alternative certification

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:

Voting opened last week for our first ABCTE Teacher of the Year award and runs until Thursday, July 29 at 5pm EDT. In early August, the state winners will be announced on our website and then a national winner will be selected. The national winner will be flown to Washington D.C. to receive the award before a representative from the U.S. Department of Education as well as members of ABCTE's Board of Directors and staff.

ABCTE teachers are a pretty amazing and independent group and it is always gratifying to meet them. This week we issued our 2,000th ABCTE certification to Heather Herd of Branson, Missouri who received her certification in math. A former controller, she is currently substitute teaching and will soon begin looking for a full-time teaching position.

For those state decision makers out there – please take a look. The Race to the Top guidelines are clear about the need for effective teachers in the classroom. As states prepare their applications, we invite them to partner with the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE) to help increase your overall point total. ABCTE is a non-profit organization funded in 2001 by the US Department of Education and is already accepted in 9 states as an alternative route to certification.

A lot of press about teacher satisfaction based upon the Public Agenda teaching job satisfaction survey that said the 40% of teachers are disgruntled. Yet another on many piercing alarms about the sorry state of our education system. That means there are 1.3 million disgruntled people in the United States which means the 22 million students are adversely affected by a teacher who is not happy in their job.

Wow. Can’t understand why we have an education problem in this country.

I spent a little of last week meeting in Utah on their performance based teacher certification program - the ARL. They are really pleased with the people that become teachers through that program. There are no seat time requirements or minimum hours required. You demonstrate you have the knowledge, through a program like ABCTE, and you can become a teacher. Meanwhile, down in Louisiana, they created an alternative program that requires enough university based credits to be one couse shy of a Master's.

Trying to change education when people cling to ancient rituals (like current teacher certification rules) can be discouraging. What we look for to keep us going is adults in the system who aren’t focused on what they want but are truly focused on the students. So it was great to sit down with the Washington Post on Sunday morning with a great cup of coffee and enjoy this piece in the opinion section.

Wow – some harsh words for TFA from the NEA. It is amazing that after close to 20 years, they are still going after them. Right now the NEA is doing what any union is supposed to do – raise the specter of job losses and fight for member jobs. They have targeted TFA and it is getting ugly.

There is support in the RTTBOC (Race to the Bags o’ Cash) otherwise known as Race to the Top for Alternative Teacher Certification. We are formulating our support during the comment period suggesting some tweaks as are many of the other groups focused on improving teachers.

"It's not glamorous, it's not a status position," said Schmitt, 44. "Guys at a young age are chasing after big dreams, big money. But at some point, later in life, they look for a job that's more meaningful." From the Fewer Male Teachers article in the Chicago Tribune.

In many ways I feel like the boy who cried teacher shortage. We talk about the impending doom of massive teacher retirements, yet every year our resourceful HR departments manage to get just enough teachers to stave off disaster.

And with the many teacher layoffs announced around the country in the last few months, people are wondering if this shortage stuff is all just a way for us to weasel our program into more states. Ultimately, the lesson from the fable may be learned the hard way for many states and districts. When the wolf actually comes, no one will believe us.