Virginia Roach and Benjamin A. Cohen, National Association of State Boards of Education
2002
This short paper by the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) succinctly makes the case for alternative teacher certification programs as a way to broaden and improve the pool of teachers hoping to enter the nation's classrooms. It's refreshing to see that state policy makers, many of whom are struggling with shortages of highly-qualified teachers, are warming to the idea of pathways other than those that pass through colleges of education as sources of teachers. Authors Virginia Roach and Benjamin Cohen write that the arguments for alternative certification (the deregulatory "open-market" approach) and against it (the regulatory approach) create an unnecessary polarization that usually "confuse[s] the process of teacher preparation with the product of teacher preparation." Their report, however, is not entirely accurate in classifying the two main approaches to improving teacher quality. It states that market reformers would have alternative certification programs focus on the product of teacher preparation, while the regulators seek such process-oriented licensure reforms "as strengthening entrance requirements, fostering closer links between K-12 schools and teacher preparation curricula"-as if the deregulators weren't equally interested in higher standards and curricular alignment. That quibble aside, the report offers a useful overview of why alternative certification programs complement traditional certifications programs, what their key components are, and how state boards can design them effectively. The report-which includes state-by-state analysis and alternative certification program contact information-can be found online at http://www.nasbe.org/alt_cert_report.pdf. Hard copies are available for $10 each plus $4.50 shipping and handling by calling NASBE at 800-220-5283.
