 10 years ago. He wanted to enter teaching. A father in his early 40s and a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Scott had a B.A. in aerospace engineering and a master’s in systems technology from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. He had spent most of his career managing engineering projects.As he was nearing retirement, he learned of the Montgomery County Alternative Certification for Effective Teachers program in Maryland through a Troops to Teachers adviser. Now a decade later, he’s still teaching — and as enthusiastic about the work as ever.

Scott glows when asked about the students in his 12th-grade engineering capstone class at Wheaton High School in the Montgomery County Public Schools, outside Washington, D.C. “Seeing the creativity of my students in coming up with solutions to problems is wonderful,” he boasts. “I absolutely love teaching. ... Being able to teach the next generation of engineers, that’s fun; it’s exciting.”

Second Careers

The Alternative Certification for Effective Teachers, or ACET, program, a partnership between Montgomery College and the Montgomery County Public Schools, appealed to Scott because it was geared specifically toward second-career candidates and allowed him to begin preparing for his new career through evening coursework months before his retirement date. He had a strong GPA and the required college credits in math, so he was comfortable with the content he would be teaching. “They would take care of teaching me how to teach,” Scott says of the preparation program, which was launched 12 years ago.

In fall 2008, he joined Montgomery County Public Schools as a middle school math educator. He has since moved up to the high school level to teach Advanced Placement physics, calculus and engineering.

The ACET program, like many alternative routes, aims to increase the number of male teachers in the workforce. Since its inception, 42 percent of the 110 new teachers certified through the program have been men.

Nationally, approximately 34 percent of all candidates in alternative certification programs are male, compared to 22 percent in traditional preparation programs.

The ACET program also hopes to increase the number of STEM teachers. Montgomery County has a strong STEM workforce with entities such as the National Institutes of Health, IBM, the U.S. military, the federal government, biotech companies and health care organizations. With thousands of workers available for retirement and/or an encore career, a large pool of potential career changers exists.

ACET provides 10-12 weeks of instruction delivered through the school district followed by 5-8 weeks of an unpaid internship in a county school, supervised by Montgomery College faculty. Only then can participants be hired as a teacher of record and begin a one-year residency.

Throughout the residency year, teachers receive intensive mentoring and supervision, complemented by ACET professional development seminars. Program director Debra Poese notes, “With a competitive admissions process and a small cohort of candidates, [the program] is able to provide a customized preparation program for each new teacher.”

The strong support provided to ACET teachers throughout their initial year has helped ensure high retention. Eighty-six percent of the teachers who have completed the program since 2006 are still teaching in the county schools today.

A Persistent Need

Enrollment in teacher preparation programs has declined rapidly in recent years, dropping from about 725,000 in 2010 to 441,000 in 2015-16, the most recent year reported. According to an annual survey of college freshmen conducted by UCLA, only 4.6 percent of incoming collegians in 2016 indicated they planned to major in education, down from 9.6 percent 10 years earlier. Yet public school enrollment continues to increase. To fill teaching positions, school systems are looking beyond the traditional pool of freshly minted college graduates.

Shortages are acute in certain content areas. In 2016-17, 47 states and the District of Columbia identified statewide teacher shortages in special education, 44 states reported shortages in math and 43 in science, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Career changers are attracted to alternative certification programs because they offer flexibility and individualized preparation that capitalizes on their prior content knowledge and experience. The programs also offer shorter timelines and a generally lower cost than traditional teacher preparation.

Today, 47 states and the District of Columbia have state-approved alternative routes, and one in five new teachers comes into the classroom through alternate programs.

District Initiatives

While two-thirds of alternative certification programs are based at colleges and universities, many school districts and intermediate education agencies have opted to start their own programs. The Greenville County School District in South Carolina, with its 77,000 students, manages one of the newest. The district had 520 teaching vacancies to fill in 2016, the year the district launched the Greenville Alternative Teacher Education program, or GATE.

The program recruits professionals who have a bachelor’s degree or higher in a needed field, typically math or science, and work experience in the field. Candidates take coursework throughout the summer and become full-time teachers of record in August under the supervision of a five-person support team, including school-based coaches, mentors and an external coach.

Debra Workman, a 6th-grade math teacher, was recruited by GATE after a career in information technology. Workman says she always wanted to be a teacher but didn’t enter into teaching because “teachers don’t make money.” After building a nest egg through her first career, she made a move to something more satisfying.

At first, Workman substituted in her children’s private school, where she was offered a job as a full-time math and computer science teacher. After seven years there, she sought to move to the public schools but needed to be certified. She found the GATE program to be the perfect conduit.

“To me, the support team was the most beneficial part,” she says. “Even though I had teaching experience, there are differences between public and private,” and the support team helped her adjust.

The external coaches typically are former Greenville County educators who have “in-depth knowledge of what’s currently expected in that classroom,” explains Debra Lee, GATE’s program director. GATE teachers receive highly individualized support for two years in the classroom. In addition, they participate as a cohort in professional development and complete two college courses on pedagogy, including one that stresses practices for working with students in poverty, that are delivered by Greenville County School District personnel.

Another significant draw for the program is the low cost, which is largely covered by district and outside funding. Tuition is about $7,100 for the three years, but participants are eligible to receive a $4,500 fellowship grant and may apply for up to $2,250 through the South Carolina Teacher Forgiveness Loan program. In its initial year, support came from Public Education Partners and in years two and three PEP and Duke Energy provided more than $100,000 for fellowships.

Community Recruits

Alternative certification programs have proven successful in recruiting teachers of color into the profession. Los Angeles Unified School District’s Intern Program was created back in 1983 in response to both critical teacher shortages and the need to increase the diversity of the teaching force. The intent was to recruit qualified teachers from the community to teach within the community.

Today, the district’s intern program continues to attract a majority of people of color. In 2017-18, more than 60 percent of the teachers who were in or had completed the program and were now teaching in schools in Los Angeles were people of color. Many grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from the city’s schools. Others have worked in the system as paraprofessionals and classified personnel.

The district’s success in attracting teachers of color outpaces the national average of 43 percent minority teaching candidates in alternative certification programs and 28 percent in traditional preparation programs.

Moreover, because of the diversity of the teachers and administrators in the district already, Los Angeles Unified can recruit diverse faculty to prepare the interns.

“As the second largest district in the country, an alternative credentialing program within the district led by a diverse instructional faculty well-versed in content, theory and the complexities of a large urban school district provides an opportunity for preparing potential teachers directly from our community who are dedicated to serving our students,” says Patricia Pernin, the program director.

National Viability

Alternative certification programs are a viable source for finding and keeping teachers. The individuals who search for and complete these programs are community members who want to teach in the community’s schools. The programs attract diverse candidates and retention has proven to be excellent. In a study, “Alternative Certification Teacher and Candidate Retention,” published in 2016 by our organization, the authors found that three-year retention rates ranged from 74 to 92 percent for the products of the 57 alternative certification programs studied.

As the number of teacher candidates in traditional programs decreases, school systems will need to find alternate ways to make sure that every student has a qualified teacher. Part of the solution is alternatively certified teachers. As Pernin says, “These mature individuals bring experience and commitment to the classroom and a real desire to make a difference.”