Alternate Route Preparation: Mississippi
Expanding the Pool of Teachers Policy
Analysis of Mississippi's policies
The Mississippi Alternate Path to Quality Teachers (MAPQT) requires candidates
to participate in a summer training program for approximately three weeks that
is equal to 90 clock hours. The program consists of effective teaching
strategies, state curriculum frameworks, planning and instruction and survival
skills in the classroom. Candidates then participate in a practicum one
Saturday a month for nine months.
Master of Arts candidates must complete six graduate hours of preteaching
coursework requirements from an approved Master of Arts in Teaching program.
Coursework includes tests and measurements and classroom management. Candidates
must also complete six additional graduate hours, including a supervised internship
prescribed by the participating institution.
Teach Mississippi candidates complete an eight-week training session equal to
nine semester hours at the graduate level. Coursework includes teaching
strategies, classroom management, state curriculum requirements, instructional
methods and tests, and measurements. Candidates may also complete an eight-week
training session online.
American Board Certification for Teacher Excellence (ABCTE) candidates must
complete training in one of the following: the MAPQT three-week summer
training, an eight-week online training or six hours of initial graduate
university courses.
None of the routes provides a practice-teaching opportunity but all require a
one-year internship period that includes mentoring. The ABCTE program specifies
that mentoring must be provided by a National Board-Certified teacher or a
trained mentor certified in the same subject area.
Candidates are eligible for standard certification after one year.
Recommendations for Mississippi
Strengthen the induction experience for new teachers.
While Mississippi is commended for requiring all new
teachers to work with a mentor, there are insufficient guidelines indicating
that the induction program is structured for new teacher success. Effective
strategies include practice teaching prior to teaching in the classroom,
intensive mentoring with full classroom support in the first few weeks or months
of school, a reduced teaching load and release time to allow new teachers to
observe experienced teachers during each school day.
State response to our analysis
Mississippi recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.
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Mississippi
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
- Admission into Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Reading Instruction
- Elementary Teacher Preparation in Mathematics
- Early Childhood
- Middle School Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science and Social Studies
- Special Education Teacher Preparation
- Special Education Preparation in Reading
- Assessing Professional Knowledge
- Student Teaching
- Teacher Preparation Program Accountability
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
- State Data Systems
- Evaluation of Effectiveness
- Frequency of Evaluations
- Tenure
- Licensure Advancement
- Equitable Distribution
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
Pensions
Research rationale
Alternate route
programs must provide practical, meaningful preparation that is sensitive to a
new teacher's stress level.
Too many states have policies requiring alternate route
programs to "backload" large amounts of traditional education
coursework, thereby preventing the emergence of real alternatives to
traditional preparation. This issue is especially important given the large
proportion of alternate route teachers who complete this coursework while
teaching. Alternate route teachers often have to deal with the stresses of
beginning to teach while also completing required coursework in the evenings and
on weekends. States need to be careful to require participants only to meet
standards or complete coursework that is practical and immediately helpful to a
new teacher.
Induction support is
especially important for alternate route teachers.
Most new teachers—regardless of their preparation—find
themselves overwhelmed on taking responsibility for their own classrooms. This
is especially true for alternate route teachers, who may have had considerably
less classroom exposure or pedagogy training than traditionally prepared
teachers. While alternate route programs will ideally have provided at least a
brief student teaching experience, not all programs can incorporate this into
their models. States must ensure that alternate route programs do not leave new
teachers to "sink or swim" on their own when they begin teaching.
Alternate Route Preparation: Supporting Research
For
a general, quantitative review of the research supporting the need for states
to offer an alternate route license, and why alternate routes should not be
treated as programs of "last resort," one need simply to look at the
numbers of uncertified and out of field teachers in classrooms today, readily
available from the National Center for Education Statistics. In addition, with
U.S. schools facing the need to hire more than 3.5 million new teachers each
year, the need for alternate routes to certification cannot be underestimated.
See also E.R. Ducharme and M.K. Ducharme, "Quantity and quality: Not enough to go around." Journal of
Teacher Education, Volume 49, No. 3, May 1998, pp. 163-164.
Further,
scientific and market research demonstrates that there is a willing and able
pool of candidates for alternate certification programs—and many of these
individuals are highly educated and intelligent. In fact, the nationally
respected polling firm, The Tarrance Group, recently conducted a scientific
poll in the State of Florida, identifying that more than 20 percent of
Floridians would consider changing careers to become teachers through alternate
routes to certification.
We
base our argument that alternative-route teachers should be able to earn full
licensure after two years on research indicating that teacher effectiveness
does not improve dramatically after the third year of teaching. One study
(frequently cited on both sides of the alternate route debate) identified that
after three years, traditional and alternatively-certified teachers demonstrate
the same level of effectiveness, see J.W. Miller, M.C. McKenna, and B.A. McKenna, "A comparison of alternatively and traditionally prepared teachers". Journal of Teacher Education, Volume 49, No. 3, May 1998, pp. 165-176. This finding is
supported by D. Boyd, D. Goldhaber, H. Lankford, and J. Wyckoff, "The Effect of Certification and Preparation on Teacher Quality." The Future of Children, Volume 17, No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 45-68.
Project
MUSE (http://muse.jhu.edu/), found that student achievement was
similar for alternatively-certified teachers as long as the program they came
from was "highly selective."
The
need for a cap on education coursework and the need for intensive mentoring are
also backed by research, as well as common sense. In 2004, Education Commission
of the States reviewed more than 150 empirical studies and determined that
there is evidence "for the claim that assistance for new teachers, and, in
particular, mentoring [have] a positive impact on teachers and their retention."
The 2006 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher validates these conclusions. In
addition, Mathematica (2009) found that student achievement suffers when
alternate route teachers are required to take excessive amounts of coursework.
See An Evaluation of Teachers Trained
Through Different Routes to Certification: Final Report at: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED504313.pdf
See
also Alternative Certification Isn't Alternative (NCTQ, 2007)
at: http://www.nctq.org/p/publications/docs/Alternative_Certification_Isnt_Alternative_20071124023109.pdf.