Alternate Route Usage and Providers: New
Mexico

Expanding the Pool of Teachers Policy

Goal

The state should provide an alternate route that is free from limitations on its usage and allows a diversity of providers.

Nearly meets goal
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2015). Alternate Route Usage and Providers: New Mexico results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/NM-Alternate-Route-Usage-and-Providers-70

Analysis of New Mexico's policies

New Mexico is commended for having no restrictions on the usage of its alternate routes with regard to subject, grade or geographic areas.

The state recently has increased the diversity of its alternate route providers through such district-led programs as the Santa Fe Public Schools Fellows Program and NMPrep, a program that allows university-based programs run in collaboration with districts or providers like Teach For America to offer practice-based training followed by coaching support for new teachers. All of alternate route programs, however, are run in collaboration with institutions of higher education. Alternate route providers are required to meet the same accreditation standards as traditional preparation programs.

Citation

Recommendations for New Mexico

Encourage diversity of alternate route providers.

While New Mexico has broadened its providers, the state should explicitly authorize alternate route programs run by local school districts and nonprofits, as well as institutions of higher education. A good diversity of providers helps all programs, both university- and nonuniversity-based, to improve.

State response to our analysis

New Mexico indicated that with the implementation of SB361 and the promulgation of NMAC 6.69.8, alternate routes are available to candidates directly through districts.

The state added that in the past two years, New Mexico has done much to encourage diversity of alternate route providers. This has primarily been executed through funding to establish new programs through our NMPrep programs as well as funding for the state’s first district-led fellowship program. The public education department used $1.6 million in FY15 and $2.5 million in FY16 to establish new teacher preparation programs through a collaborative partnership between the state's institutions of higher education, school districts and other organizations. The goal of NMPrep is to establish new, innovative teacher preparation programs that offer practice-based training followed by coaching support for new teachers. These new university-based programs will:

  • Have higher admission standards than current programs
  • Train teachers in significantly less time than traditional programs (one year or less)
  • Offer a practice-based training/curriculum
  • Attract new candidates to the profession
  • Support new teachers in their initial years of teaching through coaching.
  • An attachment articulates each of the programs.
New Mexico also noted that the Public Education Department has supplied Santa Fe Public Schools with $127,000 in FY15 and $140,000 in FY14 to establish a teaching fellows program through the district. This nonuniversity-based program pays for fellows’ training to leverage their education and experience in STEM areas to teach in low-income schools in the district.

Research rationale

Alternate routes should be structured to do more than just address shortages; they should provide an alternative pipeline for talented individuals to enter the profession.
Many states have structured their alternate routes as a streamlined means to certify teachers in shortage subjects, grades or geographic areas. While alternate routes are an important mechanism for addressing shortages, they also serve the wider-reaching and more consequential purpose of providing an alternative pathway for talented individuals to enter the profession. A true alternate route creates a new pipeline of potential teachers by certifying those with valuable knowledge and skills who did not prepare to teach as undergraduates and are disinclined to fulfill the requirements of a new degree.

Some states claim that the limitations they place on the use of their alternate routes impose quality control. However, states control who is admitted and who is licensed. With appropriate standards for admission and program accountability, quality can be safeguarded without casting alternate routes as routes of last resort or branding alternate route teachers "second-class citizens."

Alternate Route Usage and Providers: Supporting Research
From a teacher quality perspective—and supporting NCTQ's contention for broad-based, respectable, and widely-offered programs—there exists substantial research demonstrating the need for states to adopt alternate certification programs. Independent research on candidates who earned certification through the alternate-route Teach For America (conducted by Kane, Parsons and Associates) and the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. and ABCTE) programs has found that alternate route teachers are often as effective, and, in many cases, more effective, than traditionally-prepared teachers.  See also M. Raymond, S. Fletcher, and J. Luque, July 2001. Teach for America: An evaluation of teacher differences and student outcomes in Houston, Texas. Stanford, CA: The Hoover Institution, Center for Research on Education Outcomes.

Specifically, evidence of the effectiveness of candidates in respectable and selective alternate certification requirements can be found in J. Constantine, D. Player, T. Silva, K. Hallgren, M. Grider, J. Deke, and E. Warner, An Evaluation of Teachers Trained Through Different Routes to Certification: Final ReportFebruary 2009, U.S. Department of Education, NCEE 2009-4043; D. Boyd, P. Grossman, H. Lankford, S. Loeb, and J. Wyckoff, "How Changes in Entry Requirements Alter the Teacher Workforce and Affect Student Achievement." NBER Working Paper No. 11844, December 2005; T. Kane, J. Rockoff, and D. Staiger. "What Does Certification Tell Us About Teacher Effectiveness? Evidence from New York City." NBER Working Paper No.12155, April 2006.

A number of studies have also found alternative-certification programs such as Teach for America to produce teachers that were more effective at improving student achievement than other teachers with similar levels of experience.  See Z. Xu, J. Hannaway, and C. Taylor, "Making a Difference? The Effects of Teach for America in High School." The Urban Institute/CalderApril 2007, Working Paper 17; D. Boyd, P. Grossman, K. Hammerness, H. Lankford, S. Loeb, M. Ronfeldt, and J. Wyckoff, "Recruiting Effective Math Teachers: How Do Math Immersion Teachers Compare?: Evidence from New York City." NBER Working Paper 16017, May 2010. 

For evidence that alternate route programs offered by institutions of higher education are often virtually identical to traditional programs, see Alternative Certification Isn't Alternative (NCTQ, 2007) at:  http://www.nctq.org/p/publications/docs/Alternative_Certification_Isnt_Alternative_20071124023109.pdf.