A Variety Of Delivery Modes Are Incorporated Into Instruction To Ensure That All Students Have Access To And Meet Standards



A Variety Of Delivery Modes Are Incorporated Into Instruction To Ensure That All Students Have Access To And Meet Standards

Introduction

This study describes special education alternative route (AR) teacher preparation programs. The authors developed a national database of programs and collected information on program sponsorship, length and intensity, features, and participant demographics. Most of the 235 programs in the database were in states that had significant shortages of special education teachers, and the authors received 101 responses to the survey. Active collaboration and use of professional standards in program development were commonplace. Most programsrequired full-time teaching, although the length of preteaching preparation varied dramatically, as did overallprogram length. Although many participants were general education teachers or recent degree recipients, the largest subgroup consisted of midcareer changers. This article discusses these findings and provides recommendations for additional research.

The need for high-quality teachers-particularly in such high-demand areas as mathematics, science, and special education-has been a major impetus for the emergence and growth of alternative routes to certification (AR). Indeed, the U.S. Department of Education (2002, 2004) has proclaimed repeatedly that AR programs, as opposed to the traditional routes offered by colleges of education, are an effective means of streamlining the process of certification to move teachers into the classroom on a fast-track basis. In fact, recent federal legislation, including No Child Left Behind and IDEA, encourages these approaches to teacher preparation. These changing standardsrequire alternative route candidates to pass certification or licensure exams to be highly qualified, but AR programscan alter, shorten, or waive entirely coursework in educational philosophy, pedagogy, and practice teaching.

When policy makers and those involved in general-education teacher preparation contemplate the design and implementation of AR programs, special education is rarely on their radar screens. Indeed, most of what legislators often debate and what the education literature often reports (e.g., Goldhaber, 2004; Zeichner & Schulte, 2001) can best be characterized as the "secondary content model," that is, programs that focus on contentspecificpedagogy for individuals with subject-area expertise. Still, what researchers know about AR programs in mathematics, science, and other content areas may have limited application to special education teacher preparation, whereas universal design and pedagogy are more important than specific subject-area methods (Rosenberg & Sindelar, 2001). This factor is critical when considering the range of competencies (e.g., behavior management, social skills instruction, and content enhancements) required of educators who deliver high-quality, comprehensive educational programs to students with the range of special needs that students with exceptionalities exhibit (e.g., Council for Exceptional Children, 2003; Neel, Cessna, Borock, & Bechard, 2003; Rosenberg, Sindelar, & Hardman, 2004).

Developing The Survey

Using resources from the available literature on AR programs (e.g., Hawley, 1992; Hillkirk, 2000; Rosenberg & Sindelar, 2001; Zeichner & Schulte, 2001) as well as our own experiences in designing and studying teacher programs, we identified four areas believed to differentiate among AR programs, including (a) program infrastructure, (b) program length and intensity, (c) specific program ...