The Teaching Degree Alternate Route

More and more K-12 teachers are getting certified through the teaching degree alternate route, which has greatly influenced the way that many people are entering the profession and allowed more people to begin this important career.  Every state now has its own teaching degree alternate route, thanks to a program that began in the early 1980s as a means of avoiding teacher shortages.  Today the program serves as a way to recruit, train and certify people who already have at least a bachelor’s degree and want to become teachers in kindergarten through 12^th grade.

The teaching degree alternate route started out back in 1983 when the National Center for Education Information began surveying states about the alternatives they were offering to the traditional college preparation for prospective teachers.  At that time there were only eight states that had some kind of program in place.  Now there are alternative teaching preparation programs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia and the number of teachers completing these programs each year continues to rise.

Since the teaching degree alternate route is not a federal program, there are different routes in each state.  In fact, there are approximately130 alternate routes to teacher certification throughout the country that are being implemented through a reported 485 programs.  Many teachers are completing these programs each year.  In the 2005/2006 academic year, for example, NCEI estimated that approximately 59,000 individuals were issued teaching certificates through alternative routes, which was an increase from approximately 50,000 in 2004/2005.  Around the nation we see an average of about one third of all new teachers being hired coming from these alternate route programs.

The teaching degree alternate route programs differ from state to state and there are typically several programs to choose from in the more populated states.  This has enabled many people to become teachers who might otherwise not have, and provided more opportunities for a wider base of individuals to enter the teaching profession.  K-12 teaching is still a very honorable and steady job, so anything that makes it possible for more people to become teachers should be beneficial for our society.