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at The Chicago Public Education Fund
Mike Sanders, Development/Communications Director
(312) 558-4520

Chicago Tribune, May 26, 2004

Wanted: Good teachers
Chicago Tribune editorial

Two strategies can do more to enhance a child's learning than anything else:

1. Improve teaching.

2. Improve parenting

The Chicago Public Schools system has been quietly but steadily doing something about improving teacher quality by increasing the number of teachers who are hired into the system through alternative certification programs.

Alternative certification is a fancy way of saying that these teachers come in through a different route. Often they are people in mid-career who simply decide they would rather serve as teachers. Many are bankers, accountants, engineers, saleswomen, lawyers and scientists. They have life experience and they've developed an expertise in their field. Now they want to teach.

Traditionally, the state has made that as difficult as possible for anyone who didn't have a couple of years to stop everything and sit in university classrooms learning theory.

The growing number of alternative certification programs makes it easier, more affordable and faster to make that transition into teaching.

And because alternative certification candidates tend to be older and more mature, and hail from rigorous programs that provide critical support and mentoring even after they've been plunked into a public classroom and given a box of chalk, they tend to stick around longer. Because of layoffs and school deficits, the once ballyhooed teacher shortage hasn't materialized as predicted, but pursuing higher retention rates is one way to keep both teachers, stability and experience in the classroom.

"They're a different caliber of people: smarter, more mature, more committed and more in it for the long haul," said Chicago Public Schools Chief Arne Duncan.

There has been a lot of talk this week about layoffs in the Chicago school system. Almost lost is that Duncan expects to hire some 1,500 new teachers this coming year, and that he expects fully one-third of them will come in through alternative certification programs. Half of the new math teachers will likely come in through alternative programs.

Chicago has increased the number of teachers coming in through alternative certification from 140 in 2000 to 486 in 2004. This was done by developing relationships between the Chicago Public Schools system and various groups that fund and develop innovative programs, from the Chicago Public Education Fund to the Academy for Urban School Leadership to the Golden Apple Foundation to Teach for America.

So far, schools outside of Chicago haven't been as aggressive in forging these same kinds of relationships and encouraging teachers through alternative certification. That's too bad for the schools, and, mostly, too bad for the children.

Access this story at Chicago Tribune online:
www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0405260322may26,1,6229189.story

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