Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress International Special Education Conference Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity? 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland

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Considerations in the Design of Alternative Teacher-Preparation
Programs for Special Education

Chifeng Dai, David Denslow, James Dewey, Paul Sindelar
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
pts@coe.ufl.edu

Michael Rosenberg
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

Traditionally, colleges of education have been the primary source of elementary and secondary school teachers. The traditional route for one to become a teacher is to complete a teacher education program at a college or university that has been approved by the state licensing authority.

Alternative pathways into teaching began emerging in the 1980’s as a response to teacher shortages, especially in the high-demand teaching fields of math, science, special education, and bilingual education, and in hard-to-staff inner cities and outlying rural areas. In 1983, 8 states allowed alternative certification; by 1999, 41 states and the District of Columbia reported having some type of alternative teacher certification program. It is estimated that more than 80,000 persons have been licensed through these programs (Feistritzer & Chester, 2000).

Today, the nation is facing an unprecedented school-staffing crisis. According to studies by the US Department of Education, student enrollment nationally increased from 50 million in 1995 to 53 million in 2000, and is expected to reach its highest peak ever by 2007. The number of public and private teachers is projected to increase by 350,000 between 1995 and 2007, a 12 percent increase. Further, proposed government policies, which mandate smaller class sizes at certain grade levels, will lead to an additional increase in teacher demand. These trends have increased the attention given to alternative teacher certification programs as a possible means to address the school-staffing crisis.

There is a sense in which the United States does not face an overall shortage of qualified teachers.   Overall, the United States produces enough new teachers to meet its needs each year. In 2000, for example, the 603 institutions counted in the AACTE/NCATE joint data system—representing about half of all teacher training institutions and about three-quarters of teachers in training—reported 123,000 individuals who completed programs that lead to initial teaching certification. So the newly prepared teacher pool that year was well above 160,000, before counting those who entered teaching through alternative pathways that were not university-based (Darling-Hammond and Sykes, 2003). Nationwide, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 6 million people had a bachelor’s degree in education in 1993. There were many more with a major in an academic field plus a credential or master’s degree in education. So, excluding approximately 3 million active teachers, at least 3 million people were prepared to teach but did not do so.

If we have no overall shortage of qualified teachers, why are there so many unqualified teachers in some states and regions? The real problem is that too few of the prepared teachers are choosing to enter the schools, and too many of those who are hired are leaving their schools, or leaving the profession altogether during their first few years. Based on analysis of the most recent estimates (1999-2000) from the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately one-third of America’s teachers leave teaching some time during their first three years of teaching; almost half may leave during their first five years (See Chart 1). Despite their best efforts to recruit new teachers, many schools wind up with a net loss in teaching staff each year. In 1999-2000, for example, the nation’s schools hired 232,000 teachers who had not been teaching the year before (which means those teachers were not simply changing schools). But one year later, the schools lost more than 287,000 teachers – 55,000 more than they hired in the previous year (NCTAF, 2003). Chart 2 shows the number of teachers entering the field (including newly qualified, delayed entry, and reentrants) against the number of teachers leaving the field during 1987 and 2000.

Chart 1. Cumulative Percent of Teachers Leaving Teaching Each Year

Source:   Ingersoll (2002)

Chart 2. Trends in Teacher Employment and Turnover

1987-2000

Source:   Ingersoll (2001)

Even more troubling, attrition is highest in low-income urban schools. The overall turnover rate for teachers in high poverty areas is almost one-third higher than it is for all teachers in all schools (See Chart 3). Teacher turnover is 50% higher in high-poverty schools than in more affluent ones (Ingersoll, 2001, p. 516), and new teachers in urban districts exit or transfer at higher rates than their suburban counterparts (Hanushek, Kain, & Rivkin, 1999). In addition, teachers quit schools serving low-performing students at much higher rates than they quit schools serving high-performing students (Hanushek, Kain & Rivkin, 1999, p. 15).

Teacher shortages are also more severe in some fields than others. For example, there are too few candidates to meet the demand for teachers in mathematics, physical sciences, special education, and bilingual education. Teacher attrition in some of these fields is especially high. For example, the national attrition rate for special education teachers is 18.3 percent a year, and the rate is much higher in some states and districts. Briefly, the key impediment to balancing special education teacher supply with demand is the uniform pay scale predominant in teaching which prohibits paying different wages to teachers according to their characteristics (other than education and experience) and paying different wages according to the characteristics of the schools and students to which they are assigned.

            The shortage of special education teachers is indicative of a disamenity associated with the field (McLeskey et al. no date p.26).   Many special education students are difficult to manage and resist learning.   That shortages are more severe in schools with a large proportion of students from families with low socio-economic status is indicative of a disamenity associated with such schools.   For instance, Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin (2001) find that in Texas teacher mobility is much more strongly related to characteristics of the students, particularly poverty, race, and achievement than to salary.

Chart 3. Annual Teacher Turnover 2000-2001

Source:   Ingersoll (2001)

Such high attrition among new teachers reduces overall education productivity, as teacher effectiveness rises sharply after the first few years in the classroom (Hanushek, Kain, & Rivkin, 1998; Kain & Singleton, 1996). It drains schools’ financial and human resources. Scarce resources are wasted trying to re-teach the basics each year to beginning teachers who leave before they become skilled. Most importantly, the constant staff churn exposes a large share of children in high-turnover schools to year after year of teaching by unqualified instructors. Research has shown that students who are assigned to several ineffective teachers in a row have significantly lower gains in achievement than those who are assigned to several highly effective teachers in sequence (Sanders & Rivers, 1996).

The challenge of addressing the current school-staffing crisis, therefore, is not to produce more new teachers, as many seem to believe, but to recruit and prepare qualified teachers in fields and districts with shortfalls and retain them. Alternative teacher preparation programs offer additional pathways for talented people, who did not attend a traditional college education program, to enter the teaching profession. More importantly, compared to traditional preparation programs, alternative preparation programs can be more responsive to demands for specific types of teachers, and can be more precisely targeted to address teacher shortages in specific fields and types of schools.

Unfortunately, alternative teacher preparation programs for special education teachers are proliferating in the absence of rigorous analysis about the best way to organize them and without attention to recent research in labor economics that bears on the design of programs which invest in human capital.   As the preceding discussion suggests, targeting prospects who will teach in high need schools and stay there is crucial.

With this in mind, the objective of this paper then is to consider the design of alternative teacher preparation programs based on insights drawn from the economics literature, especially those from human capital theory, certification theory, job matching theory, screening theory, and the theory of equalizing differences.

            Recent research in these branches of labor economics will be related to a set of program features: (1) the location and sponsor of the program, (2) candidate selection, (3) the cost of the program, (4) financial support, (5) program requirements, (6) program content—richness of induction, (7) mentorship, and (8) practice teaching.   Teacher preparation programs combine these features in various ways.   We select four prototypical programs for detailed consideration: (1) the traditional teacher preparation program in a college of education, (2) a step-up program for paraprofessional educators, (3) a program for career changers, and (4) a fast track program.  

-- Location and Sponsor of Program.

            Shortages of certified special education teachers are most severe in schools serving students from low SES backgrounds.   Boyd et al. (2003a,b) find that teachers strongly prefer jobs near their hometowns.   If they can find a job near home, it would take a large wage increase to induce them to take a job in a more distant community.   Even teachers who attend college in a distant location tend to return home for their job search.   In other words, given two applicants for a teaching job alike in all respects except their hometowns, the one whose home is farther from the school will cost more to hire than the one whose hometown is closer to the school.   There is a tradeoff between closeness to home and other school characteristics which school districts can exploit to find the teachers they need.   Recruitment into teacher preparation programs for difficult to staff schools should therefore focus on the nearby labor pool.   The difficulty with this recommendation is that the nearby labor pool is likely to contain few college graduates and therefore be incapable of supplying all the teachers needed.

            Looking at data for New York, Boyd et al. find that 61% of new public school teachers began teaching at a school located within 15 miles of their hometown (hometown is the location of one’s high school) and 85% within 40 miles.   They also find that 88% of teachers whose hometown is an urban district begin teaching in an urban school district.   They interpret this latter finding as meaning that “apart from distance, the culture of schools or communities plays some role in the segmentation of teacher labor markets.”    Interestingly, they find no difference in the effect of distance and the pull of home by teachers’ fields of specialization.   Thus special education teachers are no different from other teachers in this respect.

            Since the number of new teachers whose hometown is urban is far less than the number of new hires, urban school districts must attract teachers from suburban and rural areas.   In order to do so, urban school districts must offer some combination of higher salaries, better working conditions, and more congenial student populations than surrounding suburban districts.   If they do not, the teachers hired by urban school districts will be of lower quality.   Boyd et al. show that in fact, urban districts typically resort to the latter stratagem, hiring less qualified teachers.   As a consequence the graduates of such districts are not as well educated which reduces the qualified pool from which future teachers will be recruited for those schools.   Aside from offering higher wages, Boyd et al. recommend focusing on local supply when developing teacher recruitment and retention policies.

-- Candidate Selection

Akerlof (1970) pointed out that quality deterioration may take place in a market where sellers know more about the quality of their services than buyers do. This finding can be well illustrated in the teacher labor market. Generally, teacher candidates have more information about their own talent and potential of becoming an effective teacher than schools and program organizers do. For example, teacher candidates may have better information about their own verbal ability and their knowledge of subject matter. Without strong selection criteria, teacher candidates could range from those who are highly qualified to those who are not qualified. Teacher candidates know their own qualifications, and those who are most qualified often have better alternative opportunities for employment. Program organizers and schools, on the other hand, have less information about teachers’ relative qualifications. Suppose all teachers will be paid the same wage, a wage which reflects the average quality of all teachers.   Teacher candidates with above-average quality may not be willing to enter the market, because they have better opportunities elsewhere. Their withdrawal from the market lowers average teacher quality. Teachers’ wages will fall to reflect the reduction in average teacher quality, which leads to the further withdrawal of teacher candidates whose qualifications are above the reduced average teacher quality. Consequently, the market may degenerate until only those who are not qualified enter the teaching profession.

This study suggests that alternative teacher preparation programs must establish strong selection criteria, especially when teacher candidates’ potential for or commitment to being an effective teacher is not clear. First, the selection criteria should effectively measure teacher candidates’ potential for becoming effective teachers. For example, college education in related subject fields, grade point averages, and scores on Praxis I or other skills tests can indicate candidates’ academic background and potential; recommendations based on experience in programs for children can show candidates’ character in working with students; and recommendations based on previous work experience can provide information on candidates’ work ethic and likelihood of success.

Second, selection criteria should be relatively flexible with teacher candidates whose qualifications and commitment have been well observed, but relatively stringent with teacher candidates whose qualifications and commitment are unclear. For example, schools and districts often have good information about the qualifications and commitment of para-educators who have worked in the same school or district, but not much information about mid-career changers, especially those who are not from the local area. Therefore, selection criteria must be relatively stringent with mid-career changers but relatively flexible with para-educators who have worked in the same school or district.

Becker (1962, 1975) has discussed the distinction between general human capital investment and specific human capital investment. General human capital raises workers’ productivity in their current position no more than in a job with another company. On the other hand, specific human capital raises workers’ productivity more in their current position than in a job with another company. Employees with more specific human capital have less incentive to quit because they enjoy higher productivity at their current positions than elsewhere. Consequently, turnover should be least for employees with relatively high specific human capital and most for those with relatively low specific human capital.

This study suggests, in order to better retain qualified teachers, alternative teacher preparation programs must target their recruiting effort and focus on candidates who are more likely to have substantial specific human capital in high-need subjects, high-need schools, and high-need districts. For example, candidates who have taught, been trained, or worked in a specific high-need subject often have accumulated more specific human capital in that subject than in other subjects, and then are more likely to enjoy teaching the subject than some other alternative. Similarly, candidates who grew up or lived in a specific high-need area often have accumulated more location-specific human capital about the area than others have. This gives them an advantage in fitting into the community and connecting with students in the high-need area (Boyd et al., 2003a). Similarly, candidates who have worked in a specific high-need school as para-educators from the same high-need school or district have accumulated more school-specific human capital. Compared to other candidates, they will be more productive in collaborating with colleagues, parents, and community leaders and in working with students of the same school.

Conversely, mid-career changers have accumulated more specific human capital in other professions than in the teaching profession. They have more incentive to quit when faced with unforeseen difficulties in the classroom. “I’ve worked hard before, but teaching is the toughest job I’ve ever had, bar none,” says Stephen Hoover, a former defense worker who once saw teaching as his second career and participated in an alternative teacher preparation program in California, according to an article on WSJ.com (Benson, undated). One and a half weeks into his third year, “I was just exhausted. I was just tired.” Mr. Hoover says. He now teaches part time and is trying to decide what to do next.

In the job matching literature, the quality of the worker-employer match affects the worker’s productivity across different jobs, and turnover occurs as a consequence of imperfect information. New information arrives either about one’s current match or about a possible alternative match that leads to a job change. In one category are models in which turnover occurs as a result of the arrival of information about the current match, as in the models of Johnson (1978) and Jovanovic (1979). These are models in which job match is an “experience good”; that is, the only way to determine the quality of a particular match is to form the match and “experience” it. In the second category are “search good” models of job change (Burdett, 1977; Mortensen, 1978). In these models, matches dissolve because of the arrival of new information about an alternative prospective match. In both categories of models, upon the arrival of new information, workers remain in jobs in which their productivity is revealed to be relatively high and they select themselves out of jobs in which their productivity is revealed to be low.

The teaching profession is neither a pure experience good nor a pure search good, but a combination of both. Many teachers leave hard-to-staff schools or fields, or leave the profession altogether because they underestimated the challenge of being a successful teacher. Other teachers quit their jobs because they have found better opportunities elsewhere for themselves.

Job matching theories suggest that alternative preparation programs must carefully screen teacher candidates and select those who are likely to be a good match with specific teaching needs. Further, these theories indicate that those who understand the challenge of being an effective teacher in hard-to-staff schools or fields are more likely to make an informed decision for themselves and generate good matches. Therefore, alternative preparation programs must focus their recruiting effort more on those who understand the teaching profession, have experience working with children, or live or grew up in hard-to-staff districts. Consider step-up programs for para-educators who have been working in high need schools, as an example. In this case, both schools and teacher candidates are in a good position to determine whether a candidate is a good match for a specific future position. Furthermore, the fact that these people have been working in this school also implies the school so far is a better match for them relative to other options. We can extend this analysis into other dimensions of matching. For example, the fact that people have been living in the area indicates they are better matches for this area relative to other places.

Theories also suggest that alternative teacher preparation programs need to be more cautious with those candidates who are unclear about their career objectives or opportunities, and those candidates who could be much more productive in other professions. This is because those candidates are more likely quit teaching as other career opportunities arise. This suggests that a post-baccalaureate program would have more success than an alternative teacher preparation program aiming at college bound high-school graduates. Similarly, an alternative teacher preparation program for para-educators would have a higher retention rate than a program for mid-career changers, especially those who worked in high-salary professions.

            A few simple calculations will help explode the myth of the mid-career changer as an important source of teachers.   Table 1 shows the income that would be sacrificed by someone changing from accounting or engineering to teaching.   The assumption is that the person would teach the last 15 years of his or her career and then retire.   An accountant in Hillsborough County, Florida would give up $361,000 dollars (on a net present value basis) for the pleasure of teaching, while an accountant in Dade County, Florida would sacrifice $447,000.   On an annual basis they would be forfeiting $35,000 and $43,000 respectively.   Mechanical engineers would sacrifice even more.   Given these figures, it is hard to imagine very many people willing to make the transition.   Those that do are likely to have been unsuccessful in their first career for one reason or another (and likely to be unsuccessful in teaching as well).   Personnel managers look skeptically at job applicants who say they are willing to take a big salary cut: if they are talented they are likely leave when opportunities in their original profession improve.

            Table 1.   Income Sacrificed by Mid-career Changers from Accounting and Engineering (dollars)

                                                      Accountants and Auditors           Mechanical Engineers

                                                         Dade      Hillsborough              Dade      Hillsborough

Difference in net present value              447,102       361,296              486,179      584,531

Equivalent annual real difference           43,285         34,978                 47,068        56,590

Equivalent real difference per
Teacher hour                                     26.92           21.75                  29.27          35.19

Difference in hourly equivalent
Real rate                                           16.24           12.65                  18.13          23.45

    Calculations assume annual inflation of 1%, annual nominal income growth of 3%, and a 7% discount rate.   Moderate variations in these rates have small impacts on the results.

            Not all career changers are the same.   The ones more likely to succeed in teaching as a second career are young, earned a salary similar to (or less than) what they will earn in teaching (in net present value terms), and have lost their jobs due to reasons beyond their control (e.g. foreign outsourcing, recession, or reaching military retirement age).

-- Cost of Program.

            As noted earlier, human capital theory makes a fundamental distinction between ‘general’ and ‘specific’ training.   General training is valuable to many school districts and therefore no school district will be willing to provide it to any employee (for fear its investment will be lost should another school district hire away that employee or the employee leave for other reasons).   Specific training is valuable only to the school district which makes it.   No employee will be willing to finance its acquisition (for fear that his investment will be forfeited through job loss from disability, reduction in force, or other reason).   Teacher preparation is primarily general training in this sense.   Therefore, school districts will rarely finance such preparation out of their general revenue and training programs must be financed through some combination of tuition or state government subsidy.

            Subsidies are to some extent risky for the state because (1) not all trainees become employed as teachers and (2) some who become teachers quit the field permanently to pursue other activities before the state recoups the cost of its investment, and (3) some who become teachers later migrate across state borders to seek higher wages and better working conditions (or simply as a trailing spouse) and the state that subsidized their preparation loses its investment.   (Of course, it gains from teachers who migrate into the state.)  

            Regarding (2) Flyer and Rosen (1997) estimate that although female teachers spend substantially more time out of the labor force (42% more) than female college graduates in other occupations, they are substantially less likely to switch occupations than other professionals.   In their sample 60% of their female teachers did not switch occupations versus 25% of other college graduates.   Flyer and Rosen attribute teacher persistence to the pay scales in teaching.   Most occupations severely penalize temporary withdrawals from the labor force because human capital depreciates rapidly if it is not continuously used (earnings decline 9.5% for every year out of the labor force).   The entire loss is not permanent: wage growth after re-entry is typically rapid leaving a permanent penalty of 1% per year out of the labor force.   Unique among professions, teaching does not penalize temporary withdrawals—pay depends solely on educational attainment and years of experience.   One implication is that calculations of the return on the state’s investment in the human capital of teachers must not be restricted to the first few years of teachers’ careers.   The high attrition rates in the early years of a teacher’s career are not necessarily indicative of a complete loss of the investment in human capital.   Account must also be taken of teachers who re-enter the field after a few years of withdrawal.

            Regarding (3) Table 2 compares the annual interstate migration rates of teachers from the March 2001 Current Population Survey.

Table 2. Teacher Migration Rates (March 2000 – March 2001)

Teachers except Postsecondary (longest job in 2000)               4.0

All other occupations (longest job in 2000)                              3.6

Public school teachers (in 2000)                                            2.9

Part time in 2000                                                                1.5

Full time in 2000                                                                 3.1

Pre-kindergarten and kindergarten teachers (in 2000)                2.5

Elementary school teachers (in 2000)                                     2.5

Secondary school teachers (in 2000)                                      1.5

Special education teachers (in 2000)                                      7.2

All other teachers (in 2000)                                                   7.1

22 to 24 years (age in 2001)                                                 5.9

25 to 29 years (age in 2001)                                                  9.8

            Teachers in general exhibit a slightly higher interstate migration rate (4.0%) than other workers (3.6%).   But a better comparison for our purposes is that between public school teachers (2.9%) and other professionals (4.7%).   Within public school teachers, part-time teachers have a lower migration rate (1.5%) than full-time teachers (3.1%) and special education teachers have a higher migration rate (7.2%) than other teachers.   Migration rates for most people are highest in their twenties.   For public school teachers, migration rates are 5.9% for those age 22-24 and 9.8% for those age 25-29 (these are the rates for people who were teaching before the move, not for students moving from college to their first teaching job).   Nevertheless, the migration rate for public school teachers age 22-29 (8.8%) is lower than the migration rate for other professional occupations in the same age range (11.1%).   In summary, public school teachers overall are somewhat less likely to move than other professionals, while special education teachers are more likely to move.

            If teachers migrated immediately after completion of a state financed training program, the cost to the state is far higher than if they migrated several years afterwards.   In this connection it is noteworthy that the migration rates are highest for teachers in their twenties.   It appears that the highest migration rates correspond to the period immediately after the training period.

            Even free tuition may not attract sufficient people to the training program.   It may be necessary to subsidize other opportunity costs as well.   Total costs of teacher training are far higher than direct costs.   For instance, Kane and Rouse (1999 p.78) calculate that the opportunity cost for a 18-24 year old male high school graduate is more than seven times greater than the direct tuition cost of a community college.  The student’s opportunity cost of time is the earnings he foregoes by using his time for classes and study rather than for employment.   This can be subsidized directly by paying a stipend to those participating in a preparation program and by offering the program near where the participants live and work so as to reduce the time spent commuting to the program.   It may be cheaper for school districts to provide the training themselves—on the job training—by reducing the pay of first year teachers accordingly.   This reduces the commuting cost to zero, a not insignificant consideration when the alternative is to commute to a teachers’ college an hour or more away from home.

            School districts make two types of investment in the human capital of teacher trainees.   We have discussed training, but there is also ‘the time employed in interviewing, testing, checking references, and in bookkeeping’ (Becker 1975).   There is also the effort devoted to discovering the teacher’s comparative advantage (e.g. 2nd grade or 5th grade, algebra or calculus, moderator of the drama or forensics club).   This investment is perhaps efficiently combined with investment in training.   Becker’s work would seem to lead to the conclusion that school districts should not be too concerned with turnover of teacher trainees who have paid for their training through lower wages, except to the extent that school districts lose their investment in specific human capital.   In practice, it may be hard to separate the two.   For instance, the mentor assigned to a trainee provides general training, but the mentor’s observation of the trainee’s aptitudes is specific human capital.

            School districts ought to pay a higher wage to teachers who have acquired some district-specific human capital.   This could be built into the standard wage schedule which pays for years of experience and education, if a distinction is made between tenure with the district and teaching experience anywhere.   Ballou and Podgursky (2002) report that teacher wages rise 2.7% per year of tenure so defined and 2.4% per year of experience (based on an analysis of the 1993-94 SASS).

            Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin (2001) investigate factors that explain why public schools lose teachers.   From their analysis of data from Texas they determined that teachers move from districts with low student achievement, high percentages of black and Hispanic students, and high poverty rates.   These student characteristics were more influential than salary in teacher decisions to move to another school or district or to leave the profession entirely.   But schools with such students are where the shortages of certified special education teachers are greatest.   Their estimates indicate that a school with a large proportion of disadvantaged minority students may have to pay a salary premium of 20-50 percent to get the teachers it needs compared to a school serving predominantly white, academically prepared students.

-- Financial Support

Salop and Salop (1976) study firms’ use of pure self-selection mechanisms to minimize turnover costs. They show that a firm can optimally discourage high turnover individuals from applying and encourage low turnover workers to apply for employment by predictably increasing an employee’s wage with his tenure at the firm. This has the effect of allowing an applicant essentially to guarantee his longevity with the firm, since the applicant pays the consequence (the forgone higher earnings) if he quits prematurely. Guasch and Weiss (1981) show that if workers have accurate information about their probabilities of succeeding on a job, then there is always a wage-fee combination which only attracts more able workers. This is because only those workers who are more confident about their future success on the job will be willing to pay a fee for the job opportunity.

These studies suggest that a wage-fee structure (wage increases with job tenure) can be effective in selecting low turnover individuals, because only individuals who are able to and willing to stay on the job can recoup their investment during early periods at later periods, and therefore accept this wage structure. Similarly, the cost-sharing structure of teacher preparation programs and their financial support for participants can be strategically designed to select those candidates who are more likely to be an effective teacher and are more likely to stay on their future positions.

We can consider the tuition for an alternative preparation program and the earnings its participants forego during the time they participate in the program as a “fee”. Only those who are likely to succeed in the preparation program and enter the teaching profession can recoup the fee and therefore will be willing to pay the fee. Hence, imposing a certain share of the program cost on participants helps select more qualified and committed teacher participants.   However, an excessive financial burden on participants could also discourage qualified teacher candidates from entering as they often have better alternatives and therefore bear higher opportunity costs. To attract qualified candidates, alternative teacher preparation programs could award scholarships in exchange for teaching in high-need schools or fields. Similarly, alternative preparation programs may also provide loan support for their participants. Their loans may be forgiven or their tuition may be reimbursed if participants provide a certain number of years of teaching in high-need schools or fields. On the one hand, such a form of financial support helps select more qualified and committed people since only those teacher candidates can benefit from such financial support. On the other hand, such a form of financial support increases the entrant teachers’ cost of quitting teaching and helps retain teachers during their few years of teaching, a period that has the highest attrition rate.

Guasch and Weiss (1981) have also shown that if more able workers underestimate their probability of succeeding on the job, or less able workers overestimate their probability of succeeding on the job, the benefit to a firm that employs a self-selection mechanism will fall.   This points out an important issue that often is overlooked by researchers -- candidates may not know their own characteristics perfectly. Since mature people generally know their own characteristics better and have less uncertainty about what to do and where to live, the self-selection mechanisms discussed above will work better for mature candidates such as para–educators and mid-career changers. Conversely, scholarships and tuition reimbursement in exchange for teaching in high-need schools or fields may not work well with immature college bound high school graduates.

Furthermore, financial support should also be allocated on the basis of academic merit and indicators of potential success in teaching so that alternative teacher preparation programs can attract more qualified candidates. Such financial support can also induce more effort and therefore more specific human capital investment from participants. Human capital theories suggest that employees with more specific human capital have less incentive to quit.

-- Program Requirements

Leland (1979) examines licensing requirements (minimum quality requirements) as a possible solution to the quality problem raised by Akerlof (discussed above). He suggests that, by truncating the bottom of the quality distribution, licensing requirements ensure minimum quality and enhance consumers’ willingness to pay for a service, and consequently induce more qualified sellers to enter the market. Furthermore, the market is more likely to benefit from licensure when the opportunity costs of meeting the licensing requirements are relatively low for high-quality service providers, but are relatively high for low-quality service providers. This is because such licensing requirements can force low-quality service providers out of the market but do not significantly drive up high-quality service providers’ costs.

These findings suggest that, first, to ensure that teachers who enter the classroom are highly qualified, rigorous certification standards are needed. Second, these certification requirements must be carefully based on the research-based consensus about what teachers should know and be able to do to support student learning. Third, these certification requirements must be strategically chosen so that the opportunity cost of meeting these requirements is lower for more qualified people than for less qualified people. For example, education normally is considered more costly for less talented people than for more talented people. Therefore, higher requirements on certification tests such as higher cutoff points help eliminate less talented people from entering the teaching profession without significantly driving up the opportunity cost for more talented people. Conversely, time normally is more precious for more talented (more productive) people than for less talented (less productive) people. Unduly prolonging a training program will have the inadvertent effect of driving out more talented people. For example, a recent study of 86 colleges rated as “highly selective” by Barron’s estimates that converting post B.A. or five-year teacher preparation programs into programs that may be completed within one’s four undergraduate years could, on average, increase the rate of entry into teaching by at least 50% at these colleges (Reback, 2003).   

Shapiro (1986) views occupational licensing as a control on the level of training required of professionals. He considers situations where a higher level of training (human capital investment) reduces their marginal cost of providing quality service. He found that, by raising the minimum level of training, licensing helps reduce professionals’ marginal cost of providing quality and therefore promotes the provision of quality service.

These theories also suggest that alternative teacher preparation programs must provide rigorous training. First, more rigorous training ensures that teachers who enter the classroom are better prepared. Better preparation can substantially reduce the stress of entry into the profession and will allow new entrants to more quickly become effective teachers, which in turn is likely to increase their retention in the profession. Furthermore, Becker’s human capital theory suggests requirements for alternative teacher preparation programs should be strategically chosen to induce more specific human capital investment. A higher level of specific human capital investment enhances participants’ productivity in the teaching profession more than in any other profession. Consequently, teachers have less incentive to quit. Examples of specific human capital include knowledge of how to teach in hard-to-staff fields and practice teaching in hard-to-staff schools. Such human capital raises participants’ productivity as a teacher in hard-to-staff fields or schools more than elsewhere. On the other hand, knowledge of subject matter (e.g. the calculus) is more like general human capital because it raises participants’ productivity in the teaching profession no more than in some other professions.

Guasch and Weiss (1981) show that if workers have accurate information about their probabilities of succeeding on a job, then there is always a test-fee combination which only attracts more able workers (like the wage-fee combination discussed above). This is because only those workers who are more likely to pass the test will be willing to pay a fee for the test. Bac (2000) studies a dynamic employment relationship and shows a potential conflict between the employer’s objectives to screen and train the worker: the employer may have to sacrifice some worker performance in order to better screen workers’ qualification.

Alternative teacher preparation programs can be considered as tests for their participants. They can be designed strategically to select those candidates who are more likely to be effective teachers and are more likely to stay on their positions. If program organizers and schools had perfect information about candidates’ potential and commitment, the efficient level of program requirements would be where the marginal cost of training equals the marginal benefit of training. However, when candidates’ potential and commitment is unknown to program organizers and schools, it can be optimal to set program requirements above the efficient level in certain areas and induce an extra amount of specific human capital investment from teacher candidates. Doing so helps screen teacher candidates’ potential and commitment to be an effective teacher. Then, only teacher candidates who are confident about their probability of meeting the high standards and are committed to their future assignments will enter the program, because only they can recoup their investment in specific human capital from their future success. These standards must be strategically chosen so that the opportunity cost of meeting these standards is relatively low for more qualified candidates, but relatively high for less qualified people. A higher cutoff point on certification tests often helps deter less talented people from entering the teaching profession without significantly driving up the opportunity cost for more talented people. On the other hand, redundant tests that do not effectively measure teachers’ qualifications or excessively long training programs will have the inadvertent effect of driving out more talented people.

These economic theories are consistent with current empirical evidence. Studies using national and state data sets have shown significant links between teacher education and licensure measures (including education coursework, credential status, and scores on licensure tests) and student achievement. These relationships have been found at the level of the individual teacher (e.g., Goldhaber & Brewer, 2000; Goldhaber & Anthony, 2004; Hawk, Coble, & Swanson, 1985; Monk, 1994); the school (Betts, Reuben, & Danenberg, 2000; Fetler, 1999; Fuller, 1998, 2000; Goe, 2002); the school district (Ferguson, 1991; Strauss & Sawyer, 1986), and the state (Darling-Hammond, 2000a).

Similarly, a number of studies from states with large numbers of under-prepared teachers have found strong effects of certification on student achievement. Boyd et al. (2003b) and Lankford, Loeb and Wyckoff (2002) found that, in schools in the highest percentile of the New York State 4 th Grade English Language Arts Exam, only 3 percent of teachers were uncertified, only 10 percent of teachers earned their undergraduate degree from the least competitive colleges, and only 9 percent had failed a general knowledge teacher certification exam. In contrast, in schools in the lowest percentile of student performance, 22 percent of teachers were uncertified, 26 percent came from least competitive colleges, and 35 percent had failed a general knowledge certification exam. Similarly, three recent school-level studies in California found significant negative relationships between the percentage of teachers on emergency permits and student scores on state exams (Betts, Rueben, & Dannenberg, 2000; Fetler, 1999; Goe, 2002). Fuller (1998, 2000) found that students in Texas schools with smaller proportions of certified teachers were significantly less likely to pass the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS).

A growing body of empirical evidence also suggests better teacher preparation reduces the attrition rates of beginning teachers. Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) data for 1999-2000 show big differences in plans to stay in teaching between first-year teachers who felt well prepared and those who felt poorly prepared. On such items as preparation in planning lessons, using a range of instructional methods and assessing students, two-thirds of those reporting strong preparation intended to stay, compared to only one-third of those reporting weak preparation (Darling- Hammond and Sykes, 2003). Moreover, a survey of 3,000 beginning teachers in New York City found that recruits who felt better prepared were more inclined to stay in teaching, to feel effective, and to say they would enter through the same program or pathway again. Graduates of teacher education programs felt significantly better prepared and more effective than those entering through alternative routes or with no training (Darling- Hammond, Chung, and Frelow, 2002).

The differentials hold true for actual attrition as well. Analyses of the SASS Teacher Follow-up Survey show that attrition rates for first year teachers who have not had strong teacher preparation programs are double those of their better-prepared colleagues. For example, the attrition rate is 28 percent for first year teachers who have had no training in child psychology or learning theory, compared to 12 percent for those who have had such training (NCTAF 2003, see Chart 4). A recent NCES study found that 49% of uncertified entrants left the profession within five years, more than triple the 14% of certified entrants who left (Henke, et al., 2000). A longitudinal study of 11 institutions found that teachers who complete redesigned 5-year teacher education programs enter and stay in teaching at much higher rates than 4-year teacher education graduates from the same campuses (Andrew & Schwab, 1995). In addition, both 4- and 5-year teacher education graduates enter and stay at higher rates than teachers hired through alternatives that offer only a few weeks of training before recruits are left on their own in classrooms (See Chart 5) (Darling-Hammond, 2000b).

Chart 4. Teacher Preparation Reduces First-Year Teacher Attrition

(2000-2001)

Training in Child Psychology / Learning Theory

Training in Selection/Use of Instruction Materials  ls

Observation of Other Classes

Feedback on Teaching

Practice Teaching

Source: NCTAF (2003)

Chart 5. Average Retention for Different Pathways into Teaching

Source: Darling-Hammond and Sykes (2003)

-- Program Content—Richness of Induction.

            Common sense suggests that a teacher’s (or a worker’s) productivity depends on a set of personal characteristics: intelligence, motivation, and skill in the task at hand, among other things.   Most economists, however, focus only on the cognitive skill that can be measured by tests.   This leads Ballou (1996) to conclude that public schools do not hire the best available candidates.   He used a variety of data sets and methods, but his measures of quality are typically indicators of cognitive ability: the quality of the undergraduate institution as rated in Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges, grade point average, choice of major.   All of these measures are related to cognitive ability.   Ballou recognizes that there may be important noncognitive skills, but he does not directly control for them.

            Heckman (2000) vigorously argues that there are skills besides the cognitive skills developed in formal educational institutions that are crucial to success.   These noncognitive skills include motivation, self-discipline, and social skills.   They are fostered by families and developed by employers through on the job training.   He claims ‘there is substantial evidence that mentoring and motivational programs oriented toward disadvantaged teenagers are effective.’   The same may be true of mentoring of new teachers though similar empirical analysis has not been published for them. Heckman’s research is also a caution against sole reliance on cognitive tests to identify the best potential teachers.

            Hanushek and Rivkin (2003) conclude from their review of the literature that the focus of policy makers on teacher quality is warranted by solid empirical evidence that quality is an important determinant of student achievement.   However, they also conclude that little is known about good teachers. In particular, they conclude that credentials, degrees, and teacher test scores are not consistently or strongly correlated with teaching skill.   They state that tightening certification requirements (e.g. more undergraduate coursework, master’s degrees, and higher test scores) will be costly.   For these reasons they caution that it is unwise for states to prescribe training and hiring standards.

            A recent study by Goldhaber and Anthony (2004) using a student-level value-added model finds that teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards are higher quality than those not certified. Students whose teachers are NBPTS certified have higher achievement gain than students whose teachers either did not apply for certification or whose application was denied.

            State certification requirements for teachers affect the supply of applicants to training programs.   Hanushek and Pace (1995) using the High School and Beyond survey which followed a sample of high school seniors from 1980-86 find that both teacher testing and the number of hours of professional coursework required for certification reduced the probability that a college graduate would have a degree in education.   Testing reduced even more the probability that a college graduate would become employed as a teacher, but coursework was not statistically significant.   They attribute this to the fact that a large proportion of teachers in their sample entered the profession through alternatives to graduation from a traditional training program in a college of education.   This is puzzling since alternative routes to certification typically include much of the same coursework as traditional programs.   One interpretation of these results is that it is not the coursework itself which students find off-putting, it is the risk of investing in the coursework and not getting a teaching job.   Many alternative teacher training programs reduce or eliminate this risk because they are a form of on the job training.

-- Mentorship

The early exodus of teachers from the profession has been a longstanding problem. Studies indicate that as many as 20% of new teachers may leave teaching after three years and that closer to 30% quit after five years, while their chances of staying in teaching increase significantly after five years. Therefore, retaining new teachers in their first few years of teaching is important for their long-term success.

Becker’s human capital theory suggests employees with more specific human capital have less incentive to quit as they enjoy higher productivity at their current positions than elsewhere. Many studies (Hanushek, Kain, & Rivkin, 1998; Kain & Singleton, 1996) indicate that teacher effectiveness rises sharply after the first few years in the classroom. This suggests teachers will rapidly accumulate specific human capital during their first few years in the profession. Teachers are more likely to remain in the classroom once they have accumulated adequate specific human capital there. Hence, strong residency and mentorship support for beginning teachers during their first few years are vital. A well-planned, systematic induction program reduces beginning teachers’ stress of entry into teaching and provides well-structured opportunities for them to develop and perfect teaching skills. As a result, beginning teachers can more quickly develop and fully utilize specific human capital in their classrooms and schools. As beginning teachers become effective and enjoy success, they are more likely to remain in their current positions.

Studies show that, school districts such as Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo, Ohio, and Rochester, New York, have reduced beginning-teacher attrition rates by more than two-thirds by providing expert mentors with release time to coach beginners in their first year (NCTAF, 1996). Also, inductees of a new teacher induction program developed by The New Teacher Center at the University of California-Santa Cruz have a 95 percent retention rate in the teaching profession over an 11-year period (NCTAF, 2003).

-- Practice Teaching.

A talented individual who decides shortly after obtaining his bachelor’s degree, that he would like to be a teacher faces the prospect of a year or more of education classes and practice teaching.   The acquisition of this human capital has two costs: tuition and foregone wages.   The decision to become a teacher depends on a comparison of the present value of earnings as a teacher, the present value of earnings in some other occupation, tuition, and the length of the preparation program.   Since it is generally the case that wages are correlated with talent, as costs rise, particularly as the training period lengthens and foregone wages increase, the more talented individuals turn away from teaching first.   The least talented, whose alternative occupation pays a wage far below that of teaching, are not affected at all (since they have already obtained a bachelor’s degree they clearly have the cognitive ability to obtain teacher certification).

Because of its intensity, practice teaching has a far higher opportunity cost than other education courses.   It is essentially a full time—yet uncompensated—job for a semester.   This suggests that if some way could be found to reduce the cost of practice teaching, more capable people could be attracted into teaching.   Converting it into a paid apprenticeship is one possibility.

Rosen (1986) notes that ‘in the case of professional training there is no perfect substitute for apprenticeship and for work experience itself.’   But since the skills learned are general and are costly in terms of reduced output from teachers providing the training, no school district would be willing to freely train new teachers.

Think of a first year teaching job as a tied package of work and learning—teachers jointly sell their labor services and buy an opportunity to improve their skills.   Districts jointly produce educated children and practice training for new teachers.   Some jobs will provide more learning opportunities than others.   Teachers vary in their innate ability and motivation while districts vary in their costs of providing training.  From this arises a margin of choice for both teachers and districts.

In Rosen’s (1972) model workers vary in age and in ability.   Age is important because the discounted return per unit of human capital gained from training, q, falls with the remaining length of a career.   First, consider people of the same age; q is the same for all of them (assuming all continue in teaching until a common retirement age).   Let P represent the implicit market price for on-the-job training (the difference between what a teaching job with training pays and the pay of a comparable job without training).   As a market price, P is the same for all workers.   People differ in the amount, k, they learn from practice training.   Thus the unit price they pay, P/k, also varies.   Those for whom the unit return from training is greater than the unit cost will take the teaching job with practice training; the others will take alternative jobs.   Clearly, this form of teacher training matches the most talented people with on-the-job training opportunities and excludes the least talented (assuming that overall talent and receptiveness to training are highly correlated).

Next, consider people whose ages vary, but who all learn the same amount from practice training.   Then the distribution of q (the discounted return per unit of human capital) across workers depends on their age distribution.   Again, those for whom q is greater than the implicit unit price of training will be selected into jobs.   These will be the youngest workers, since they will be able to earn a return on their additional human capital for more years.

Lastly, consider people all of the same age and who all learn the same amount from practice training.   They differ in their commitment to teaching.   The most committed will have the highest return (q) on the investment in their human capital; the least committed will have the lowest return.   So what affects commitment? Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin (2001) find that teacher commitment (or its opposite, attrition) depends much more on characteristics of students taught, particularly poverty, race, and achievement, than on salary.   As Boyd et al. show this can be explained as a consequence of uniform pay schedules that make no allowance for characteristics of schools and students teachers are assigned to.

-- Summary

Alternative teacher certification programs for special education teachers are proliferating in the absence of rigorous analysis about how they can be designed to select, prepare, and retain qualified teachers. Our review of the economic literature, in particular, human capital theory, certification theory, job matching theory and screening theory, provides a number of implications for the optimal design of alternative teacher preparation programs.

Our research suggests the optimal location for alternative teacher preparation programs must be close to where the teacher shortages are. Recruiting efforts need to be focused on those candidates who grew up in or live close to hard-to-staff districts and para-educators who work in the same hard-to-staff schools or districts. Alternative teacher preparation programs must be financed through some combination of tuition or state government subsidy. Financial support for teacher candidates should be awarded strategically based on participants’ performance and in exchange for teaching in hard-to-staff schools and districts. Alternative teacher preparation programs must strategically insist on strong requirements to select better qualified and more committed teacher candidates, but be cautious against focusing solely on the training of participants’ cognitive skills and relying solely on cognitive tests to identify the best potential teachers. Strong residency and mentorship support for beginning teachers during their first few years are vital to successfully retaining them in the teaching profession. Compensated practice teaching may help attract more capable people into teaching.

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