Letter Sent to Pennsylvania Governor Rendell Regarding ABCTE Alternative Teaching Certification Program

The following letter was sent to Governor Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania today from Giovanni Cozzarelli, ABCTE's CFO & Acting CEO. The letter is in response statements made by the Governor during yesterday's Race to the Top news conference, about Pennsylvania lacking an alternative teaching certification procedure and that a career changer would be required to attend a teacher post graduate program for two years in order to teach in Pennsylvania public schools.

August 25, 2010

Governor Rendell:

Our non-profit organization, the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE), offers an alternative teaching certification program that is accepted in ten states, including Pennsylvania. In January of this year, you were kind enough to issue a proclamation to ABCTE for Become a Teacher Day in Pennsylvania, encouraging residents to contact us if they wish to pursue a career in the classroom—we were, and continue to be, extremely grateful for this recognition.

I must admit, however, that I was a bit surprised by your comments from yesterday’s Race to the Top news conference, where you cited the state’s lack of an alternative teaching certification procedure for mid-career professionals as one of the reasons the state did not receive Race to the Top funds. You stated, "I would like to teach in the Philadelphia Public Schools, but I wouldn’t be allowed to do so without going to a teachers post graduate program for two years."

ABCTE is an accepted alternative certification program in Pennsylvania and it can be completed in less than two years. Our organization is currently permitted to certify individuals in the subjects of Math, English Language Arts and Elementary Education. We have a good relationship with the State Department of Education and have been working with them in an attempt to have our Biology, Chemistry, General Science and Physics certifications accepted in Pennsylvania as well. To-date, nearly 200 residents of your state have received their ABCTE certification and we look forward to helping many more of them pursue their dream of teaching.

I would welcome the opportunity to discuss our program with you further and walk you through how you could, in fact, teach in the Philadelphia Public Schools—or elsewhere in your state—in far less than two years from now. Thank you again for the support you have given us and I hope we can schedule a time to meet in the near future.

Respectfully,

Giovanni Cozzarelli
CFO & Acting CEO
American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE)