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Alternate Route Preparation: Iowa

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

Analysis of Iowa's policies

Iowa does not ensure that its alternate route candidates will receive streamlined preparation that meets the immediate needs of new teachers.

Since the 2009 edition of the Yearbook, Iowa has increased the number of credit hours it requires. Teachers participating in the Iowa Teacher Intern License Pathway (ITILP) must complete 24 credit hours of coursework. Eighteen credit hours must be completed prior to the first year teaching, and six credits hours are taken during the internship year. Additional coursework to secure a content endorsement may also be required. The pre-internship coursework includes foundations of education, educational psychology, working with special needs children, curriculum and content methods, assessment, and classroom management and instruction.

ITILP candidates must complete 60 hours of field experience prior to their internship year. All of this classroom contact time occurs during the fall and spring when a candidate is most typically employed in a non-education field. During the internship year the new teacher is assigned a mentor. 

ITILP is a two-year program. Individuals may apply for a standard initial teaching license upon program completion.

Citation

Recommendations for Iowa

Ensure that coursework meets the immediate needs of new teachers.
While requiring some preparation prior to entering the classroom is important, Iowa requires alternate route candidates to take a considerable amount of coursework 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 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.   

Strengthen the induction experience for new teachers.
Although Iowa is commended for requiring all new teachers to work with a mentor, there are insufficient guidelines indicating that the mentoring program is structured for new teacher success. Effective induction 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

Iowa 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

  • Iowa

    Iowa 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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