Alternative Teacher Certification Issues Why are Schools Hiring Non-Credentialed Teachers?

Because many school districts across the United States have been experiencing severe teacher shortages [the U.S. Department of Education projects that up to 2.7 million new teachers will be needed by 2013 (Shepherd, et al., 2003)], many districts have turned to unqualified, non-certified college graduates, to fill in for the dearth of fully-credentialed teachers. This policy puts people with college degrees into jam-packed classrooms, but are they really teachers? Of course not. And, are they able to teach writing, reading, math, science - and give bona fide tests - with the same degree of competence as teachers who have gone through the entire training period and have received their credentials? Certainly not, in most cases, this paper shows.

Surely, it is safe to say that schools that hire non-credentialed individuals and call them "teachers" in order to put warm bodies in the classrooms contribute - wittingly or unwittingly - to the "dumbing down" of America.

The Literature on Alternative Teacher Certification Programs

The issue of schools hiring non-credentialed college graduates as "teachers" is a very red-hot and contentious one.

For example, David G. Imig, who is president and chief executive officer of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), who is against non-credentialed instructors in the classroom, was verbally attacked last year by the group that is in support of "alternative teacher licensing," the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE). According to the American School Board Journal (ASBJ) (August, 2003), Imig is alleged by the ABCTE of "theft" - that is, stealing a teacher certification test materials that ABCTE was in the process developing, and then "distributing [the test] to colleagues in an attempt to discredit the exam."

But, the question of whether non-credentialed teachers are truly "qualified" is the real issue, not paranoia and pranks....

According to an article in Educational Leadership journal (Berry, 2001), 41 states (as of 2001) have some form of alternative that replaces the requirement for teachers to return to college for a year following their undergraduate work. Fourteen states (again, as of 2001) have passed laws relating to alternative teaching methods, and approximately two-thirds of the 1,354 universities and colleges that offer teacher training classes have at least one program for "mid-career" professionals.
Moreover, some 80,000 "teachers" have entered the field without credentials over the past ten years, and between the years 1998-1999, over 24,000 "teachers" (in the 28 states that keep those data) were given alternative certification despite their failure to complete the normal training process. Further, the article points out that the National Center for Education has identified "only 12 of the 41 states that offer alternative licensure as having at least one exemplary program... And even those identified as exemplary are of questionable quality..." Texas has as many as 27 different licensing programs for non-teachers willing to step into the classroom sans a legitimate credential.

Alternative teacher certification programs now contribute about one-third of the 75,000 new teachers certified annually nationwide" (May, et al., 2003). And of the 3.1 million U.S. teachers, approximately 18% have been certified alternatively, May reports.

A question posed in a recent Educational Leadership journal article: "Do alternatively certified teachers produce higher student achievement gains?" One answer offered in the article is that "...teacher education coursework is sometimes more influential and additional subject matter preparation in promoting students' mathematics and science achievements..."

Further, the Berry research shows that there have been only 14 studies that shed light on "important [academic] outcomes" of alternative teachers vs. traditionally trained teachers, and in addition, "the literature rarely includes content descriptions,"…