This qualitative phenomenological study was designed to examine the lived experiences of teachers who obtained their licenses through nontraditional routes to identify factors that contribute to teacher success. Public schools in the United States are experiencing a teacher shortage. To staff these shortages, alternative paths to licensure will be…

This qualitative case study delved into the experiences of the first cohort of teachers who completed the Teacher Accelerator Program's (TAP) summer internship, exploring the professional development training provided to novice teachers by this newly established alternative teacher preparation program. Originating as a response to the local…

There is a teacher shortage in Oklahoma. To address this teacher shortage, the Oklahoma Department of Education has eased restrictions by providing an alternative pathway into the classroom called emergency-certification. The lack of traditionally prepared teachers entering the profession, coupled with untrained emergency-certified teachers…

After the COVID-19 pandemic, many states expanded alternative teaching licensure to address nationwide teacher shortages. This manuscript sought to compare the effectiveness of traditional preparation programs and alternative certification programs but found the comparison to be inconclusive because those categories were too broad. This analysis…

This quantitative study investigates the issue of teacher shortages, operationalized through emergency permit rates, within the broader context and specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic, while assessing the influence of leadership characteristics. Utilizing a decade of publicly available secondary data (2012-2022), the research sourced…

Texas's educator workforce has been characterized over the past few decades by high attrition rates contributing to persistent teacher shortages and increased hiring of underprepared and uncertified teachers. These conditions have motivated state investment in a multifaceted strategy to seed and support teacher residency programs. State guidance,…

This article brings together a number of key issues that emerge in research around the problem of teacher shortages in hard-to-staff schools. It offers a broad overview of the hard-to-staff schooling sector as discussed in recent academic literature and provides a context-specific overview of the literature around workforce shortages in…

High-quality teacher education plays a crucial role in the development of successful educational systems around the world. However, educational systems face challenges in relation to attracting and retaining excellent teachers. To meet teacher shortage, the Swedish government introduced alternative programmes that are more flexible than…

Recruiting high-quality teachers is critical in supporting the delivery of an effective education experience for learners in schools. This paper examines how a new flexible two-year postgraduate teaching qualification is contributing to addressing the challenges of teacher recruitment in Wales. There is a shortage of teachers able to teach…

School systems have long faced teacher shortages, with high turnover rates exacerbating the shortage, particularly in Career and Technical Education (CTE). Teachers who enter CTE through alternative licensure (AL) face unique obstacles transitioning from industry to teaching. This study addressed the retention challenge among AL CTE teachers by…

Colorado's rural communities face challenges recruiting and retaining qualified teachers, leaders, and special service providers. The Colorado Center for Rural Education (CCRE) has created and implemented a comprehensive system for professional development of effective educators for rural school districts. The CCRE has expanded educator pathway…

This policy brief, produced by the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as part of the Region 10 Comprehensive Center, is one in a series examining selected topics related to Wisconsin's educator workforce. The goal of this brief is to summarize key trends in the use of emergency credentials within…

What happens when Initial Teacher Education shifts focus from preparing teachers as change agents to focusing on fast-tracking candidates into the profession? In this paper, we focus on the implications of the accelerated push in teacher education for key social justice and transformative aims of preparing critically reflective, culturally…

The critical shortage of qualified teachers in hard to staff urban schools has been a persistent issue in the U.S. for decades. Teachers and researchers have pointed to the inadequacy of teacher preparation programs to prepare teacher candidates to address the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students and special education students…

When there are teacher shortages, emergency certification allows individuals with a bachelor's degree to enter the profession without having undergone formal education training or preservice preparation. Despite its widespread use in the United States, emergency certification is a poorly understood human resource process. Little is known about how…