Most of Texas’ new teachers are career changers. Here’s why that matters.
Most new teachers in Texas schools have no teaching experience on the first day they set foot in the classroom.
Over the past two decades, the number of students graduating from Texas’ four-year teacher preparation programs has steadily declined, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath told lawmakers this month. At the same time, new teachers who are alternatively certified have made up the majority of new hires entering the state teacher workforce.
Alternative certification programs offer people who already have a bachelor’s degree and are looking to switch careers a way to get their teaching certificates quickly without going back to college to get a degree in education. Leaders of those programs say they’re an effective way to get new teachers in the classrooms at a time when school districts across Texas and the country desperately need more educators.
But Texas doesn’t require alternative certification programs to include a student teaching component, meaning new alternatively certified teachers have no real-world experience when they begin their first years of teaching. Alternatively certified teachers are also more likely to leave the profession early in their careers than those who have bachelor’s degrees in education, Morath said.
Fort Worth schools could see more second-career teachers
During the 2021-22 school year, 69% of new teachers hired across the state were either alternatively certified or were pursuing alternative certification, Morath said during a May 24 hearing of the Texas Senate Education Committee. Only 22% had a bachelor’s or post-baccalaureate degree in education.
About one in five new hires in the Fort Worth school district are alternatively certified or are pursuing alternative certification, according to a district spokeswoman. But that number is likely to grow as alternatively certified teachers make up a greater share of the state’s teacher workforce, said Raul Peña, the district’s chief talent officer.
Students graduating college with a bachelor’s degree in education go through 14 to 28 weeks of student teaching. That amounts to either one or two semesters of real-world teaching experience in which they work in classrooms alongside experienced mentor teachers who help them hone their craft. Student teaching marks the culmination of those students’ college experience and allows them a chance to get practical teaching experience with a more experienced educator standing nearby.
Unlike four-year teacher training programs, alternative certification programs aren’t required to include a student teaching experience in their curricula. Alternative certification programs include a year-long teaching internship, during which teaching candidates work as full-time teachers. During that time, teaching candidates are supposed to have mentor teachers to offer them support and guidance. But unlike student teaching, intern teachers are the teachers of record for their classes during that year, meaning they are wholly responsible for what goes on in their classrooms and how students fare.
The state requires alternative certification programs to include a minimum of 30 hours of observation before teaching candidates reach their internships. During that time, teaching candidates watch experienced teachers at work, but don’t necessarily do any teaching themselves.
That 30-hour threshold is only the bare minimum required by state law. Some programs include field experience requirements that go well beyond that, up to a yearlong residency. During the May 24 committee hearing, Clifton Tanabe, dean of the College of Education at the University of Texas at El Paso, highlighted the college’s teacher residency program, which places students in year-long student teaching positions in partner school districts. After participating in the program, students enter their first year in the classroom already having a year of experience under their belts, he said.
Texas’ largest teacher provider faces scrutiny from TEA
Texas’ largest provider of alternative certifications, the for-profit firm Texas Teachers of Tomorrow, attracted scrutiny from the state regulators recently after an audit found the company was out of compliance with state rules in several areas. During an audit conducted in April 2021, Texas Education Agency officials found a host of problems with the company, including unclear and misleading information on the company’s website, and a mostly-online curriculum that didn’t appear to be research-based.
Auditors also noted that the company’s teaching candidates weren’t always partnered with experienced mentor teachers, and that those mentors didn’t always collaborate with field supervisors, as required by state regulations.
Since then, the company has undergone a change in ownership. In September, it was sold to the Fort Worth-based private equity firm TPG through its mission investing arm, TPG Rise.
Last January, state education officials notified the company they intended to propose revoking its permission to operate. At an April 29 meeting, the State Board of Educators Certification considered placing the company on probation. The board instead imposed stricter accountability measures on the company. Although the company remains at risk of probation, board members indicated they weren’t interested in shutting it down entirely, The Dallas Morning News reported.
The company is the largest provider of alternatively certified teachers in the state. Between the 2015-16 and 2018-19 school years, more than a quarter of new alternatively certified teachers hired by school districts in Texas came through the program, which also does business as A+ Texas teachers, according to TEA data.
In a statement, Ignacio Giraldo, a partner with TPG Rise and CEO of Texas Teachers of Tomorrow, said the company had already corrected several of the problems the board raised.
“Our focus has always been on delivering consistent quality, support, and improvement across our program and we are committed to demonstrating to the SBEC that we are meeting or exceeding their standards on a timely basis,” he said. “A number of the issues outlined by SBEC members are among the many improvements we’ve been making to our program over the last year and we look forward to their evaluation of those improvements in due course. Following recent SBEC meetings, Teachers of Tomorrow is one step closer to completing the audit and review process and ensuring our program continues to be the top choice for aspiring educators.”
Support for new teachers is key, expert says
Most years, the Fort Worth school district hires about 800 new teachers, about 20% of whom generally have certifications they received through an alternative certification program or are pursuing certification through one of those programs, a district spokeswoman said. The largest share of new alternatively certified teachers in the district come from private programs, according to figures provided by the district.
About two-thirds of the alternatively certified teachers hired in the 2020-21 school year came from just three private programs: Texas Teachers of Tomorrow, the Richland Hills-based firm ECAP and iTeach Texas, a Denton-based company with locations in eight states plus Washington, DC. The previous year, about three-quarters of the alternatively certified teachers hired in the district came from those three programs.
Chris Redding, a professor in the College of Education at the University of Florida, said there’s a great deal of variation among alternative certification programs. Some colleges and universities, including Tarleton State University and Dallas Baptist University, offer accelerated programs that allow teacher candidates to get their licenses without getting a four-year degree in education. But there are other routes for would-be teachers to go as well, including for-profit programs like Texas Teachers of Tomorrow. Those that are based in colleges and universities tend to have stronger supports for teaching candidates both before and after they enter the classroom, Redding said.
There’s also a great deal of variation in how those programs are regulated from one state to another, Redding said. Texas has a reputation for having more lenient requirements on those companies than other states, he said. Meanwhile, in states with more rigorous requirements, like New York, teaching candidates who go through alternative certification programs generally end up meeting many of the same requirements as those who go through university-based programs, he said.
Successful alternative certification programs have criteria in place for selecting teacher candidates based on their commitment to teaching and high level of knowledge in their subject area, he said. They should also have a curriculum that’s tailored to the needs of teaching candidates who don’t have a background in education, he said.
The most important requirement, Redding said, is partnering alternatively certified teachers with mentor educators who can help them write lesson plans, offer feedback on their teaching and serve as a sounding board to talk through the challenges of teaching. Those mentors can help new teachers hit the ground running when they get into the classroom, he said. When those relationships don’t exist, it leaves new, inexperienced teachers without critical support, he said.
Texas requires alternative certification programs to partner new teachers with experienced mentors to help them in their first months on the job. But auditors found no evidence that Texas Teachers of Tomorrow candidates were always paired up with mentors. Ensuring that new teachers are connected with a mentor is an important first step in giving inexperienced teachers the best chance to succeed, Redding said.
The lack of a student teaching requirement isn’t ideal, Redding said. But the nationwide teacher shortage is so severe that requiring new teaching candidates to go through a lengthy student teaching experience may not be feasible, he said. But if that’s the case, he said, it’s all the more important for alternative certification programs to offer strong support for new teachers once they’re in the classroom.
Mentor relationship is crucial to new teachers’ success
Peña, the Fort Worth school district’s chief talent officer, said the relationship between an incoming teacher and a more experienced mentor could be the difference between whether the teaching candidate is well prepared to enter the classroom or not. District leaders spend a great deal of time identifying experienced, high-quality teachers who can act as effective mentors to teaching candidates, he said.
Peña himself came to teaching through the alternative certification process in 1998 after working as a clothes buyer for JCPenney. He went through the Dallas school district’s alternative certification program. The program was rigorous, he said, requiring more than 150 hours of field experience in schools across the district. That was an important experience to prepare him for the transition into education from the corporate world, he said.
Peña said he thinks alternatively certified teachers can be an asset to schools. They bring outside experience that can be valuable in classrooms, he said. But Peña said he thinks some alternative certification programs may have grown beyond the point that they can effectively support their teaching candidates during the process.
Principals hiring new teachers know what their educational backgrounds are, he said, so they’re aware when one of their incoming teachers might have gaps in their preparation. In those cases, it’s especially important for principals to establish strong mentoring relationships and check in with new teachers frequently to make sure they aren’t falling through the cracks, he said.
If the state did choose to place Texas Teachers of Tomorrow on probation, the district would be cautious about hiring new teachers from the program out of concern about whether they’d be able to complete their certifications, Peña said. Alternatively certified teachers make up a relatively small percentage of the district’s new hires every year, Peña said, and those from any single certification program are an even smaller percentage.
Still, because the district has a serious shortage of teachers, and because so many current teachers are looking to leave the profession, it would make a difference if those new hires were no longer available, he said.
