Management of Alternative Route Certification Programs

By Michael D. "Mike" McKibbin

This is an excerpt of a policy paper on the implementation of state programs to bring teachers into California's classrooms and to provide alternative routes for Californians to become teachers.

Alternative Routes to Certification (ARC) programs in California serve an incredible range of more than 800 school districts. The programs serve some of the largest districts in the country. For example, 29 of the ARC programs in the state have candidates teaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District, one of the largest school districts in the country. But ARC programs also serve some of the most rural and isolated districts in the state. There are ARC teachers in districts along the desert regions of Southern California and in the alpine regions of the northeast where there are hundreds of rural isolated districts. When a school has lost its mathematics or special education teacher in a district that has 1000 or fewer students in the rural regions of California, it is likely that without an ARC teacher, there will be no other qualified choice. Issues of demand may be quite different in these geographic locations, but the need is no less crucial. ARC programs need to be customized and configured to meet whatever demands their service area requires.

The second most frequent goal (after assisting districts meet their needs for teachers in shortage areas) across the country (ARC programs) is to expand the pool of qualified teachers by attracting into teaching those people who might not otherwise enter the classroom. Traditional teacher preparation programs are usually designed for college undergraduates or recent graduates. These programs are characterized by subject matter and pedagogical studies followed by a student teaching experience in which the novice teacher is apprenticed to an experienced teacher in a school near the college or university offering the program. The programs provide a graduated set of instructional and field experiences to assist the potential teacher learn the craft and professional aspects of teaching. The student teacher is assigned to a veteran teacher who guides the novice through a graduated set of increasingly complex teaching experiences, leading eventually to whole-class solo experiences in the veteran teacher's classroom. In most circumstances, this model has been a successful method to bring young adults into teaching. The student teaching-based route has historically produced the majority of our nation's teachers. It is a route particularly well suited for young adults who will benefit from a graduated series of experiences and serve in an apprentice mode under a master teacher.

The term traditional teacher preparation program is not meant to be at all negative, but it is the term used as a contrast to ARC programs. When I use the term traditional teacher preparation, I am referring to any model that includes, as its primary field experience, a student teacher/master teacher situation. Both traditional and ARC programs have an important role in providing high quality teachers. In the 40-plus states that offer undergraduate education majors, it has been the primary route to teaching. Yet many of these states have added the option of a post-baccalaureate education major route to accommodate those who decide they want to be teachers later in their lives usually through ARC.

Alternative routes to teacher certification have a unique opportunity in teacher recruitment and preparation. Because of the way programs are configured, ARC can bring persons into teaching who probably would not enter teaching. Managers of an ARC program should capitalize on this program feature. The critics of ARC programs frequently or conveniently ignore the possibility that there is a unique market supply niche for ARC programs. Among those potential teachers that ARC programs have been able to serve across the country are the following groups that seem particularly well suited for the ARC preparation and support model.

Second-career professionals. Over the years I have talked to dozens, maybe even hundreds, of persons who said "I always wanted to be a teacher, but..." Sometimes the words that followed the "but" were that a university adviser, often in their content area, said something like "You are too smart to be a teacher." Other times a family member would say "Why do you want to be a teacher? You can't make any money doing that." But after some time working in another profession, that calling was still there. However, economic forces, such as family obligations, would preclude them from taking a year or so off to enter a traditional student teaching-based program.

Because an ARC program allows people to enter teaching without forgoing earnings for that year, they have a chance to achieve this life goal. For others, teaching provides an opportunity to give back to the community. These individuals are at a place in their lives when they want to apply the lessons they have learned from their life experiences and make them available to children or youth. This does not mean these life experiences are all that are necessary to teach, but rather that these second-career professionals are well positioned to enter a teacher preparation program that takes full advantage of prior experiences and fills in the learning gaps through an alternative teacher preparation program.

Special population recruitment. Another feature of ARC programs is targeted recruitment. Across the country, ARC programs report that they have been able to focus their recruitment efforts on segments of the population underrepresented in the teaching workforce. For the last 10 years in California, those from ethnic and racial groups underrepresented in the teaching workforce have constituted half of the ARC candidates, which is twice the rate of representation of underrepresented ethnic and racial groups in the current teaching workforce. Fourteen percent of the special education teachers nationwide are men, whereas in California in the past 3 years, 32% of the ARC special education students have been male, ARC programs have recognized this inequity and have consciously focused their efforts on brining men into special education classrooms. A similar story could be told about elementary classrooms. Particularly interesting is the number of former military personnel (most of whom are men) who are choosing to serve in elementary classrooms.

Program directors point out several reasons why they have been successful in recruiting those underrepresented in the teaching workforce. One reason is changing attitudes. The directors found ways to make it acceptable for a man to teach in a profession traditionally held by women. They did this by citing the importance of male role models in educating the whole child. If diversifying the teaching workforce is important to the partners being served by the ARC program, targeted recruitment may in the long run become the most important goal with the most lasting effect for ARC programs.

Many of the program directors have branched out into other areas of recruitment. Special education ARC programs have found a recruitment audience in parents of students with disabilities and students with disabilities themselves as excellent candidates for ARC programs. Their life experiences have brought them a vast amount of knowledge that will help them move expeditiously through a teacher preparation program. Similarly, paraprofessionals bring years of experience with children. As one person I talked to said, "there is very little about classrooms and students that will surprise a teacher's aide." More and more schools are requesting that parents spend time in classrooms. Many ARC program directors now actively recruit these parents, particularly as their children get older and feelings about their empty nests may motivate these parents to seek another kind of fulfillment that teaching can bring.

In the last 2 years, nearly half of the math teachers who have become teachers in California have been prepared through ARC programs. There is still a great shortage, but ARC has made a dent. One reason for the shortage is that not enough undergraduates are majoring in math for the vacancies available in all possible areas of employment. ARC programs have come to realize that the type of program they offer is quite attractive to corporate America. Second-career mathematics teachers tell us that after a few years, their jobs had changed from using their knowledge of mathematics to becoming more managerial. For those with a deep affinity for their subject, many are turning to another career--teaching--so they can use their skills and knowledge of mathematics in a meaningful way.

Conclusion.Twenty-plus years of experience with alternative routes to certification in California have led to a number of insights about what is possible in this type of teacher preparation. Not all of these insights will be transferable. ARC programs have been particularly fortunate for the past 13 years because the state budget of California has provided funding for ARC. I hope that some of our experiences are useful to those who are developing or expanding their programs and our lessons will help program directors not make the mistakes we have made.

In this chapter, I have provided examples of areas that are likely to lead to successful ARC programs. These are the areas that must receive attention as managers develop and implement an ARC program. The first task is to establish the goals of the program, which should be based on an extensive needs analysis of your clients--the districts in your service area and the potential teachers for your program.

Part of setting goals and developing the mission statement is understanding the limits and potential traps associated with ARC programs. ARC should not be seen as a replacement for more traditional forms of teacher preparation. ARC has a special niche, and the program should find that place based on the needs of the service area. Among the traps that ARC can fall into is viewing programs as easier routines. If ARC programs do not adhere to the same standards as other state certification programs, they will not be able to stand the test of time and will eventually fade.

One of the program aspects that allows program flexibility is that ARC programs do not have to provide a full range of preparation or certification options. If there are sufficient numbers of social science or physical education teachers, then those programs should not be offered. If the need for elementary teachers, drops, as it has in California, programs need to be flexible enough to shift emphasis to those areas where the demand is greater, such as special education. ARC programs are not for all teacher candidates. They are generally not well suited for potential teachers with relatively little work experience. The graduated experiences of a student teaching-based program are likely to be a more appropriate model. For those who come to teaching with a desire to teach and a background in experience-based learning, ARC programs are more likely to fit their adult learning style.

Another reason why ARC has become an important teacher preparation option is that the model may be more adaptable than more traditional teacher preparation. Instruction can be delivered in many different formats and be offered at sites that are more attractive and adjacent to the teacher's worksite. Instruction can be adjusted to the needs of the ARC candidates, and midcourse corrections are the norm rather than the exception. Immediacy, practicality, and application of skills and abilities are the bedrock of the program. The support, instruction, and performance assessment systems must be linked, aligned, and inform each other.

ARC programs encourage active participation of all educators in teacher preparation. Unless programs are collaborative and participatory, there is far less reason for the program to exist. ARC programs are built on the importance of encouraging the formal participation of experienced practitioners in developing novice teachers.

Many of the practices and lessons described in this chapter are also characteristics of any high-quality teacher preparation program. Many believe that the existence of ARC programs has led more traditional programs to modify their practices and become more field based and more sensitive to the needs of districts. That may be the most positive result of ARC. If programs and their partners are looking for a way to expand the talent pool of teachers and bring into teaching those who might not be able to fulfill their desire to teach, then ARC is well suited to this goal. If those interested in teacher preparation want to develop a program that connects the theoretical and the practical on a daily basis and offers an instructional program where experienced practitioners lead in the development of novice teachers, ARC can provide this.

To be successful and sustainable, ARC programs must be part of the broader context of teacher preparation. It must be a route to certification, not an alternative with separate rules and standards. In ARC programs, it is important that policy makers, program directors, and their district-level partners perceive teacher preparation as an investment in the partnering districts' future and put the resources in place to fund that investment. The ultimate goal of any ARC program is to improve the educational performance of students of the ARC candidates through improved preparation, support, and assistance of these new teachers. Anything less is not worth the effort.