Volume 2 - Issue 1 - DBU Journal of K-12 Educational Research - Page 69

Journal of K-12 Educational Research 67 THE EFFECTS OF CERTIFICATION PATHWAY ON BEGINNING TEACHER PREPAREDNESS Pamela Kelly Linton, Ed.D. Journal of K-12 Educational Research 2018, VOL. 2, ISSUE 1 www.dbu.edu/doctoral/edd Studies suggest that teacher quality and effectiveness impact stu - dent achievement more significantly than other educational vari - ables such as school characteristics (Lauer, Dean, Martin-Glenn, & Ascensio, 2005; Nye, Konstantopoulos, & Hedges, 2004). According to the National Commission on Teaching and Ameri - ca’s Future (1996), teachers’ knowledge and ability significantly impact what students learn. Darling-Hammond (2000) echoed this sentiment when commenting on the importance of the scope and quality of teacher education in relation to teachers’ effective - ness. Former U.S. Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, wrote: …new teachers must be equipped with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to teach to high standards and to be effective with the increasingly diverse array of students in today’s classrooms…. In short, the challenge to the profession is to prepare and retain greater numbers of high-quality teachers. (U.S. Department of Education, 2004, p. 1) Hence, an imperative for students remains the employment of well-trained, fully equipped teachers. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) projects that public schools across the United States will need a total of 3,694,000 teachers for the fall of 2021. Of that number, 384,000 will be new hires with beginning educators comprising a significant portion of all newly-hired teachers (Hussar & Bailey, 2011). NCES (2013) anticipates that Texas will experience a 13.4% increase in public school enrollment from 2011 to 2023. As evidence of this trend, the number of Texas public school students grew to 5,215,282 during the 2014-15 academic year (TEA Performance Reporting Division, 2015). Such continued growth within a large state will demand a vast supply of teachers, and, if the trend continues, 8% of those teachers will have no teaching experience, with that percentage being closer to 10% in larger urban regions (TEA Division of Performance Reporting, 2014). These teachers will be expected to meet all standards of the Texas Administrative Code despite their limited experience (Commissioner’s Rules Concern - ing Educator Standards, 2013). Consequently, educator preparation represents a critical com - ponent in the development of a successful teacher and the teach- er’s path to accomplishing the standards as set by the state. The ultimate goal of student achievement, the breadth of the present accountability system, and the aforementioned teacher standards require school districts to engage in purposeful, educator selec- tion endeavors to hire prepared educators to meet students’ needs. With the advent and proliferation of alternative certification programs as state-approved routes to teaching, vigorous debate continues about the type of program—traditional or alternative— that produces the most prepared beginning teachers. Nationally, traditional preparation programs continue to account for the vast majority, 70%, of the 26,589 teacher educa - tion programs. Texas offered 3,602 of the 8,075 unique alter - native programs, and it produced 48% of the nation’s program completers from alternative certification programs not based at institutions of higher education (IHE) and 16% of those based at an IHE (U.S. Department of Education [USDE], 2015). Texas has a considerable proliferation of and reliance upon alternative programs as a means of preparing and certifying teachers. Hence, the current study focused broadly on the state of Texas, with an emphasis on a single district. From the 2012-13 school year to 2013-14, enrollment in Texas public schools increased by over 76,000 students to 5.15