New Approaches to Teacher Certification: Passport to Teaching

Publications

Alternative routes to teaching have been promoted during the past decade because of concerns about teacher shortages and quality. Education policymakers have long sought to establish teaching standards and measure new and continuing teachers against these standards, but existing methods for certifying teachers have been criticized for being either so onerous as to deter good candidates or so lax as to keep weak teachers in the profession. To provide another approach, the U.S. Department of Education funded the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE) to develop portable teacher credentials that would identify qualified beginning teachers and recognize accomplished veterans.

To help inform the debate, Mathematica is evaluating Passport to Teaching, ABCTE's new approach to alternative teacher certification. Our first two reports in 2006 presented an early look at participants and plans for the remainder of the study and principals' reports on the Passport teachers and the credential in general. The first report focused on the 109 candidates who received a Passport to Teaching certificate in the program's first year. The second report provided early evidence on the performance of American Board-certified teachers based on a survey of their supervisors. Administrators gave a generally positive assessment of the teachers and a cautious assessment of the program that certified them.

The latest report offers evidence on the experiences of Passport holders after they obtain the credential. Mathematica’s survey of more than 500 Passport holders reveals that 6 out of 10 were teaching K-12 in the U.S., 71 percent of whom were in public schools, and 20 percent in Title I schools. The average attrition rate of Passport teachers was 14 percent, including teachers who had left a position within 1, 2, or 3 years of obtaining the credential. Passport holders were concentrated in schools whose states were early adopters of the credential—principally Idaho and Florida—but are beginning to appear in several other states around the country.

Publications

"Passport to Teaching: Career Choices and Experiences of American Board Certified Teachers" (June 2008)
"School Principals’ Perspectives on the Passport to Teaching" (June 2006)
"An Evaluation of American Board Teacher Certification: Progress and Plans" (May 2006)

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