Despite substantial interest in Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses in U.S. high schools--and associated scholarship on this topic--very little is known about characteristics of CTE teachers who are a critical resource for program implementation and expansion. Using eight years of statewide data from Maryland, we document key facts about…

Grow Your Own (GYO) programs are an increasingly popular strategy for strengthening and diversifying the teacher workforce. By focusing on recruiting and preparing teachers from the community for the community, GYO programs are highly localized and designed to meet the needs of teacher candidates and the school systems where they will work. This…

Academics, policymakers, and practitioners agree that there is a need to address barriers to entry into teaching in order to address teacher shortages and diversify the profession. Research finds that student outcomes are improved when students have teachers of the same race and/or ethnicity. However, as the K-12 student population grows more…

With the ongoing national shortage of agricultural educators, alternative certification has become increasingly important. The preparation programs for alternatively certified educators to enter the profession vary in content and length due to state requirements. This study sought to determine South Dakota Alternatively Certified SBAE Teachers'…

Alternatively certified teachers constitute a growing portion of public school educators in the U.S. This is a trend that is expected to continue, due to the declining enrollment in traditional teacher preparation programs across recent years. As such, this report examines the profiles of alternatively certified teachers working in South Carolina…

How should Texas prepare teachers so that their students benefit the most? This question is hard to answer, but important to address, particularly in the critical areas of high school mathematics and science. The goal of this project was to assess the quality of science and mathematics teachers prepared by UTeach and other university-based teacher…

This study examines the commitments of an alternative teacher education program in linking theory and practice, one of the most prominent problems of the field. This qualitative phenomenological study drew from semi-structured interviews with seven faculty members and associate instructors, electronic surveys with seven program students,…

Alternative teacher certification routes in the United States gained recognition in response to the teacher shortage since the 1980s. However, the unique challenges these teachers face result in concerns of quality and retention. The purposes of this study were to (a) investigate novice alternatively certified teachers' (ACT) perspectives on…

Teachers of color have a positive impact on all students and make a particularly pronounced difference in the lives of students of color. For students of color, having a teacher of color can increase academic achievement and advanced course-taking, reduce discipline incidents, improve attendance, increase high school graduation and college-going,…

The paper presents results from the evaluation of the Teach for Bulgaria (TFB) program, which is part of the Teach for All global network. TFB activities have relevance for a variety of fast-track pathways to the teaching profession. The evaluation is based on a quasi-experimental assessment of teacher performance through student value-added…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand how alternate route first year science teachers' learning experiences gained from their alternate route courses translated into their classroom instruction and facilitated the development of their pedagogical content knowledge. Participants included three first year high school teachers…

All but four states in the nation now permit teachers to come into the profession through an "alternate route," compared to only a few 30 years ago. Alternate routes into the classroom have grown so acceptable that about one in five teachers now enters the profession through one of these programs, which offer some real benefits to the…

Career and Technical Education (CTE) is an essential strategy for transforming the country's education system. Unfortunately, most learners lack sufficient access to knowledgeable industry experts who can link what is taught in the classroom to what is applied in the real world. To support states in addressing this lack of access, the Center on…

Alternative teacher certification has emerged in the past two decades as one policy state leaders can leverage to recruit and prepare high-quality teachers to meet demands that are unique to their student populations. Indeed, in specific circumstances such as addressing teacher shortages, alternative teacher certification can be viewed as an…

The University of Kentucky provides an alternative certification program to prepare teacher candidates in moderate and severe disabilities. Observations occur every semester that candidates are in the 2-year program and must be conducted all across Kentucky, often many miles away from campus. University researchers placed cameras in the classrooms…