Panel Finds No Favorite in Teacher-Prep Pathways

Expert Panel Finds No Edge for Traditional vs. Alternative

After six years of study, a national panel of prominent scholars has concluded that there’s not enough evidence to suggest that teachers who take alternative pathways into the classroom are any worse—or any better—than those who finish traditional college-based preparation programs.

The finding comes in a report released late last month by the National Research Council, which is an arm of the National Academies, a scientific body created to advise the federal government on scientific matters.

“Now we can see that we’ve looked at the best available evidence, and the evidence suggests that there are not significant differences,” said Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, the chairwoman...