Alternative Certification Funnels Professionals to The Classroom

People in Arizona with a bachelor’s degree can switch careers and be paid as a teacher of record in a K-12 classroom, while simultaneously learning and earning an “Alternative Teacher Certification.”

The method allows individuals to transition into a new career field without the hassle of gaining a new degree that, before the certification, was required to teach in Arizona.

The certification is available through approved state agencies that include universities, third-party agencies and school districts, such as Tempe Union High School District.

By making the transition, professionals can be a part of the solution for the statewide teacher shortage and innovative education methods, bringing industry experience to the classroom.

“Arizona has a teacher shortage in particular subjects, grade levels and demographics of students. We have a shortage of special education teachers. We have a shortage of ESL/BLE teachers. We have a tremendous shortage of math and science teachers.” said Carolyn Ludlow, the assistant dean for Arizona State’s Mary Lou Fulton Teacher School.

Both people in the traditional and non-traditional teacher certification space believe that professionals have significant experience and wisdom to offer students.

According to the University of Melbourne, “career-changing teachers” offer real-world perspectives into the job market, which it said can make learning more engaging for students.

However, professionals seeking this transition must understand that there “is a whole process, a whole way of thinking, and a whole way of presenting information, to finally get the students to understand it,” said TUHSD Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Mary Keller.

A person entering alternative certification will spend two years as the full-time teacher of record in a classroom, while also completing a two-year course to become educated about the day-to-day work within education.

Oftentimes, the stress of teaching while learning to teach causes educators to leave the industry.

“We have enough people who are certified in the state, in the country; we just don’t have enough people who want to be teachers. The issue is more about the workforce and the opportunities someone has once they get in the position: to stay, to retain and to spend their career there. It is not a supply issue as much as it is a workforce development issue,” said Ludlow.

To better support incoming teachers, the state of Arizona, ASU and TUHSD have all implemented strategies to retain the incoming workforce.

TUHSD’s certification program has implemented courses on the personal toolset needed to be an educator, an instructional coach in each high school, and an individual mentor to provide a  more supportive environment that aims to retain more educators.

“We have an instructional coach for each high school, and those people specifically focus on our newer teachers. They will sit in the classroom and observe, they will then rehash how it went with the teachers, and sometimes those people will get up and model for them,” said Keller.

Furthermore, the instructional coaches also substitute for the new teachers to allow them to attend seminars of “master-level teachers.”

The supports are designed to teach prospective teachers how to lesson plan and manage a classroom, congruently utilizing mentorship and feedback to develop each person as an educator.

“What we have tried to do here is put all these supports together so that we can truly make an effort that if you are coming to our school and working with our kids, we want you to be the best teacher possible,” said Keller.

Arizona legislation has also allowed college students to become substitute teachers, giving prospective educators hands-on experience in the classroom, allowing them to earn while they learn.

“Diving in head first at little increments, such as substituting, it can be really beneficial. Diving in head first when it is 100% all the time it can be stressful, but being able to do it as a substitute, I think, is a good little taste of what it is going to be like to be a teacher, ” said Lindsey Leggett, a senior in multilingual education at ASU.

Finally, Arizona State is currently implementing  the “Next-Gen Education Workforce,” a new classroom model that aims to design “what the next iteration of schools should look like,” said Ludlow.

“It involves teams of teachers who have a group of students, and there can be multiple configurations of how it plays out, but it could look like 100 students and four teachers, and within your teacher team, you have teachers who have expertise in some areas to where they take the lead,” said Ludlow.

Support and retention of new educators is more important than ever, due to the number of students in education being at a historic low in the United States.

According to Pew Research, in 1970, bachelor’s degrees in education comprised 21% of total degrees earned in the U.S., or 176,000 degrees in education.

 These numbers were the norm for decades. In fact, in 2000, education degrees still represented 19% of total degrees in the country.

As of 2019-2020, there were only 85,000 degrees issued in education, or 4% of total degrees earned in the United States.

Keller said,  “Education (majors) at some of our three major universities in the state are not even in the top 45 (for enrollment), and education majors tend to want to go to teach the little ones. So, the folks wanting  to go out to teach high school students has dwindled.”

There are a multitude of reasons why fewer people are becoming teachers.  One pertinent reason is the pay, but a less discussed area is a lack of respect for educators.

“There can be negative connotations when it comes to being an educator. People see you are not going to be paid as much; there is a dwindling level of respect for teachers nowadays, so I think people take that into account,” said Leggett.

Leggett described the lack of pay and respect as a direct disconnect with today’s “American perspective,” which has caused the over 50% decrease in education majors over the last two decades.

“At the end of the day, we show up for the kids. It doesn’t matter about the pay. It doesn’t matter about the respect you are going to get from people. We show up for the kids, and that is why we do our job,” said Leggett.