Fixing New Jersey’s Alternate Route Teacher Certification Program

After more than a quarter century of travel along its path, New Jersey’s Alternate Route to teacher preparation has developed a few potholes. But a team of researchers that includes TCNJ faculty members has put forth a plan to fix the problems and keep this road to teaching certification open for future travelers.

Words by Tony Marchetti ’96, MA ’02

After more than a quarter century of travel along its path, New Jersey’s Alternate Route to teacher preparation has developed a few potholes. But a team of researchers that includes TCNJ faculty members has put forth a plan to fix the problems and keep this road to teaching certification open for future travelers.

In February, the results of the team’s two-year study on the Alternate Route (AR) program were presented to the New Jersey Department of Education. The study was funded by the Teacher Quality Enhancement (TQE) Grant, and completed in TCNJ’s Center for Math, Science, Technology, and Pre-Engineering. Sharon Sherman is director of the center, a professor of elementary and early childhood education at TCNJ, and one of the report’s authors. Gregory Seaton, an assistant professor of secondary education and educational administration, was another report author.

The study concluded that the AR program has done a good job of filling teacher shortages in high-needs districts, and the individuals it recruits often possess strong content-area knowledge in hard-to-staff disciplines such as math, science, and technology.

However, the program is “not doing its job with respect to in-class mentoring” of AR teachers, Sherman said. Additionally, the report indicated elementary school teachers recruited through the AR program often lack sufficient understanding of child development that their traditional route counterparts have.

New Jersey’s AR program, the first in the country, was established in the early 1980s. Thirty percent of the state’s teachers currently come to the profession through the AR. Yet this is the first comprehensive study to examine the program’s success.

The researchers found that the AR program has diversified the pool of teachers in the state, bringing more men and minorities into the profession. In addition, many of these teachers work in high-needs urban and Abbott districts, the report showed.

At the middle and high school levels, where 70 percent of AR teachers work, the individuals often bring strong content-area knowledge in math, science, technology, or foreign languages. This makes the AR program particularly valuable for recruiting teachers for hard-to-staff disciplines. Last year, New Jersey had only 12 people graduate from traditional teacher-preparation schools with certification in secondary physics, so the AR program is obviously needed, Sherman said.

However, the researchers found that the support structure for AR teachers at all grade levels is in need of repair. In-class mentoring of AR teachers is supposed to take place during the teacher’s first 20 days of classroom experience. This mentoring often does not take place, the study determined, because of inadequate funding. “The districts don’t have the money” for it, Sherman said.

The AR program also needs to do a better job of teaching its participants classroom management skills. Unfortunately, it is often the case that AR teachers are often expected to “hit the ground running,” Sherman said. “They are entering the classroom for the first time with no prior background whatsoever, and they [sometimes] don’t know how to manage a classroom [or] work with students with special needs,” Sherman added.

Additionally, school administrators who were interviewed for the study reported that AR teachers at the elementary level often lack the understanding of child development that a traditional route teacher will receive in his or her undergraduate studies.

The research team did put forth several strategies for improving the AR program. For starters, the authors propose that in order for AR teachers to be considered for a Certificate of Eligibilty, they should receive 20 days of instruction and classroom experience prior to their first day of teaching.

Some AR programs already have this “survival skills training,” Sherman said. The teachers who have received it report feeling better prepared for the challenges they face, and their administrators agree.

Another recommendation is to improve the mentoring support AR teachers receive. A Mentoring Toolkit was created through the TQE Grant, and the researchers recommend adding a section to it that addresses “the unique needs of Alternate Route teachers, so they can be guided through their 30 weeks of general mentoring, which happens after the 20-day initial phase,” Sherman said.

The report also calls for more individualized education plans for AR teachers, and suggests a study of other states’ AR programs be conducted to see how New Jersey’s system matches up. The research team recommends an AR task force, made up of service providers, teachers, educators, and school administrators, be assembled to study the report and determine the best ways to implement the recommendations.

Finally, the report called for the creation of a statewide “teacher database” that would track data on all teachers (from both the traditional and alternate routes). Sherman said the research team had difficulty in completing its work because New Jersey “lacks a data collection system that enables us to track teacher quality, student achievement—something that enables us to even know where these teachers are.”

The research team also included several other education administrators, statisticians, and independent AR providers. William Behre, dean of the School of Education, oversaw the completion of the study.

A PowerPoint presentation detailing the report’s finding and recommendations can be downloaded here:

www.state.nj.us/education/educators/license/research/arppt_files/frame.htm