Nearly every school district across the United States has struggled finding enough science, technology, engineering, or math teachers. Could one solution be for districts to recruit content-area experts and both train and license them themselves?
That avenue has been an answer to a persistent STEM teacher shortage in the Guilford County school system in Greensboro, N.C. The 72,000-student district became the first in the state to open an in-house licensure program in 2008鈥攁nd it鈥檚 still one of only a handful of districts across the country with such a program.
That certification pathway has allowed the high-poverty district, which has schools in both urban and rural areas, to hire dozens of STEM teachers. While critics warn that such approaches risk lowering the bar for teacher preparation, officials in Guilford say the teachers they train are bringing real-world STEM experience to the classroom.
鈥淲e knew our field, we knew our content, but we didn鈥檛 really know how to teach,鈥� said Ashlee Clark, a chemistry teacher at Northwest Guilford High School, who went through the district鈥檚 licensure program in the 2015-16 school year. Before entering the program, she was doing animal research in graduate school.
鈥淚nitially, it was kind of scary for me because it was really a crash course鈥� into teaching, Clark said. 鈥淪omething that most people spend four years studying, we had to cram in one year.鈥�
But the alternative-certification program is designed to ease those with STEM backgrounds into teaching through ongoing, timely instruction and mentorship that extends past a teacher鈥檚 first year in the classroom.
鈥淭he whole purpose was to provide a very, very strong multifaceted structure of support for alternatively certified teachers,鈥� said Amy Holcombe, who was formerly the executive director of talent development for the district. Before the program existed, she said, the district鈥檚 alternatively certified teachers weren鈥檛 receiving much support. Holcombe saw her own father, who left a career in engineering to teach math in Guilford County, break into tears two months into the job because he felt overwhelmed and isolated.
While the district鈥檚 overall teacher attrition rate was between 10 percent and 12 percent, it was 34 percent for alternatively certified teachers, Holcombe said.
Now, she said, teachers who go through the program have a network of support. For the past three years, nearly all the STEM teachers who went through the program have stayed in the district for a second year of teaching.
Recruits interview with principals, and if offered a job, undergo an orientation for lateral-entry teachers鈥攁 term that encompasses qualified individuals who worked in or studied a non-education field鈥攂efore they can enter the classroom. During the training, the district lets them know about their licensure options鈥攚hich can include a university program leading to a master鈥檚 degree and a teaching license鈥攂ut for many, Holcombe said, 鈥渙ur program is a perfect fit, because all they want is a license. They want to be able to teach鈥攁nd teach right away.鈥�
Those individuals start teaching and attend a class taught by district instructors one night a week. The classes are deemed 鈥渏ust in time鈥� training, because the newbies learn tactics for classroom management, hosting a parent-teacher conference, and developing relationships with students as they need them on the job. On weekends, there are daylong sessions on special topics like diversity and equity or personalized-learning strategies. The new teachers in this program also receive regular on-site coaching for their first three years.
In the spring of the first year, there is a multiday retreat that goes deeper into pedagogy. Over five weeks in the summer, the teachers take in-depth courses focused on teaching and learning. The teachers must pass their Praxis exam within three years of their teaching license being issued, but the district encourages them to pass before graduating.
As the program has grown, Guilford County has split it into two cohorts of teachers: those who want to teach liberal arts subjects, such as foreign language, that also are in short supply鈥攁nd those who will teach STEM subjects.
Over four school years, 124 STEM teachers have enrolled in the program, including the current class of 25. Among the 31 teachers who started in 2014-15, 71 percent stayed in the classroom past their third year. Guilford County鈥檚 goal鈥�made in partnership with 100Kin10, a national nonprofit that is seeking to bolster the ranks of STEM teachers鈥攊s to recruit and prepare 150 STEM teachers by 2020.
Guilford鈥檚 program is made up of recent college graduates who majored in a STEM field and career-changers.
The former group is an area of active recruitment for the district. Guilford has a partnership with four historically black universities in the area鈥擭orth Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Winston-Salem State University, North Carolina Central University, and Bennett College, a private women鈥檚 school. Holcombe said these partnerships allow the district to tie its diversity-recruitment goals to its need for STEM teachers.
鈥淕uilford County schools is a majority-minority district, so the people that we鈥檙e hiring鈥攖he talent and leaders that we鈥檙e putting in front of our students鈥攍ook like our students, which we feel is a very good thing,鈥� she said.
District recruiters will go to the colleges鈥� STEM-related departments to ask students to consider a career in teaching. A couple of professors were so persuaded by the district鈥檚 recruitment approach that they left their universities to teach K-12, said Holcombe, who helped start the lateral-entry program and is now the district鈥檚 executive director of grants acquisition.
The challenge is that many of the students being recruited know they could earn more outside of K-12 education, she said.
鈥淲hat we鈥檙e competing against are students who are being given full rides to complete their doctorate in STEM areas. And what we鈥檙e offering them as an alternative is the opportunity to come work with K-12 students, teach in the classroom, work 60-70 hours a week for less pay than what they would be getting in a stipend from their university for going to school full time,鈥� Holcombe said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a very hard sell. We really rely on people who have heart and passion and a calling for teaching STEM to students.鈥�
The personal support that district recruiters give to students is a selling point, said Daylonda Lee, a biology teacher at Smith High School who went through the lateral-entry program in the 2013-14 school year.
She was originally a nursing major at North Carolina A&T State University, but when she became pregnant with her son, she started looking for other options. Teaching interested her, and a recruiter from Guilford County schools made sure she had the credit hours to graduate, let her try student-teaching, and helped her prepare for the interview process.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 even know what lateral entry was,鈥� she said. 鈥淥nce I made that decision, they were supportive, they were helping me figure it out. It wasn鈥檛 like a stressor.鈥�
Lee, who was named the district鈥檚 lateral-entry teacher of the year, is now pursuing her master鈥檚 degree to get a principal license. She credits the lateral-entry program with setting her up for a lifelong career in education.
鈥淚t was ... truly building that connection of how to be a great teacher, how to be effective,鈥� she said.
Ensuring Quality
According to information collected by Stephanie Aragon, a policy analyst at the Education Commission of the States, Guilford County is one of just a handful of districts nationwide that certify their own teachers without a university partnership. The San Francisco Unified school system has a similar one-year credentialing program focusing on training teachers in shortage-area subjects, including special education and bilingual education.
In the 2017 legislative session, Arizona and Kentucky, which have both struggled with teacher shortages, passed bills paving the way for district-sponsored certification. And in Minnesota, a bill that would have overhauled the teacher-licensing system and allowed school districts and charter schools to participate as alternative-preparation-program providers was vetoed by the state鈥檚 Democratic governor, Mark Dayton.
鈥淎s policymakers, it is our obligation and responsibility to ensure that long-term, professionally credentialed teachers have received the highest-quality preparation,鈥� Dayton wrote in a letter explaining his veto of the bill, which was opposed by teachers鈥� unions.
And in October, the charter schools committee of the State University of New York鈥檚 board of trustees, one of two charter authorizers in the state, approved a new rule that will allow some charter schools to train and certify their own teachers. That move received strong opposition from some of New York鈥檚 top education officials, as well as the state鈥檚 major teachers鈥� union, which filed a lawsuit to block it.
The chief concerns of critics of these types of programs are that they could lower the bar for entry into the teaching profession, and that because training is focused on local curricula and practices, it may be too narrow.
Such programs need state oversight, with a focus on results, said Elizabeth Ross, the managing director of state policy for the National Council on Teacher Quality, a Washington-based think tank that advocates for teacher-preparation reforms.
She said districts need to make sure they鈥檙e considering how much these programs cost, how effective the graduates are in the classroom, and the impact on student achievement and growth.
鈥淭here are pieces of [Guilford鈥檚 program] that are very promising and attractive,鈥� Ross said. 鈥淥ne of the risks is that we see programs like this start to proliferate without a good sense of the impact they are having on schools and students and the community.鈥�
The district鈥檚 Holcombe said program graduates tend to be successful in the classroom, because of the tailored support they get. The district conducted a study a few years ago and found that teachers who went through Guilford鈥檚 lateral-entry licensure program had higher value-added scores in Algebra 1 (known as Math 1 in North Carolina) and middle school math than counterparts prepared in a traditional teacher-prep program or a different alternative licensure program. Lateral-entry teachers tied with their counterparts in value-added scores for biology.
鈥淲hen we teach the preparation curriculum that they鈥檙e receiving from us, we know exactly what literacy priorities we have in the district, our approaches to teaching lots of different subjects. We can teach our own pacing guides, our own approaches to lesson planning,鈥� Holcombe said. 鈥淲hereas the university has to teach more generally because they have students who could end up anywhere, we know where our teachers are teaching.鈥�
