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Impact on Secondary Student Math Achievement of Highly Selective Routes to Alternative Certification

Many schools across the nation face a chronic shortage of qualified teachers—especially math teachers—prompting states to pursue new ways to fill teaching slots quickly. For example, 47 states have established “alternative” routes to certification that allow teachers to begin teaching before they complete all required training. A rising number of teachers are entering the profession in this way.

Although many alternative certification programs are not very selective, a few are highly selective, rejecting many or even most of their applicants. The number of new teachers entering teaching through these highly selective alternative certification programs has grown quickly since the founding of Teach For America (TFA), the first such program, in 1990.

But despite these developments, policymakers and educators lack rigorous research evidence about the impact of teachers trained through highly selective routes to alternative certification (HSAC) programs on student achievement. For the U.S. Department of Education, Mathematica is conducting an experimental study to fill this knowledge gap. This study focuses on secondary math teachers from the two largest and most well-known HSAC programs, TFA and The New Teacher Project (TNTP). These HSAC teachers are being compared to teachers who entered teaching through (1) traditional certification routes, and (2) less selective alternative certification routes.

At the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year, Mathematica is randomly assigning students to a math class taught by a HSAC teacher (the treatment group) or to an equivalent math class taught by a non-HSAC teacher (the control group). The team is comparing average student math test scores between the treatment and control group classrooms at the end of the school year. We are also administering teacher surveys to obtain information on demographic characteristics, education, and work history of teachers, and interviewing administrators of programs.

Besides estimating overall impacts, we are also estimating impacts for several key subgroups, defined by highly selective alternative certification programs (TFA or TNTP), grade level, and teacher experience level. To investigate whether the HSAC and non-HSAC teachers differ in math content knowledge, we will also administer math assessments to teachers at the beginning of the school year.