Tortuous routes: in California, alternative certification has become a crucial source of new teachers. It would be even more crucial if its cumbersome requirements didn't dissuade so many promising candidates

Education Next, Spring, 2002 by David Ruenzel

THE URBAN SCHOOL DISTRICTS OF CALIFORNIA HAVE a well-publicized shortage of teachers. So they're eager to move well-qualified candidates into the classroom, right? Not always. Nontraditional candidates--namely recent college graduates and career changers who haven't attended a standard teacher-preparation program--often encounter serious roadblocks, even with the state's full endorsement of alternative certification programs that allow candidates to start teaching while working toward their certification requirements.

Take Eddie Wexler. Just a few credits and a dissertation short of receiving his doctorate in education policy at the University of California at Berkeley, he abandoned his graduate work in order to become a high-school history teacher in the Oakland Public Schools. He figured that his substantial coursework in education and his experience as an assistant teacher in a Montessori school, as a school psychologist intern at a low income urban school, and as an instructor at Berkeley would make him a viable candidate.

In late February of 1998, Wexler arrived at the offices of Oakland Unified with his transcript, three letters of recommendation, and his fingerprinting clearance from the county. At the time, Oakland claimed to have such difficulty finding qualified candidates that 16 percent of its teachers were working on emergency permits and waivers, In California, these are teachers with, at best, a bachelor's degree and a passing score on the CBEST, the state's minimum competency test for teaching candidates. Yet the district was indifferent to Wexler's inquiries.

Wexler later passed the challenging Praxis exam in history, which virtually all nontraditional candidates must pass in order to receive a preliminary credential. Fewer than half of all candidates pass on their first try. Before receiving his results, he called a dozen school districts in the San Francisco Bay area, many suffering from shortages in all areas. The only one to respond was in Contra Costa County, northeast of Berkeley. In April he began working there as a substitute teacher, District officials told him that he needed to enroll in a state-approved teacher-preparation program, which he would eventually have to complete, in order to have a chance of teaching full time in the fall on an emergency permit. Wexler protested, saying that many of the courses such programs required closely matched the very rigorous ones he had already taken at Berkeley. But the district, like all of the districts he contacted, said that it didn't matter; the course titles and numbers didn't match, and that was that.

Wexler finally enrolled in a 12-week education course at a private college--at a cost of $800--as a way of demonstrating his commitment, There he learned such things as the importance of taking your grade book with you while evacuating during a fire drill. Meanwhile, the district in which he was subbing simply told him to keep checking back, By August, he had not yet received a single phone call from an interested district.

Wexler's luck changed only when, on the advice of another teacher, he skirted the district bureaucracy and began to call principals directly. He also placed his calls the week before classes were to begin, the best time to seek a job as an emergency credentialed teacher. He finally hit pay dirt when he reached the principal of a high school in Richmond, a gritty city in Contra Costa County girded by oil refineries, She asked Wexler if he could be at the school in half an hour for an interview. "We met for thirty minutes, during which I spoke for about two minutes," Wexler recalls. "1 was then hired on the spot on an emergency permit. I was so lucky to be at the right place at the right time."

Three years later, Wexler chairs the history department, coaches the debate team, serves as a mentor teacher, and is now, relatively speaking, a savvy veteran in a school where 38 our of 55 teachers left last year.

Wexler just received his preliminary credential, which required that he pass a test on the U.S. Constitution (required of all California public school teachers) and complete more coursework (taken at San Francisco State) in addition to the CBEST and subject-matter tests. The preliminary credential is valid for five years, during which he must work toward a "clear" credential. This requires that he complete a computer-education course, a special-education course, a course for CPR certification, and additional professional coursework.

Reflecting on his job search, Wexler expresses amusement at his naivete. "I had given myself six months to find a job, which I thought was plenty of time. I mean, all I had been hearing about is this terrible teacher shortage. Well, there is a terrible teacher shortage, but it's exacerbated by policies and paperwork that undermine the ability of good candidates to get a job in high-need schools."

Wexler acknowledges that he could have applied to one of California's many university- or school district-based alternative certification programs, but he didn't think that the path to a credential would have been much easier, He still would have had to sit through hundreds of hours of coursework and workshops, most of which he felt were redundant in light of his background. The fact is that the routes of most alternatively certified teachers have been larded with almost as many superfluous, cumbersome, and costly requirements as traditionally certified teachers face, All for the privilege of earning a fraction of their former salaries, some of which they will then use to purchase the classroom supplies (basics like chalk, paper, and books) that districts often fail to provide.