Fast-Track Certification

Can We Prepare Teachers Both Quickly and Well?

By Susan Moore Johnson & Sarah Birkeland

Teacher-preparation programs today come in many shapes and sizes. Traditional and alternative programs have morphed into one another, making broad comparisons between them useless. What matters instead is how particular programs work. Do they attract candidates to teaching? Do they provide what they promise? Do they give new teachers what they need to get started and grow on the job? Do participants report that they’re prepared to teach their students?

With such questions in mind, we studied 13 fast-track, alternative-certification programs in four states, observing the training and interviewing directors, faculty members, and participants. We interviewed the participants again after they had spent six to eight months as classroom teachers. Most participants were midcareer entrants to teaching in search of more meaningful work, such as the man who described his former job in a petrochemical plant as “steady, well paid, and very unfulfilling.” Others were recent college graduates who had not studied to be teachers, and another group was made up of full-time teachers or substitutes who lacked licenses.

All were attracted to fast-track programs by the incentives they offered: brief, inexpensive, convenient, and practical training. Candidates wanted to move quickly into the classroom, avoiding the tuition and opportunity costs of longer preservice training. Most programs were structured to be as convenient as possible, condensing preservice coursework and student-teaching into a four- to eight-week summer experience. Candidates liked the programs’ practical orientation, believing that they needed no-nonsense tools, such as strategies for classroom management, rather than theories and research about teaching. Many said they would not have entered teaching if the fast-track...