There is a critical issue of special education teacher shortages in the United States. Student populations, many of whom are multilingual and have disabilities, continue to grow while there is a decrease in the teaching workforce. One policy initiative developed to combat the teacher shortage is the Assistant to Teacher Program. The Assistant to…

This study examined the impact school leaders had on the self-efficacy of African American Male (AAM) teachers who matriculated through an alternative certification program. Purposeful sampling was used in this study with four inclusion criteria. The study occurred at a large urban Title 1 school district in the Southeast. The district was…

In a recent landscape of policies in 50 states and the District of Columbia, I found that states vary significantly in how they authorize, review, and approve teacher preparation providers and programs. What these policies have in common is a requirement that all programs meet the same standards. But in practice, they do not. Too often,…

This Data Point examines the background and school settings of teachers of Hispanic or Latino origin in public and private schools in the United States before the coronavirus pandemic. It uses data from the public and private school teacher data files of the 2017-18 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), which is a national sample survey of…

AB 471 requires that the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing report to the Governor and the Legislature each year on the number of teachers who received credentials, certificates, permits and waivers. This report provides data collected by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (Commission) and addresses several questions…

In response to the growing demand for special education teachers, St. Vrain Valley Schools district established the Special Education Alternative Licensure Cohort in 2019. This article discusses this induction and mentorship program, tailored specifically to support new alternative and temporary license special education teachers. The program has…

This study sought to determine whether a significant difference exists in the efficacy of teachers who received a traditional licensure versus those who received alternative licensure in their first three years of teaching. Additionally, the research aimed to determine if there was a significant difference in student growth based upon teacher…

This study investigates the effectiveness of alternative routes to teacher certification in urban school districts within Texas. The need for teachers across the United States has increased because current teachers are leaving the profession at high rates. This research analyzes the programs regarding teacher preparation routes, teacher…

Alternate Route to Certification Programs (ARC) have been growing in the United States since the 1980s due to the ongoing teacher shortages nationwide. Alternative certification programs typically consist of a shorter duration of content taught and the absence of student-teacher practicums. In essence, teacher candidates enrolled in an ARC program…

What makes a teacher? How might educators be oriented toward children, rather than institutions? How might we grow pedagogies through humans, instead of systems? In a time of scope, sequence, standards, and scripted lessons, the orientation of teachers is often turned away from the actual people who inhabit the classrooms: the children and the…

This study addresses the burgeoning phenomenon of fully online alternative teacher certification programs (ACPs). In Texas where most teachers are prepared via ACPs, our research zeroes in on the proportion of teachers who are prepared fully online and the relative effectiveness of teacher preparation programs on student achievement and teacher…

This dissertation investigates the nuanced factors influencing teacher retention within Title I secondary schools, comparing the perceptions of teachers from traditional teacher preparation programs and alternatively certified pathways. Drawing upon Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory, the study explores the psychological,…

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…

This study examines the certification pathway of science teachers in Texas, how science teacher certification patterns have changed over time, and the association of certification pathway to student outcomes in science. This quantitative study uses administrative data from the Texas Statewide Longitudinal Data System (UH-ERC). The UH-ERC database…

An educator's preparedness has many contributing factors, including natural-born giftedness, inspiration from a childhood teacher, or a need to impact our youth. However, for many current educators, teaching was not their initial choice. Alternative certification programs are growing in popularity as a means of placing qualified individuals in the…