Alternate Route Preparation: Arkansas
Expanding the Pool of Teachers Policy
Analysis of Arkansas's policies
Arkansas's Professional Pathway to Education Licensure (APPEL) requires
candidates to take 15 one-day instructional modules during the summer and
once monthly during the school year. The coursework consists of
modules that include classroom management, developing and meeting goals
and objectives for P-12 student learning, lesson planning/curriculum and
mapping/developing thematic units of learning and curriculum alignment. These
instructional modules occur during year one and two of the alternate route
program.
Arkansas is commended for both the length of the APPEL program and
its coursework requirements, which offer the flexibility and content that new
teachers need to succeed in the classroom, without being overly burdensome.
All
candidates are assigned a site-based certified mentor for two years, the entirety of the APPEL program. Mentors are assigned to APPEL candidates within three weeks of their first contract day of the school year. Mentors assist in implementing the goals in each APPEL candidate's Professional Growth Plan, in identifying candidates' strengths and weaknesses, in procuring resources and in identifying professional development opportunities.
Teach For America (TFA) candidates must complete an intensive summer-training program and receive a practice teaching opportunity and coaching through the two-year program. Arkansas Teaching Corps (ATC) Fellows are complete an intensive 6-week summer institute that includes firsthand experience in a summer school classroom as well as coaching on the most effective instructional practices. ATC is a three-year program.
Recommendations for Arkansas
Offer opportunities to practice teach.
While Arkansas is commended for offering high-quality
mentoring support to APPEL candidates and a practice teaching opportunity for TFA and ATC candidates, the state may want to
consider providing its candidates with a practice-teaching opportunity prior to
their placement in the classroom.
State response to our analysis
Arkansas recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis and was helpful in providing NCTQ with facts that enhanced it.
Arkansas indicated that APPEL candidates now receive personalized mentoring specifically related to work being done toward completion of the APPEL program. APPEL modules align with the mentoring and evaluation framework. Candidates complete an intensive Survive and Thrive mentoring module in the first few weeks of school and are released to allow the APPEL teacher to observe the experienced mentor, as needed or suggested by the mentor or evaluator, during the school year.
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Arkansas
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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.