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3 Pathways to Teaching and Teacher Preparation Programs T o understand how teachers are prepared, it is necessary to under- stand not only the nature of the education they receive in formal programs, but also the broader pathways through which they can enter the profession, which generally include some kind of teaching experi- ence. We begin our overview of these two aspects of preparation with two observations. First, comprehensive data on U.S. teacher preparation in general are scant (Corcoran et al., 2004; Corcoran, 2007; Crowe, 2007). Thus, many basic questions about programs and pathways were surpris- ingly difficult to answer. Second, although there are federal mandates related to teachers and their preparation—the most well known of which is the “highly qualified teacher” provision in the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act—states have the primary responsibility for policies pertaining to teachers. The states set standards for teachers as well as the requirements for teacher certification1 (National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Cer- tification, 2000). States are also responsible for approving or accrediting teacher education programs and for authorizing, sponsoring, and monitor- ing newer pathways into teaching, often labeled “alternative” (Johnson et al., 2005; Feistritzer and Haar, 2008). States’ approaches to each of these responsibilities vary significantly, so that the options available to aspiring 1 We use the terms licensure, certification, and credentialing interchangeably because states are not consistent in their usage. We discuss this aspect of teacher preparation in more detail in Chapter 8. 

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 PREPARING TEACHERS teachers look very different from one state to the next. This variety has complicated others’ efforts to collect data and conduct comparative analy- ses, and it has also complicated our work. We have drawn on a range of sources for our description of pathways and programs, and two recent major reports were particularly useful for this and subsequent chapters. A committee formed by the National Acad- emy of Education was asked to articulate the knowledge base for teaching and to make research-based recommendations about how core knowledge could be incorporated into the curricula of teacher education programs and to develop “professional and scholarly consensus based on research about learning, teacher learning, and teacher education.” The resulting report (Darling-Hammond and Bransford, 2005)—which drew on basic research on learning, research on the influences of different conditions on learning, research on the kinds of teacher education that are associated with particu- lar instructional practices or student learning, and research on how teachers learn—described what kinds of teacher knowledge and experiences appear to be most valuable in promoting student learning. Another report issued in 2005 focused on the somewhat different chal- lenge of synthesizing the research on a variety of policies and practices in teacher preparation programs. Developed by a committee of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the study (Cochran-Smith and Zeichner, 2005) considered such issues as the characteristics and demo- graphics of student populations, coursework in both the arts and sciences and in pedagogy, field experiences and pedagogical approaches, means of preparing teachers to work with diverse student populations, among others. The chapter authors drew on the expertise of many scholars to assess the research base in each area, applying a consistent set of criteria for evaluating the studies available, and to provide critical summaries of the findings. These two volumes, together with some promising new lines of research on teacher preparation, have begun to lay the groundwork for a research base on teacher education, and we have drawn on them throughout our report.2 PATHWAyS TO TEACHINg We look first at teachers’ career pathways, the routes by which teacher candidates can obtain a license to teach. The distinction between programs and pathways is not precise, but in general pathways refers to broad cat- egories of preparation, while programs are specific courses of study or experiences sponsored by a particular institution. There are numerous path- 2 Of particular note is the Pathways Project, a collaboration among economists and teacher educators at the University at Albany and Stanford University: see http://www.teacherpolicy research.org/TeacherPathwaysProject/tabid/81/Default.aspx [September 2009].

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 PATHWAYS TO TEACHING AND TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS ways into teaching, and this has long been the case (Fraser, 2007). Many types of educational institutions—including normal schools and school districts—were offering varied teacher training programs more than 100 years ago. The range of pathways has expanded recently, and a shorthand distinction has come into common usage between “traditional” and “alter- native” pathways and programs. The former generally refers to those that are housed in colleges and universities and lead to a BA or an MA degree (and are thus sometimes referred to as “college recommending”). The latter is a catch-all for other pathways, particularly newer ones that have been designed to bring candidates who lack certain credentials into teaching. The distinction arose in part because many of the newer pathways are viewed, in a political sense, as challenges to a stagnant status quo. It has not proved very useful, however, because there is considerable overlap in practice between the two categories, and there can be as much variation within pathways as across them (Wilson, Floden, and Ferrini-Mundy, 2001; Zeichner and Conklin, 2005; Humphrey, Weschler, and Hough, 2008). And many of the putative distinctions between alternative and traditional pathways are blurred at the program level. In one recent study, for example, aptly titled “Alternative Certification Isn’t Alternative,” the authors (Walsh and Jacobs, 2007) concluded that the required coursework and other edu- cational experiences of an alternative pathway often take place in schools of education and are similar if not exactly the same as traditional pathways in many states. Variety Within and Among States Examples from several states illustrate the variation among states in their definitions of pathways and in the characteristics of their pathways. Pathways may vary in the way teacher candidates are selected (and in the rigor of the entry requirements), their intensity, and the duration of the training required. For example, Texas has established an Alternative Teacher Certification (ATC) route—a pathway that is in many ways dis- tinct from the one that takes students through state college and university programs. But the ATC authorizes a variety of institutions, including school districts, higher education institutions, and state-run regional education service centers, to design and run certain certification programs. Each ATC program may determine its entry requirements, the duration of the training, and other factors (Mayer et al., 2003). Similarly, in Louisiana, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education sets parameters for its approved alternative pathways into teaching, but the individual programs differ sub- stantially (Noell, 2008). New York State has defined several pathways for prospective teachers, as shown in Table 3-1. In practice, there is overlap among these pathways.

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6 PREPARING TEACHERS TABLE 3-1 Career Pathways for Teachers in New York State Pathway Requirements Undergraduate or Graduate Programs require an average of 40 coursework credits College- or University-Based and field experience hours, as well as independent Programs student teaching (with a minimum of 32 credits completed prior to student teaching). Individual Evaluations Also known as transcript review, it is designed for people who are changing careers, people educated outside the United States, and others who choose not to enroll in a more formal preparation program. The state confirms that candidates have completed required coursework, examinations, and experience. Temporary License Temporary licenses, which were made available in response to teacher shortages, required little preservice preparation through September 2003. Modified temporary licenses, which required completion of the Liberal Arts and Science Test (LAST) and at least 27 hours of coursework in the content or pedagogical core for the certificate subject, were available for the 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 school years. Transition B Certificates Created to replace temporary licenses, this requires candidates to be enrolled in an alternative route program, such as NYC Teaching Fellows, Teach for America, Troops to Teachers, and the Teacher Opportunity Program, among others. Candidates complete summer preservice experience, including coursework and field experience, before becoming teachers of record and must complete additional certification requirements within 3 years. SOURCE: Information from Grossman et al. (2008). For instance, a New York City Teaching Fellow would likely complete his or her MA degree at one of the same institutions at which aspiring teachers can complete a “traditional” program. Overall, the content of the course- work and experiences a prospective teacher has may be identical or very similar across different pathways. Florida also offers numerous pathways, as shown in Table 3-2. In ad- dition to temporary certificates, which are valid for 3 years and not renew- able, there are multiple pathways to a professional teaching certificate. Like New York and Florida, most states now offer an array of path- ways for teacher candidates. A database maintained by a group that advo- cates for alternative teaching pathways, the National Center for Alternative Certification, shows the options available in each state (see http://www.

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 PATHWAYS TO TEACHING AND TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS TABLE 3-2 Career Pathways for Teachers in Florida Pathway Certificate Requirement Options Graduation from Florida Candidates earn a BA or MA degree in teacher Teacher Preparation preparation program in a Florida college or university Program and pass certification exam. Course Analysis Candidates with a degree in a field other than education earn certification through approved college professional training or professional preparation college courses. Candidates must complete core education courses, obtain teaching experience, and pass certification exams. Certification from Another Florida has full reciprocity with other states, recognizing their certification, as well as NBPTSa certification. State Graduation from an Out-of- Candidates earn a BA or MA degree in a teacher State Teacher Preparation preparation program from a college or university in Program another state and pass the Florida certification exams. District-Level Alternative Candidates complete district-level program and pass Certification Program Florida certification exam. Other Candidates with a BA degree may earn certification with one of the following: • ABCTEb passport certificate; • wo semesters of full-time college teaching experience t and passing the Florida subject certification exam in their field; or • certificate from an Educator Preparation Institute, a typically based in a community college and passing the Florida certification exams. This new pathway was designed to help districts fill vacancies. aNational Board for Professional Teaching Standards. bAmerican Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence. SOURCES: Data from Sass (2008) and Florida Department of Education (see http://www. fldoe.org/administrators/educatorcertification.asp [April 2010]). teach-now.org/map.html [September 2009]). Many of the newer options were developed to attract new candidates in areas where there are short- ages (see http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos069.htm#training [September 2009]); others are designed to recruit candidates who might not otherwise have considered teaching. Some—such as Teach for America (TFA), the Ameri- can Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE) Program, or Troops to Teachers—are national. Others are developed in states; most states also have reciprocity arrangements, which allow relocating teachers to bypass some requirements.

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8 PREPARING TEACHERS Variety Within Pathways There is considerable variation within as well as between pathways. College- or university-based programs, for example, can be 4 or 5 years in duration; they may offer a baccalaureate or master’s degree or both; they may include many institutional partners, both on and off campus; they may enroll handfuls or hundreds of prospective teachers; they may train elementary or middle or secondary teachers for a range of subject-matter teaching certificates; they have different philosophies about and approaches to teaching and teacher education. Community colleges have become increasingly pivotal players in teacher education, as more and more prospective teachers obtain their first 2 years of general training at these institutions. For example, in 2006, more than half of the teachers graduating from traditional teacher education programs in Florida were transfers from community colleges (Coulter and Vandal, 2007). In addition, some alternative programs are housed in community colleges, at which post-baccalaureate students who have noneducation degrees can enroll in 2-year programs to earn the credit hours necessary for teacher licensure in their state (Coulter and Vandal, 2007). There is at least as much variety among alternative pathways (Feistritzer, 2006; Walsh and Jacobs, 2007; Humphrey, Weschler, and Hough, 2008). In the 1980s, states started providing what amounted to emergency certifica- tion to fill classroom vacancies in specific fields (e.g., mathematics or special education) or in types of schools (e.g., those in urban or rural locations), and these emergency certification routes came to be labeled “alternative.” Over time, however, these newer routes to certification have become a vehicle for state innovation in teacher credentialing—what has been called a “national experiment in how best to attract, prepare and train teachers” (Boyd et al., 2005, p. 212). In sum, “alternative” pathways—such as the Teaching Fellows Pro- gram, TFA, or state approaches to issuing temporary licenses—differ quite substantially in structure, requirements, and candidate pools (Johnson et al., 2005; Walsh and Jacobs, 2007). The National Center for Alternative Certification developed 11 classifications for these programs, covering in purpose, admissions criteria, and other features. For example, one category includes “those routes that enable a person who has some ‘special’ qualifica- tions, such as a well-known author or Nobel Prize winner, to teach certain subjects,” while another includes “post-baccalaureate programs based at an institution of higher education” (see http://www.teach-now.org/classes.html [November 2009]). These classifications illustrate the range available, and, depending on state policy, a particular program might be labeled traditional in one state and alternative in another. And as noted above, many alterna- tive programs are closely linked to postsecondary institutions: for example,

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 PATHWAYS TO TEACHING AND TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS in New York, participants in both the Teaching Fellows and TFA programs complete their coursework in universities. The Effects of Pathways Empirical evidence has demonstrated the commonsense observation that all K-12 teachers are not equally effective (Sanders and Rivers, 1996; Aaronson, Barrow and Sander, 2003; Rockoff, 2004; Rivkin, Hanushek, and Kane, 2005; Kane, Rockoff, and Staiger, 2006), and so it seems reason- able to ask whether some pathways produce better, that is, more effective, teachers. In particular, observers of the various teacher preparation op- tions have wondered whether less traditional pathways yield less prepared teachers, or, alternatively, whether such pathways attract excellent teachers who would otherwise not have entered the field. But because the distinc- tions among pathways are not distinct, high-stakes policy debates about the most effective ways to recruit, train, and retain high-quality teachers remain muddled. To date, only a handful of studies have attempted to explore whether teachers prepared in “traditional” pathways are more or less effective than those prepared in “alternative” pathways. The evidence from this limited research base is mixed. Summaries of studies using a range of designs sug- gest little to no difference between the two (Wilson, Floden, and Ferrini- Mundy, 2001; Allen, 2003; Zeichner and Conklin, 2005), but several studies, including one that used a randomized control design (Glazerman, Meyer, and Decker, 2006), have identified small differences (Boyd et al., 2005; Xu, Hannaway, and Taylor, 2008). A newly released study from the National Center for Education Evalu- ation (Constantine et al., 2009), in which students were randomly as- signed to teachers trained through traditional or alternative routes (defined as those who do or do not complete all their training before they began teaching) also found little difference. The study reported no statistically significant difference in student outcomes that could be correlated with the type of training the teachers had received or the amount of coursework they had completed. The study did find that the students of teachers who were taking courses while teaching performed slightly less well on mathematics tests. The study also confirmed that there is considerable diversity within pathways, and the authors concluded that they could not identify aspects of preparation pathways that account for observed differences in teachers’ effects on students’ achievement. In another study that used a randomized control design, Glazerman, Meyer, and Decker (2006) compared outcomes for teachers trained by TFA with outcomes for a control group of teachers who were not—a group that included teachers certified through “traditional” and other “alternative”

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0 PREPARING TEACHERS programs, as well as teachers who were not certified. They found small im- provements in the mathematics scores for the students of TFA teachers, but they also found more reports of behavior and other classroom management problems for the TFA teachers. Their conclusion was that TFA provides policy makers with a useful way of recruiting teachers for hard-to-staff schools and does not appear to lower teacher quality in those schools. We note that because the control group in this study distinguished only certi- fied and noncertified teachers, and thus mixed several types of non-TFA teachers—those who came through traditional and other alternative paths, for example—the findings are not clear. For example, the finding that TFA teachers had students with slightly better mathematics scores could have resulted from those teachers having much stronger mathematics prepara- tion prior to their teacher training, rather than from differences between the TFA and other training. Finally, there have also been a number of studies that examined possible differences in the effectiveness of teachers who do or do not earn master’s degrees. In two separate reviews and summaries of this work, Harris and Sass (2008) and Hanushek (2003) found little overall difference in the effectiveness of teachers who do and do not have this degree. Clotfelter, Ladd, and Vigdor (2007) conducted a study of the relative effectiveness of teachers with different academic credentials (including years of experience, test scores, certification status, and undergraduate and graduate degrees) in North Carolina (using statistical procedures to help overcome the fact that teachers are not randomly assigned to different sorts of students). They found that a graduate degree by itself was not predictive of higher achievement for students (though possession of any degree from a highly competitive institution was associated with greater effectiveness). However, the students of teachers who had stronger combinations of credentials, in- cluding educational credentials, had higher levels of achievement. In general, this body of work seems to be moving toward the conclu- sion that, like the “traditional” and “alternative” designations, an MA in education is too broad and heterogeneous a degree category to be mean- ingful for the purpose of making comparisons. That is, it is quite possible that the preparation offered in different master’s programs is very different, and that distinctions among them, and differing results for their graduates, would be obscured in analyses that treated them as a single group. The policy question at issue—what sorts of incentives states ought to have to encourage teacher candidates to pursue different sorts of credentials—is a pressing one. A detailed examination of the labor market for teachers was beyond our charge, but we discuss the tradeoffs between more stringent requirements and teacher supply below. The availability of detailed state-level data on teachers and students, coupled with recent advances in research methodology, has enabled re-

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 PATHWAYS TO TEACHING AND TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS searchers to make some progress in identifying the extent to which various teacher characteristics influence learning outcomes. Value-added research, though not without limitations (see Chapter 2), can provide useful informa- tion, and we had hoped that it might help to answer questions about the various available pathways. Thus, the committee commissioned analyses in New York City and Florida to examine whether the state-specific pathways followed by prospective elementary teachers make a difference in terms of their pupils’ achievement on state tests in reading and mathematics (Grossman et al., 2008; Sass, 2008). We also looked carefully at a similar analysis for Louisiana (Noell, 2008). Despite our concerns about the utility of the labels traditional and alternative, we believed it would be useful to investigate the pathways as they are defined by the states. With slight variations related to differences in available data, the analy- ses for the three locations used value-added models to estimate the effect of entering through a particular pathway on new elementary school teachers’ contributions to their students’ learning in reading, English/language arts, and mathematics. The Florida research revealed limited and inconsistent differences among traditional, alternative, and out-of-state pathways, de- pending on the analysis and the subject area (English/language arts or math- ematics). A similar analysis conducted in Louisiana showed no difference among teachers entering the profession through the three broad pathway categories (traditional, alternative, and out-of-state). In the analysis of New York City schools, the researchers differentiated among the roughly half-dozen major pathways available to prospective teachers. This analysis found that elementary teachers with emergency li- censes (i.e., uncertified) performed less well than traditionally trained teach- ers in helping their students succeed on mathematics tests, and, to a lesser extent, on English/language arts tests. There were no significant differences between the “traditional” pathway and the “alternative” pathways in New York. These results were consistent with those from another study of New York City teachers (Boyd et al., 2005). In sum, results from the three state analyses of pathway effects support the conclusion that the pathway a teacher takes into the field has little to no effect on the contribution he or she makes to student learning. What should be inferred from these findings? Some policy analysts have interpreted a lack of difference among pathways to mean that traditional programs are ineffective or unnecessary (Hess, 2002; Feistritzer, 2007). We note, however, that researchers are unlikely to be able to randomly assign teacher candidates to preparation programs so that any observed effects are likely to reflect the combination of training and the initial characteristics of the candidates. Though there is ample room for debate on how much and what kind of education is best for preparing effective teachers, inferring that one type of preparation does or does not yield better outcomes for stu-

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2 PREPARING TEACHERS dents is not warranted by the evidence. An alternative hypothesis consistent with these findings is that the categories that have been used—alternative and traditional—do not capture important differences in teacher prepara- tion. To explore this hypothesis, different empirically testable questions about differences among pathways could be identified and tested in rigor- ous future research. In the last section of this chapter, we consider what such alternative distinctions might be. Before doing so, however, we examine what is known about the teacher preparation programs themselves, within different path- ways, in order to consider whether their characteristics might better explain the variability in the quality of teacher preparation. PROgRAMS WITHIN PATHWAyS The individual programs of study designed to prepare prospective K-12 teachers that are offered by institutions are just as diverse as the many path- ways into teaching; unfortunately, however, there are relatively few data to support detailed analysis (Corcoran et al., 2004; Crowe, 2007). The U.S. Office of Education conducted a representative survey in the 1930s; the next attempt to characterize these programs comprehensively did not take place for another 50 years (Goodlad et al., 1990; Goodlad, 1994). More recent data exist, but in general, what is available is disparate descriptive information from which it is difficult to draw a coherent picture. Even obtaining a precise count of teacher preparation programs is com- plicated by the lack of a precise definition of what constitutes a program.3 For example, though most programs include both academic and classroom experience components, one institution may house multiple programs, and some programs operate in multiple institutions. At the next level, obtaining a quantitative picture of the features and general requirements of the pro- grams is very difficult, and constructing a qualitative and nuanced picture of their content and character is nearly impossible. The information that is available suggests that there are significant differences among programs. Just as states specify the pathways through which teachers can enter the profession, they also set policies related to program content, sometimes in surprising detail. Often buried in state administrative code, these policies take many forms. States may dictate minimum admissions criteria for programs or prescribe minimum credit hours for different types of coursework (e.g., education or pedagogy and subject matter), effectively setting a floor for the courses that state-approved teacher education programs must offer their students. States may also pro- 3 Counts include 1,206 (U.S. Department of Education, 2006); 1,191 (Levine, 2006); and “over 1,300” (Schmidt et al., 2007).

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 PATHWAYS TO TEACHING AND TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS hibit or limit the number of courses of a particular type, effectively setting a ceiling for what those programs can offer. For example, the Annual California Education Code (§44320; see http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/code/getcode.html?file=./edc/44001- 45000/44320-44324 [July 2009]) details the maximum number of credits prospective teachers are required to complete before beginning student teaching: “No more than nine semester units, or the equivalent, of profes- sional education courses may be designated as prerequisites for purposes of admission to student teaching [except to satisfy English language re- quirements].” The code also specifies program length by providing that “in each program of preparation, support, and assessment, the postsecondary institution shall make it possible for each candidate to complete all re- quirements for a valid teaching credential in the equivalent of one year of full-time study.”4 The content of required courses is also often mandated by a state, and even states with few course requirements may specify the topics to which prospective teachers in particular majors (such as general education, liberal arts and sciences education, disciplinary majors, and professional prepara- tion) should be exposed. These sorts of requirements are most evident when state departments require that programs demonstrate their alignment to state standards for new or practicing teachers during program review or accreditation. Yet there is enormous variability, for just as the United States has no centralized definition of what constitutes a high-quality education, there is also little agreement on what knowledge and skills teachers ought to acquire in the early stages of their careers. Many states accept or model their standards and expectations on those of national organizations—such as NCATE (Na- tional Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) or TEAC (Teacher Education Accreditation Council)—but most states also have a set of re- quirements for teacher certification that have accumulated across years of legislation and are more patchwork in nature. (Accreditation and the role of NCATE and TEAC are discussed in Chapter 8.) Our primary conclusion from an examination of the information avail- able on teacher preparation programs is that they are extremely diverse. Because it is so difficult to generalize about programs, we could determine very little about their quality. Despite states’ efforts to align the primary ele- ments of K-12 systems to coherent standards, teacher preparation programs and pathways do not seem to have been brought into the fold (Cohen and Spillane, 1992). If one considers the situation from the perspective of an 4 One reason for these requirements may be that teacher preparation programs are squeezed between university requirements for general education and disciplinary studies and university caps for maximum credits required for undergraduate degrees.

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 PREPARING TEACHERS well be that in large measure the same instructional faculty teach in the two pathways. In contrast, school district-based programs may be staffed by school district employees, and TFA alumni often serve as staff at the program’s summer institute. The dearth of information on the qualifications of teacher educators is troubling. Ongoing work in New York City has shown limited evidence that specific aspects of faculty qualifications may promote teacher effec- tiveness: researchers there found that the percent of faculty with tenure is positively related to student achievement in mathematics in the first year of teaching, but does not affect teachers in English/language arts or second- year mathematics teachers (see Boyd et al., 2009). This finding is just one hint of the importance of learning much more about the qualifications of faculty and staff across all pathways and programs. uNANSWERED QuESTIONS ABOuT TEACHER PREPARATION Perhaps because teacher preparation in the United States is a diverse landscape of programs that coexist within and across different pathways, there is little centralized information about how teachers are prepared for their profession. The committee can do little more than describe this varia- tion and observe that in the last 20 years there have been many efforts to ex- plore new ways of preparing teachers. There are a number of elements that are well established as accepted aspects of teacher preparation—including subject-matter knowledge and fieldwork—yet the implementation even of these relatively agreed-on features varies widely. In terms of evidence about how these features might contribute to teacher effectiveness, the committee found virtually no evidence. The avail- able research does not show stable, significant differences in the effec- tiveness of teachers who took different pathways into the field (as those pathways are currently defined). Looking at characteristics of the primary features of programs, we found that a significant amount of qualitative and small-scale research suggests promising avenues for further investigation. For example, the research on field experience suggests that programs that link these experiences to theoretical study in the classroom may be more effective than those that do not, at least in teachers’ eyes. There is very little empirical evidence, however, to support recommendations that particular features, or ways of implementing them, should be adopted because they are demonstrably better. New projects and reviews of previous research have refocused policy attention on the need to learn more about teacher education, yet important questions remain unanswered. In our view, a fresh look at research related to teacher preparation is in order, with four goals:

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 PATHWAYS TO TEACHING AND TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS 1. to determine the relative effectiveness of different pathways and pathway characteristics; 2. to determine the relative effectiveness of the components of those pathways and programs; 3. to better describe the characteristics of teacher candidates and how those relate to program selection and the quality of the teacher workforce; and 4. to guide both innovation and policy making. A better understanding of the effects of different kinds of preparation will require a sharpened strategy for identifying meaningful distinctions among pathways and programs. At present, two conflicting basic prem- ises are implicit in policy debates about how to improve teacher quality and preparation. One is that any well-educated person can teach without needing much special preparation: therefore, states should relax barriers to entry (such as degree or coursework requirements) so they can recruit “the best and brightest.” The contrary premise is that teachers need particular and extensive preparation, and that therefore, states should increase the requirements for prospective teachers to ensure that they have the neces- sary skills and knowledge. These conflicting approaches highlight interest in three factors: the selectivity of preparation programs; the timing of teacher training—that is, the relative value of requiring teachers to complete most of their training before becoming a classroom teacher; and the effects of various components and characteristics of teacher preparation programs. Selectivity How academically able are the individuals who become teachers? Ques- tions about selectivity have been around at least since George Bernard Shaw suggested that it is those who can’t “do” who end up as teachers. The con- cept of selectivity is not as straightforward as it sounds, however, since pro- grams may consider a number of factors in selecting students: in addition to grade point average (GPA) or other indicators of academic achievement, programs may consider such subjective factors as demonstrated commit- ment to educational equity. Several analyses of changes in academic qualifications have shown that, on average, entering teachers today have substantially lower academic qualifications (in terms of test scores and the selectivity of their under- graduate institutions) than they did a generation ago (Corcoran, Evans, and Schwab, 2004; Bacolod, 2007). Yet a study of candidates who took the Praxis test (see Educational Testing Service, http://www.ets.org [May 2010]) for teachers during two time periods—1994 to 1997 and 2002 to 2005—(a subset of all teachers) showed that the candidates in the more recent group

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6 PREPARING TEACHERS had a stronger academic profile, in terms of SAT5 scores and undergraduate GPA, than the earlier group had. It also showed that teachers in secondary schools have much stronger profiles than other teachers (Gitomer, 2007). Zumwalt and Craig (2005) examined the literature on indicators of teacher quality and note the difficulty of drawing firm conclusions about the quality of teacher education students, given the lack of comprehensive comparable data. For example, the authors point out that comparing the average SAT and ACT (formerly, American College Testing) scores of teacher candidates entering programs with those successfully completing them reveals that those with the lowest scores tend to drop out in greater numbers at each stage of the process. Thus, the comparison will look somewhat different depending on the stage at which it is made. What about the selectivity of specific teacher preparation pathways and programs? A recent study found that among first-year teachers participating in the Schools and Staffing Survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, about one-quarter of teachers received baccalaureate degrees from highly competitive postsecondary institutions, and about one-quarter received their degrees from the least competitive colleges or universities (Cohen-Vogel and Smith, 2007). This study included teachers from both university-based and other pathways. The researchers found no significant differences in the overall selectiveness of the programs they identified as traditional or alternative. Similarly, a study by the National Council on Evaluation Education (NCEE) (Constantine et al., 2009) found no significant differences between the two groups of teachers they analyzed in terms of their SAT (college-entry test) scores or the selectivity of the col- leges in which they had earned their baccalaureate degrees. Cohen-Vogel and Smith (2007) did, however, document substantial variation in the degree of selectivity across programs. That is, within so- called alternative pathways, some programs were highly selective, and others were not. A similar variation was documented within traditional programs. This finding is consistent with smaller studies of minimum grade point average and college entrance test score requirements for admissions across teacher preparation programs, which also show that average require- ments are comparable across traditional and alternative categories but that there is substantial variation in these measures of selectivity within catego- ries (Leal, 2004; Walsh and Jacobs, 2007). Thus, selectivity is not clearly related to whether a program is labeled traditional or alternative. For a closer look at the variation in selectivity between and within pathway types, the committee considered state-specific data on four mea- sures of selectivity for the major pathways to teaching in New York and 5 Formerly known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it is now, formally, the SAT Reasoning Test.

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 PATHWAYS TO TEACHING AND TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS TABLE 3-3 Teacher Selectivity in New York City by Pathways: 2004 Proportion Who Passed General Knowledge Proportion Proportion State from Most from Least Certification Average Competitive Competitive Exam on SAT Scores: Collegesa Collegesa Pathway First Try Math/Verbal “Traditional”b 0.08 0.20 0.81 489/490 (N = 934) 0.23 0.14 0.88 505/510 University-based 0.33 0.15 0.98 550/557 “Alternative”c (N = 1,632) Transcript Review 0.17 0.29 0.79 495/490 (N = 256) Temporary License 0.18 0.24 0.84 512/525 (N = 316) Other (N = 138) 0.21 0.16 0.92 526/532 aRatings from Barron’s 2009 Profiles of American Colleges College Division of Barron’s Educational Series (Ed.). Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges. bCollege-recommending, graduate. cIncluding Teach for America, Teaching Fellows, etc. SOURCE: Adapted from Grossman et al. (2008, Table 19). Florida from our commissioned studies. Grossman et al. (2008) found that New York teachers who entered the profession through alternative pathways were stronger than other teachers in terms of various academic measures. However, the variation within these two categories is great, so the traditional and alternative categories do not provide helpful distinctions in characterizing teacher preparation with respect to selectivity. Table 3-3 shows the comparisons on various indicators among teachers who entered through different pathways. Sass (2008) conducted a similar analysis for Florida. He noted that un- usually high demand for new teachers in Florida may account for his finding that there are a large number of alternative routes, as well as a much greater proportion of teachers who are prepared outside of the state’s colleges and universities, than in other states. He found that the state’s traditional teacher preparation institutions vary widely in their selectivity, as shown in Table 3-4. These analyses show that the nature and degree of variability on in-

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8 PREPARING TEACHERS TABLE 3-4 Teacher Selectivity in Florida, by Pathway: Teachers with Elementary Certification Proportion Proportion from Most from Least Proportion Who Competitive Competitive Passed General Average Colleges Colleges Knowledge State Total (Barron’s (Barron’s Certification SAT ratings)a Path of Entry ratings) Exam Score Graduate of Florida Teacher 0.11 0.22 Math 0.57 929 Preparation Program Reading 0.76 (“Traditional”) English 0.77 (N = 9,716) Essay 0.90 Entry Through Any 0.12 0.20 Math 0.59 948 “Alternative” Route Reading 0.78 (N = 18,258) English 0.79 Essay 0.90 Course Analysis 0.15 0.19 Math 0.60 947 (N = 10,538) Reading 0.79 English 0.78 Essay 0.90 Certified in Another State 0.08 0.22 (N = 5,111) Graduate of an Out-of-State 0.45 0.24 Math 0.53 Teacher Preparation Program Reading 0.79 (N = 2,391) English 0.80 Essay 0.80 District Alternative 0.26 0.12 Math 0.81 985 Certification Program Reading 0.94 (N = 196) English 0.96 Essay 0.96 aRatings from Barron’s 2009 Profiles of American Colleges College Division of Barron’s Educational Series (Ed.). Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges. SOURCE: Sass (2008, Table B2). dicators of selectivity one finds depends on the specific comparisons one makes. The data from New York and Florida generally show that the vari- ability in selectivity becomes more pronounced when the comparisons are between specific programs rather than across broad categories, reinforcing our concern that research on the role of selectivity needs to probe beyond aggregated “traditional” and “alternative” pathway descriptors. But the important question is whether differences in selectivity matter in terms of teacher effectiveness. Some scholars have argued that high stan- dards for academic preparation (e.g., college-entrance test scores, quality

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 PATHWAYS TO TEACHING AND TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS of undergraduate institutions, enrollment or achievement in undergraduate courses) are essential characteristics of good teacher preparation programs (e.g., Hickock, 1998; Wayne and Youngs, 2003). And some research has shown that there may be value in matching students and teachers by race, suggesting that explicitly recruiting teachers of color may be associ- ated with teacher effectiveness (Hanushek et al., 2005). Furthermore, in a recent study of the relationship between teacher credentials and K-12 student achievement in North Carolina, researchers found that the quality of teachers’ undergraduate institution—an indicator of general ability—is predictive of their students’ achievement at the high school level, as well as at the elementary level (though for the elementary grades the size of the effect is smaller) (Clotfelter, Ladd, and Vigdor, 2007). Using similar analy- ses and measures, a study of new teachers in New York City (Boyd et al., 2008) also found support for the idea that measures of academic selectivity are associated with teacher effectiveness in the classroom. Although this research is not conclusive, the evidence points to the potential importance of program selectivity as one of several important factors in the preparation of high-quality teachers. Timing of Professional Education Programs and pathways also vary in the amount of preparation that is required before a candidate becomes a teacher of record (a salaried teacher who has full responsibility for a full schedule of classes). Preparation may begin as early as the freshman year of an undergraduate program or when a teacher candidate leaves another career to enter teaching. Some pro- grams designate new teachers as teachers of record as soon as they enter the program; in other programs teachers take on the full responsibilities of a teacher more gradually. For example, in New York State, all teachers are required to earn a master’s degree before full certification, although the amount of preparation they have completed before receiving initial certification may vary. Thus, pathways appear to differ more in how much preparation takes place before full certification than in the total amount of preparation that is required. Moreover, even programs that focus on preparation that occurs before candidates enter the classroom vary considerably in terms of the number of courses and extent of field experiences offered or required. Data compiled by Editorial Projects in Education (2006) for traditional programs show that for secondary school teachers, 6 states require an undergraduate major in the area of certification and 38 states have some other kind of minimum subject-matter degree or coursework requirements. For middle school certi- fication, 3 states require a major, and 12 states require some other minimum

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60 PREPARING TEACHERS degree or coursework requirement. A total of 35 states require a minimum amount of clinical experiences prior to initial certification. In contrast, most alternative programs allow prospective teachers who have a bachelor’s degree but have not taken any teacher education courses to begin as teachers of record after some abbreviated preparation. Few states have minimum requirements for the quantity of preparation in these programs, but 27 states do have subject-matter degree or coursework re- quirements for teachers who go through these pathways, and 28 specify a minimum duration of preservice training. These requirements vary consid- erably: some states require 1 week, and others require 12 credit hours; 16 states require practice teaching (Editorial Projects in Education, 2006). Disentangling quantity and quality is not easy. One cannot presume that the amount of initial professional preparation is related to the quality of that preparation, though it seems likely that there is an optimal range below which teachers might be significantly unprepared and above which there may be diminishing returns. However, this is another area in which documentation and investigation of the effects of differences would be valuable. Content and Characteristics of Teacher Preparation As noted above, programs and pathways also differ in the quality and quantity of the material that new teachers are expected to master in order to be fully credentialed, regardless of when the preparation takes place. For example, in Florida all of the different initial preparation pathways lead to full certification, and thus there are substantial differences in the intensity of formal preparation teachers have received at the time they earn full cer- tification. The Florida teacher candidates who choose the (relatively new) ABCTE pathway are typically granted their permanent license after 6-10 months of individually paced work, with no formal coursework required. Constantine and her colleagues (2009) examined the content and quantity of coursework for several areas (e.g., mathematics or reading pedagogy and fieldwork) and found no significant relationship between their measures and achievement outcomes for students. We discuss the content of teacher preparation programs in greater detail in Chapters 5-7. Tradeoffs Between Selectivity and Intensity The reason for exploring the issues above is to shed light on questions about how selective programs should be and how they should structure and design their requirements. These are largely empirical questions that have yet to be carefully addressed by research. Yet states are faced with the challenge of filling teacher vacancies each year (producing the quantity

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6 PATHWAYS TO TEACHING AND TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS of teachers needed) while ensuring that those hired are effective in the classroom (producing the quality of teachers needed). Policy proposals to address these dual concerns are often viewed as working at cross purposes. If states raise the bar for entry into K-12 teaching, with the goal of raising the level of quality (e.g., by requiring specific degrees, majors, minors, or coursework), they may exacerbate teacher shortages. If states are less selec- tive, they may be hiring ineffective teachers. This tradeoff relates to the classic tension, noted above, about whether teachers are born or made. Raising licensure requirements is a strategy grounded in the assumption that teachers need specific professional prepa- ration prior to teaching. In contrast, opening the profession through the approval of early-entry pathways is a strategy grounded in the assumption that teachers are born: if they are generically academically able, on-the-job professional development can fill in any gaps in preparation. In economic terms, preparation is a cost to individuals considering teaching as a career.6 Thus, it is entirely possible that raising entry require- ments could dissuade some individuals from entering teaching. If this hap- pens, and the ability of the teacher pool remains unchanged, school districts will have fewer individuals to choose from to fill vacancies and will be forced to hire less qualified candidates. It is more likely, however, that raising preservice preparation require- ments would have two effects: some individuals would choose not to seek a career in teaching, but the effectiveness of those who did would be greater than it would otherwise be. If so, the effect on the average quality of teach- ers is hard to predict, though it is likely that the quality of teachers would have distributional consequences. In other words, some schools would be able to hire better teachers than they otherwise would have, while other schools (most likely those with less desirable working conditions) would be forced to hire less qualified teachers. Ultimately, the question turns on whether the potential benefits of high-intensity preservice requirements ex- ceed the potential costs of discouraging promising teacher candidates. As we note in Chapter 1, teaching is one of the nation’s largest occupa- tions for college-educated workers, and there are considerable challenges associated with preparing a high-quality workforce of this size. At present, many teachers are not paid well in comparison with workers in comparable fields, and teaching is not a high-status occupation. Given the size of the teaching force, it is likely that there is no one best pathway to high-quality preparation for teachers. What is clear, however, is the importance of de- veloping more comprehensive data on which to base recommendations for the composition of teacher education programs and pathways. 6 Thoughit is worth noting that the preparation is likely to yield benefits even for individuals who do not become employed as teachers.

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62 PREPARING TEACHERS CONCLuSION Issues concerning teacher preparation and its effectiveness have re- ceived a perhaps unprecedented wave of attention for the past 10 years. Several important reports have emerged, including one summarizing the empirical research on various aspect of teacher education (Cochran-Smith and Zeichner, 2005) and one summarizing the relevance of research on teaching and learning to the preparation of teachers (Darling-Hammond and Bransford, 2005). In addition, a growing number of studies have ad- dressed the relative effectiveness of various forms of preparation. These efforts have certainly helped clarify what is and is not known about teacher education, and they have also made clear that there are no de- finitive answers to even the most basic questions. More work is needed—to develop a clearer picture both of how teachers are prepared and of which aspects of their preparation have the greatest effects on the quality of the teaching force. Chapter 9 presents the framework we propose for structur- ing this work. Until that research is done and its findings known, teacher educa- tors will continue to rely on their best judgment and whatever research is available, and the 200,000 new teachers who enter the field each year will quickly find out what they know and what they would like to know. The absence of clear evidence to answer basic and important questions is not a reason to question every operating assumption that now guides teacher preparation. The research that has been done generally seems to reinforce what might be described as commonsense thinking. For example, there is some evidence that fieldwork (classroom teaching) that is designed to link to and reinforce the theoretical material aspiring teachers have learned in the classroom is more effective than fieldwork that is not. There is not, how- ever, empirical support for firm recommendations about when the fieldwork should take place in the course of preparation, how long it should last, or what it should encompass. So the recommendation we could safely make would be to design the fieldwork thoughtfully—hardly a momentous con- tribution to policy discourse. Nevertheless, while the field awaits further empirical study of the ef- fects of different approaches, we believe that teacher preparation programs can benefit from learning about promising innovations and can look to the available evidence, case studies, and other literature for guidance. And we highlight the importance of research that can provide answers to the many pressing questions about teacher preparation. Conclusion 3-1: There is currently little definitive evidence that particu- lar approaches to teacher preparation yield teachers whose students are

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6 PATHWAYS TO TEACHING AND TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS more successful than others: such research is badly needed. We believe that the highest priority research would be studies that examine three critical topics in relation to their ultimate effect on student learning: 1. comparisons of programs and pathways in terms of their se- lectivity; their timing (whether teachers complete most of their training before or after becoming a classroom teacher); and their specific components and characteristics (i.e., instruction in subject matter, field experiences); 2. the effectiveness of various approaches to preparing teachers in classroom management and teaching diverse learners; and 3. the influence of aspects of program structure, such as the design and timing of field experiences and the integration of teacher preparation coursework with coursework in other university departments.

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