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24

Kentucky has not linked teacher certification standards to student content standards! How can this possibly still be true 12 years after the passage of KERA!!

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26 - 28

Kentucky's Praxis passing scores versus the National Percentiles are very low, no higher than around the 30^th percentile and sometimes as low as the 20^th! Of particular interest is that the writing score required is the lowest, the 20^th percentile, even though this is supposed to be a high emphasis area in the state for students. No better demonstration of the validity of the comment for page 24 above is needed.

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31 - 34

The report says:

?DEVELOPING ALTERNATE ROUTES TO CERTIFICATION: ARE STATES DOING ENOUGH?

In recent years, states have increasingly experimented with alternate routes to certification to boost both the quantity and quality of their respective teaching forces. Currently, 45

states offer alternate routes to certification (Figure 10). In the last five years alone, 20

states have either passed new legislation or expanded existing programs to create 34 new

alternative pathways into the profession. The growth of alternative certification is fueled

in part by the increasing demand for teachers, especially in high-need areas like math,

science and bilingual education and in high-poverty schools.

All told, approximately 175,000 teachers nationwide hold alternative certificates, out of

approximately 3.1 million teachers nationwide, accounting for only 6 percent of the cur-

rent teacher force. However, given that alternative routes are relatively new phenomena, it

is more telling to measure the number of new teachers who enter the profession through

this route. While national data are limited, states that have the highest rates of new teach ­

ers entering through alternate routes still hire less than a quarter of their teachers using

this approach. For example, in California and Texas, 10 and 16 percent of new teachers

enter the profession through alternate pathways, respectively. Although New Jersey has the

most aggressive alternate route program in the country, just 22 percent of the state 's

teachers enter the profession through this route.

Why are so few candidates entering the profession through alternate routes? One reason

may be that many of these ?alternate ? programs are just as burdensome as their more tra ­

ditional cousins. For example, Colorado requires teachers pursuing licensure through an

alternate route to take 225 clock hours of professional education courses in one year while

participants are also teaching. In Illinois, qualifying for a license through an alternate route

can take up to three years. Similarly, in Kentucky, local school districts can hire teachers

from outside the traditional preparation system (with as low as a 2.0 GPA) provided they

receive 250 hours of formal instruction. The preparation course lasts 44 weeks, with an

eight-week full-time seminar and practicum, 18 weeks half-time teaching, and 18 weeks

full-time teaching. Programs such as these are ?alternate routes ? in name only, allowing

states to boast of reform while maintaining artificial restrictions on the supply of new

teachers.

Despite these impediments, Title II data reveal that 70 percent of the states report higher

pass rates on licensure exams among teachers certified through alternate routes as compared

to teachers with traditional licenses on certification or licensure exams (Figure 11).

Streamlining the requirements has apparently led not only to an increase in teacher supply

but also an increase in teacher quality.

Note the emphasis added concerning Kentucky in the 3^rd paragraph. The federal government recognizes Kentucky's alternative assessment program as an ?in name only? approach. We are loosing a large number of potentially very excellent teachers as a result.

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36

How can Kentucky possibly claim to the federal government that less than 1% of our teachers are on teaching waivers? What definitional slight of hand is involved here? Or, have previous comments in state education committee meetings been way off the mark?

What is the real answer? Clearly, the legislature needs to charge the Kentucky Office of Educational Accountability with examining this issue.

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47

Why did we fail to comply with federal reporting REQUIREMENTS for the certification pass rates for normal and alternative certification? Would the alternative program rates make the normal rates look bad? Can we loose federal money for non-compliance? The feds caught us on this one!

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60-61

This is a summary of the teacher qualification in high and low poverty districts. How can Kentucky possibly have a lower percentage of teachers on waivers (less than 0.5%) in high poverty districts? What is going on here? Compare to the similar data in the EdTrust report (which, of course, EdTrust is on record as not trusting!).