Alternative Routes Deliver 20 Percent of Our Hires

One thing the public education system in Texas does really well is providing multiple avenues for individuals with and without traditional academic degrees to become certified teachers. It’s something we’ve been doing since the 1990s.

During my time as president of the American Association of School Personnel Administrators, I made a point of promoting the value of alternative certification programs to fill gaps in teacher recruitment and hiring. This, at first, astonished my fellow AASPA executive board members because their states relied solely on traditional college and university teacher preparation programs. Subsequently, this focus led to some bemusement among the board members whenever I included meeting agenda items relating to alternative certification programs, or ACPs.

I shared data with my human resource colleagues that showed Texas finished third in the country in reading and math scores when raw scores were adjusted for demographics, including poverty, race, native language and special education. Furthermore, Texas repeatedly outperformed their states on high school graduation rates even though 63 percent of first-year teachers hired in Texas were certified alternatively in 2016-17. The data changed some attitudes about the potential of addressing teacher shortages through alternative routes.

Growth Mode

As deputy superintendent in Denton, Texas, where I’ve worked for six years (after serving as personnel director in Birdville, Texas, for almost 15 years), I know how much our district depends on ACPs to build the teaching force to keep abreast of constant student growth. Located about 25 miles north of Dallas and Fort Worth, Denton schools serve 30,000 students in an area encompassing 180 square miles and all or parts of 18 communities and major housing developments.

We are a fast-growth district, having passed four bond packages totaling more than $1.3 billion in 12 years to meet the significant classroom space needs. This level of growth has challenged us to find talented teachers who reflect the needs and diversity of our students. And yet we have seen many fewer teacher candidates at college job fairs across the state, an alarming trend.

During the past five hiring seasons, Denton has employed 1,521 new teachers, and nearly 20 percent of them came through alternative routes. The three major alternative certification programs we use are iTeach Texas, Education Career Alternative Pro-gram and Texas Teachers. All are accredited by the Texas Education Agency and have been in operation no fewer than 13 years.

The cost to an individual for earning teacher certification through an ACP ranges from $4,250 to $4,600. That plus the time needed to gain teacher certification is significantly less than a traditional post-baccalaureate teacher training program through a college or university.

An Incomplete Answer

Depending on ACPs to resolve our teacher shortage dilemma, however, is short-sighted. Only through innovative strategies and entrepreneurship can we meet this No. 1 priority in Texas and elsewhere — to recruit, support and retain teachers and principals.

Our district’s answer is an initiative called Teach Denton, a rigorous grow-your-own program that identifies potential teachers as early as kindergarten. We realize we never will hire enough teachers who look like our students in the classroom through traditional recruitment.

We systematically encourage our teachers to identify potential teacher talent among their students and to share names at every grade level with our human resources department. We then recognize those students, track them through our system and stay connected with them beyond high school.

Finally, we give them letters of intent to return to the Denton Independent School District where, if they pass through our hiring filters, we guarantee them a job. This makes sense because the top reason why teachers work where they do is geography. People tend to work fewer than 25 miles from where they grew up. That’s the better alternative for us.