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Alternate Route Preparation: Alaska

Expanding the Pool of Teachers Policy

Look at National Findings
Goal

The state should ensure that its alternate routes provide streamlined preparation that is relevant to the immediate needs of new teachers.

Meets goal in part
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2011). Alternate Route Preparation: Alaska results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/AK-Alternate-Route-Preparation-7

Analysis of Alaska's policies

Alaska does not provide streamlined preparation that meets the immediate needs of new teachers.

Alaska Transition to Teaching (AKT2) candidates must complete a set of courses based on Charlotte Danielson's Essentials of Effective Teaching prior to teaching. While completing this coursework, candidates must also make ten 45-60-minute classroom observations. This preservice training occurs during the spring while candidates are not yet employed in a school.

AKT2 candidates also complete a field experience and cultural workshop during the summer. Throughout their first two years as teachers, candidates are paired with a mentor from the Alaska Statewide Mentor Project, which uses the New Teacher Center model.

Candidates can complete course requirements in two years and earn standard certification at that time.

Citation

Recommendations for Alaska

Ensure that new teachers are not burdened by excessive requirements.
While requiring some preparation prior to entering the classroom is important, Alaska requires alternate route candidates to complete a considerable amount of coursework and fieldwork before they begin teaching, much of which is more typically associated with a traditional preparation program. All coursework requirements should be manageable for career changers and other nontraditional candidates and should contribute to the immediate needs of new teachers. Appropriate coursework should include grade-level or subject-level seminars, methodology in the content area, classroom management, assessment and scientifically based early reading instruction. Requiring candidates to complete considerable coursework and field placement prior to employment in a school, when they are likely to be employed in a non-education field, is unreasonable.

State response to our analysis

Alaska recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.

    • Best practice
    • Meets goal
    • Nearly Meets goal
    • Meets goal in part
    • Meets a small part of goal
    • Does not meet goal

  • Alaska

    Alaska map
Alternate Route Usage and Providers
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Delivering Well Prepared Teachers
Expanding the Pool of Teachers
Identifying Effective Teachers
Retaining Effective Teachers
Exiting Ineffective Teachers
Research rationale

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 Ducharme, E. R. & Ducharme, M. K. (1998). "Quantity and quality: Not enough to go around." Journal of Teacher Education, 49(3), 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 Miller, J. W., McKenna, M. C., & McKenna, B. A. (1998). Nontraditional teacher preparation: A comparison of alternatively and traditionally prepared teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 49(3), 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 (2007): 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 at: http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/pdfs/education/teacherstrained09.pdf

See also Alternative Certification Isn't Alternative (NCTQ, 2007) at: http://www.nctq.org/p/publications/docs/Alternative_Certification_Isnt_Alternative_20071124023109.pdf.

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