Teachers From Alternate Routes Scrutinized

Washington

New research findings provide fresh fodder for debates over whether teachers who skip traditional education school training are more demographically diverse than their colleagues, and whether they provide special expertise in math or science.

The findings, presented here at a Sept. 16 conference sponsored by the U.S. Education Department’s Institute of Education Sciences, come from a study tracking teachers who entered the profession via seven alternative-certification programs scattered around the country.

“The thing that struck us was the tremendous variation among program participants, and among programs,” said Daniel C. Humphrey, the study’s lead author and the associate director of the Center on Education Policy at SRI International, a think tank based in Menlo Park, Calif. “A lot of the characterizations we’ve heard turned...