Your reflection should show how you are making sense of the readings and other resources, what you took away from the discussions in class, and how your own experiences influence w

https://doi.org/10.1177/00224871211015976

Journal of Teacher Education 1 –15 © 2021 American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/00224871211015976 journals.sagepub.com/home/jte

Research/Empirical

Introduction

Multiple preparation pathways have emerged since the 1980s, offering “alternatives” to traditional, university-based preparation. These pathways include faster routes to teacher licensure and immersive residency models that include full- year classroom apprenticeships. Despite the proliferation of these new pathways into preparation, we know little about how various routes of entry empirically differ. Indeed, prior studies point to finding more heterogeneity within rather than between pathways (i.e., Boyd et al., 2012; Grossman & Loeb, 2008); however, the labels “traditional,” “alternative,” and “residency” are commonly used to signal different types of preparation. For example, alternative routes tend to priori- tize learning teaching “on the job” (Humphrey & Wechsler, 2008) as a teacher of record and therefore have greatly expe- dited formal preparation, whereas residency models priori- tize learning to teach alongside an experienced mentor teacher for an entire preservice year in a PK-12 classroom setting (Guha et al., 2016). As these pathways claim to offer distinct forms of preparation, we need to understand whether, and how, this is the case.

In this study, we examine the preparation experiences reported by preservice student teachers (PSTs) across pathways

and programs serving Chicago Public Schools (CPS). With over 35 preparation programs (see Appendix A, available with the online version of this article), Chicago is home to four residency programs, three alternative certification programs, and over 28 traditional programs, comprising a diverse and rich preparation context in which to begin to investigate whether and how PSTs and their experiences differ between pathways.1 Obtaining a locally based, bird’s eye-view about preparation can inform potential PSTs about the pathway that might serve as the best match for their needs; it can also inform employers who may seek newly certified teachers with different forms of prepara- tion. The specific programs that make up this local landscape define each pathway route in Chicago-specific ways that may differ from similarly named routes in other contexts. For exam- ple, Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL) and Teach For America (TFA)-Chicago have the largest residency and

1015976 JTEXXX10.1177/00224871211015976Journal of Teacher EducationMatsko et al. research-article2021

1Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA 2University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

Corresponding Author: Kavita Kapadia Matsko, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA. Email: [email protected]

How Different Are They? Comparing Teacher Preparation Offered by Traditional, Alternative, and Residency Pathways

Kavita Kapadia Matsko1 , Matthew Ronfeldt2 , and Hillary Greene Nolan2

Abstract Nontraditional teacher preparation pathways were designed to offer different forms of preparation meant to attract different populations of teachers; however, prior literature suggests they may not provide as much of an alternative as initially intended. Drawing on surveys of nearly 800 preservice student teachers and their mentor teachers, we offer a descriptive overview comparing traditional, alternative, and residency pathways preparing teachers in Chicago Public Schools. Our study provides evidence that nontraditional forms of teacher preparation in Chicago do indeed provide unique routes of entry into the profession. We find substantive differences in the kinds of preparation that these pathways offer, including features of preparation such as program and student teaching duration and methods course load, which are often assumed to differ. We also find differences in features not historically studied including mentor characteristics and experiences, types of mentoring provided, and supports received by mentors.

Keywords teacher education preparation, teacher residency, alternative certification, mentoring

2 Journal of Teacher Education 00(0)

alternative programs in the area, respectively, and are similarly represented in our sample. Although results from our study can- not then be generalized beyond Chicago, they identify initial patterns in preparation that can be taken up and comparatively studied in other labor markets.

We seek to better understand the traditional, alterna- tive, and residency teaching pathways of PSTs in CPS. Specifically, we explore similarities and differences across pathways along three dimensions: (a) characteristics of the PSTs completing teacher preparation; (b) features of prepa- ration, with a particular focus on preservice mentoring; and (c) PSTs’ perceptions of their readiness to teach and career intentions.

Literature Review

Little empirical work has been done to determine the degree to which intended differences in nontraditional pathways are being actualized in candidates’ preparation experiences. In this review, we describe studies that focus on differences between pathways and the kinds of preparation offered; we also review studies examining differences in terms of PST outcomes. We use these studies to inform the features of preparation we include in our analysis.

Pathways that provide a fast-track to licensure are typi- cally referred to as “alternative” programs, as they provide an alternative to “traditional” approaches to preparation.2 The premise of alternative pathways in their earliest concep- tion was that by recruiting promising individuals, extended preservice preparation may not be necessary (Walsh & Jacobs, 2007, citing Klagoholz, 2000).3 Thus, these path- ways tend to be marked by abbreviated preparation and early entry as teacher of record (Humphrey & Wechsler, 2008; Stoddart & Floden, 1995).

Alternative routes have been fueled by the prospect of attracting a new population of prospective teachers into teaching (Grossman & Loeb, 2008; Stoddart & Floden, 1995; Zeichner & Hutchinson, 2008). By offering reduced tuition rates and fewer entry requirements, they are often designed to recruit prospective teachers of color (Villegas & Lucas, 2004), subject matter experts (Stoddart & Floden, 1995), and other academically talented individuals who may not have otherwise considered teaching (Darling-Hammond et al., 2005).4 In New York City, the strategy appeared to work— newly hired teachers from alternative pathways were more racially diverse, had stronger academic credentials, were more likely to teach in science and math, and work with mar- ginalized students (Boyd et al., 2008).

Because new recruits typically have strong subject matter expertise (Boyd et al., 2012; Grossman & Loeb, 2008; Stoddart & Floden, 1995) but lack training in instructional methods, alternative providers have emphasized learning while “on the job” in PK-12 classrooms. Although propo- nents of alternative pathways assert that they address teacher

shortages by providing a fast-track into classrooms, others have noted that high rates of turnover of alternatively pre- pared candidates are contributing to the shortage problem (Goldstein, 2014). The question of who enters nontraditional pathways and why is one that continues to be of interest, given nontraditional pathways’ tendency to work within par- ticular high-need districts to prepare teachers for particular contexts (Donaldson & Johnson, 2011; Matsko & Hammerness, 2014a; Matsko & Hammerness, 2014b).

Nearly one out of every five new public school teachers nationwide is prepared through an “alternative” certification pathway (McFarland et al., 2018). As of 2020, Teach For America has over 62,000 alumni and corps members across 50 U.S. regions, both urban and rural. At first glance, these statistics seem to suggest that the presence of alternative routes has reshaped the preparation landscape.

Yet, few studies that have examined the features of alter- native programs suggest they have had little impact on the kinds of preparation that PSTs experience. Existing large- scale evidence indicates that all routes of preparation are marked by a “lack of innovation” in which “most alternative route programs have become mirror images of traditional programs” (Boyd et al., 2008, p. 339). Based on a review of nearly 50 alternative route programs, Walsh and Jacobs (2007) come to a similar conclusion. Placing blame on schools of education for co-opting efforts of alternative route reforms, they conclude that today’s alternative programs have less selective candidates, are longer, require more coursework, and provide less intensive mentoring than the plans put forth by those who originally proposed these reforms.

One possible reason that prior studies have found that alter- native pathways are not truly different from traditional routes is because of their focused attention on narrow sets of variables such as number and types of course requirements and duration of student teaching.5 Ronfeldt et al. (2014), for example, used Schools and Staffing Survey data to demonstrate that alterna- tively prepared teachers reported significantly shorter practice teaching experiences but completed a statistically similar num- ber of methods-related courses. In our work, we go beyond stu- dent teaching duration to consider many characteristics of mentors and mentoring, for example.

While existing literature suggests that alternative path- ways provide preparation that is more traditional than ini- tially intended, it acknowledges that differences do exist. For example, Boyd and colleagues (2008) examined the number of course requirements across pathways and found that pro- spective teachers in traditional programs have more opportu- nities to consider learning and development and special education compared with nontraditional “early entry” pro- grams; by contrast, the latter offered more coursework opportunities related to classroom management. Here again, the identified differences tend to focus on the amount of coursework opportunities and less about preparation quality.

Matsko et al. 3

Another limitation of studies examining between-route differences in preparation is that they examine programs from over a decade ago. As a result, they do not consider more recent innovations in teacher preparation, including teacher residencies. Inspired by the medical model, residen- cies provide candidates with a yearlong, in-school “resi- dency” in which they learn to teach alongside a mentor, typically in a high-need classroom (Berry, 2005; Berry et al., 2008; Guha et al., 2016). Unlike most alternative pathways, residency pathways are designed to have extensive preser- vice clinical preparation—typically 4 days per week in a school over the course of an academic year—and often involve district partnerships to prepare for particular geo- graphic regions or context (Berry, 2005; Berry et al., 2008; Conklin et al., 2019; Gatti, 2014; Matsko & Hammerness, 2014; Solomon, 2009; Williamson et al., 2016).6

Given the surge of recent federal and philanthropic funding available to support residencies (Gatti, 2014), there are now over 50 residency programs nationwide, which range in size from five to 100 residents per year (Guha et al., 2016). Advocates argue that residency programs take the best of both the traditional and alternative route worlds—with a strong emphasis on recruitment paired with extensive clinical prepa- ration (Grossman & Loeb, 2008). Given their infancy, most residency studies are descriptive studies of single program (Matsko & Hammerness, 2014; Solomon, 2009; Williamson et al., 2016). More research is needed on this newer model of preparation, particularly in the form of comparative studies (Berry, 2005). Our study aims to address this gap.

Reformers behind nontraditional pathways proposed intensive mentoring as a key preparation feature. Alternative and residency programs often provide supports for their graduates in the form of early career mentoring and induc- tion, both during initial preparation and after becoming teachers of record (Grossman & Loeb, 2008; Guha et al., 2016; Humphrey et al., 2008). Walsh and Jacobs (2007), however, found that the mentoring occurring in most alterna- tive programs was not as intensive as expected; for example, mentor teachers (MTs) made weekly observations of candi- dates in only one third of alternative programs they studied. In contrast, mentoring is highly emphasized in residency pathways during preparation. One study of 30 teacher resi- dency programs found that mentors received an average of 37 hr of training (Perlstein et al., 2014). The present study examines differences in mentoring between pathways in greater depth.

Although only a few studies (described above) have com- pared pathways in terms of the kinds of preparation they offer, more studies have compared pathways in terms of average graduate outcomes, including feelings of prepared- ness to teach, achievement gains, and retention. To our knowledge, though, no prior study has compared across all three pathways, another contribution of our work.

In terms of alternative versus traditional route compari- sons, Darling-Hammond et al. (2002) found graduates from

traditional route programs felt better prepared in instruc- tional knowledge of curriculum and teaching strategies and had a greater sense of efficacy than alternatively prepared peers. Zientek (2007) had consistent findings. In contrast, only one longitudinal analysis reviewed failed to detect dif- ferences between traditionally and nontraditionally prepared kindergarten teachers in their self-reported instructional practices in mathematics (Guarino et al., 2006). When con- sidering teacher retention, studies generally suggest that tra- ditionally prepared teachers are retained at higher rates, though results are somewhat mixed (Garcia & Weiss, 2019; Grissom, 2008; Redding & Smith, 2016).7

Regarding comparisons in graduate outcomes between residency and traditional programs, studies consistently point to high retention rates of the former (Guha et al., 2016). Papay and colleagues’ (2012) examination of the Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) also found their graduates had sig- nificantly better rates of teacher retention than other new teachers. Additional findings from that study suggested that BTR residents were more racially diverse and more likely to teach math and science, though achievement results were mixed. Two additional studies which examine residency pathways in New York (Sloan & Blazevski, 2015) and Memphis (Silva et al., 2014) find graduates from residency programs to have stronger achievement gains.

Drawing from our review, we identify several dimensions of preparation to comprise a conceptual framework to under- gird our study. We begin by noting the importance of who enters the preparation process by capturing (a) PST charac- teristics, including race/ethnicity, gender, and grade point average (GPA). We then consider differences between path- ways in terms of (b) features of preparation such as number of courses and length of student teaching, and include a focus on preservice mentoring including mentor characteristics and mentoring strategies used during student teaching. Finally, we look at (c) PST’s self-reported outcomes for per- ceived teaching readiness and career intentions. We use these dimensions to descriptively compare traditional, alternative, and residency pathways within CPS. Specifically, we ask, what are similarities and differences across pathways in (a) PST characteristics, (b) program design and features of prep- aration, and (c) PSTs’ perceptions of their preparedness to teach and career intentions?

Method

Setting

This study takes place in CPS, which served 381,349 stu- dents in the 2015–2016 school year. The student body is pre- dominantly Latino (46.5%) and Black (37.7%), with White students making up 9.9% of students. CPS employs 19,822 teachers.8

Each year, approximately 1,000 PSTs enter student teach- ing in the Chicago area through nearly 40 colleges and

4 Journal of Teacher Education 00(0)

universities encompassing the multiple pathways that are our focus—traditional, alternative, and residency.9 This unique convergence of multiple pathways in a single market gives us a rare opportunity to begin to differentially understand, on average, the various preparation pathways that PSTs experi- ence and their impact on their preparation and career intentions.

Data

To answer our research questions, we surveyed PSTs who completed their student teaching in CPS during the 2015– 2016 school year and their MTs. We drew items from prior surveys10 where available and developed new questions about features with little prior evidence. We piloted the new items with student teachers and mentors in Chicago and other labor markets and asked for feedback about whether they captured the intended constructs, and then revised the items accordingly. See Appendix Tables 4 and 5 (available with the online version of this article) for reliability informa- tion regarding our focal measures.

PST surveys. We sent online surveys to PSTs after they com- pleted their student teaching, residency, or intensive summer institutes but before they became teachers of record. We administered surveys at three time points: fall 2015, spring 2016, and summer 2016. Surveys asked PSTs questions about their preparation, including coursework, prestudent teaching field experiences, field instructors, and reasons for choosing their programs. They also included items about mentoring experienced during student teaching,11 feelings of preparedness for teaching, and career plans, including inten- tions to teach in underserved schools. Survey completers were offered US$25 gift cards.

Mentor teacher surveys. Online surveys were sent to MTs who worked with at least one PST during the 2015–2016 academic year. Surveys asked MTs to assess aspects of their own mentoring, including their teaching and mentoring experience, training or compensation received, and self-per- ceived mentoring quality. MTs also responded to questions about PSTs’ performance during student teaching and sense of preparedness for aspects of teaching.12 Completers were also offered US$25 gift cards.

Sample

Appendix Tables 2 and 3 (available with the online version of this article) explain the maximum coverage for our ana- lytic sample of PSTs and MTs. We were able to identify the program and pathway for all spring and summer13 respon- dents and for 242 fall respondents, for a total of 767 PSTs— our analytic sample of PSTs.

To be included in this analysis, an MT needed to have both responded to a survey and mentored a PST who could

be linked to a program and pathway. Thus, 533 MTs were included in our analytic sample for models in which MT characteristics were the focus (see Appendix Table 4, avail- able with the online version of this article). We also con- firmed there were no significant differences in characteristics between MTs in our analytic sample and those excluded due to missing pathway identification (see Appendix 5, available with the online version of this article).

Measures

In this section, we describe the focal measures and features of preparation, including mentoring measures (Research Question 2) as well as measures of PSTs’ preparedness and career intentions (Research Question 3).

Features of teacher preparation. The features in our analyses represent a variety of “inputs” into the preparation that PSTs experience. They include features such as program length and amount of methods coursework, as well as features of student teaching and the mentoring PSTs receive (see Appen- dix Table 6, available with the online version of this article).

Mentoring measures. We surveyed MTs and PSTs in each pathway about the kinds and amount of mentoring provided/ received. Based on responses, we created several mentoring measures, including frequency of mentoring activities, kinds of feedback MTs provided, amounts and kinds of job help, what PSTs learned in conversations with their MTs about the domains of instruction, and PSTs’ perceptions of their MTs’ teaching effectiveness. All mentoring measures were created using Rasch14 methods (see Appendix Table 7, available with the online version of this article).

Perceptions of preparedness. A key outcome of our study was self-perceived preparedness to teach by the end of stu- dent teaching. Although self-reported, this provided us with the critical perspective of the student teacher. We asked PSTs questions about their preparedness to take on the responsibilities of teaching in four domains of instruc- tion aligned with CPS’s teacher evaluation system15: (a) planning and preparation, (b) instruction, (c) classroom environment, and (d) professional responsibilities. We also asked PSTs about how many opportunities to learn about each of these domains their programs offered, as well as the various types of supports they received in the field, particularly from their MTs. We submitted these survey items to Rasch analysis to create domain-level measures (see Appendix Tables 7 and 8, available with the online version of this article).

Career intentions. We asked PSTs how many years they planned to teach generally and in CPS specifically; for our main analyses, we created indicator variables for whether or not they planned more than 10 years. We also asked PSTs to

Matsko et al. 5

indicate their top-five desired characteristics of a future teaching position (see Appendix Table 9, available with the online version of this article). Among several options, we asked about PSTs’ preferences to teach low-income students, English Language Learners (ELLs), Latinx students, Black students, and low-achieving students.

Analytic Methods

We created a pathway designation (traditional, alternative, or residency) for each PST based on the first survey ques- tion the PSTs answered, which asked them which teacher eduction programs (TEPs) they completed in the 2015– 2016 academic year. Pathway decisions were based on a list of program designations approved by Illinois State Board of Education for the year in which the data were collected.

For almost all models, we modeled the data at the PST level because most PST responses were invariant even when PSTs were linked to multiple MTs (e.g., PST age, PST major). When PSTs could be linked to multiple MTs, we collapsed mentor information across PSTs. For continuous mentor measures, such as Rasch measures on their perceptions of mentoring, we averaged across the MTs a given PST had. For dichotomous measures, such as race and gender indicators, we counted whether a PST ever had at least one instance of each dummy; for example, a PST with more than one MT could be coded as having both a female and a male MT. For the set of outcomes called “Mentors and Mentoring Experiences,” we modeled the data at the MT level, because in these cases MT information was the same even if they had multiple PSTs (e.g., teaching experience, reasons for serving as MT, receiving mentoring professional devel- opment [PD]).

Research Question 1. Our study’s central focus is comparing differences in preparation, perceived preparedness, and career intentions as a function of pathway. However, given prior literature suggesting that different routes attract and recruit different kinds of PSTs, we first examined the extent to which PST background characteristics in Chicago varied significantly by pathway. Conceptually, we wanted to test whether there were statistically significant differences between pathways in terms of average PST characteristics. By using a multilevel regression framework with indicators for each pathway as predictors and PST characteristics (or program features for Research Question 2; see below) as out- comes, we are able to make these comparisons and test whether differences are unlikely to be due to chance while adjusting for the fact that PSTs enrolled in the same TEPs are not independent. Thus, we used multilevel regression models with PSTs nested in TEPs that took the following general form:

PST Characteristic Pathwayij j ijr e= + + +γ γ00 10 0 , (1)

where the characteristic for PST i in teacher preparation program j is a function of an intercept (γ00); pathway indica- tors for traditional, with nontraditional (alternative + resi- dency) as the reference group (Pathway); a TEP-level random effect r0j; and a PST-level residual eij. The PST characteristics included gender, race, whether a parent, whether a CPS graduate, having any prior teaching experi- ence (e.g., substitute), undergraduate major (education/not, subject teaching/not), and undergraduate GPA. In two addi- tional series of models, we included indicators for (a) alter- native as pathway, with nonalternative (traditional + residency) as reference, and (b) residency as pathway, with nonresidency (traditional + alternative) as reference. In separate model specifications, we nested PSTs in pathway instead of TEP; results were similar.

Research Question 2. Models related to Research Question 2 were similar to Equation 1, except features of preparation were substituted for PST characteristics as outcome measures. The features of preparation, which were outcomes for Research Question 2, consisted of program features (e.g., timing of coursework, length of program), features of student teaching (e.g., grade and subject), MT characteristics (e.g., whether a parent, years of experience), and PST and MT perceptions of mentoring (e.g., feedback frequency, job search assistance). See Appendix Table 6 (available with the online version of this article) for focal features of preparation.

Research Question 3. Models related to Research Question 3 were also similar to Equation 1, except we substituted PSTs’ self-perceptions of preparedness and career plans for PST characteristics as outcome measures. In terms of perceptions of preparedness, we considered preparation overall, as well as in each instructional domain. For career intentions, we considered plans to teach over 10 years generally, plans to teach over 10 years specifically in CPS, and whether one of PSTs’ top-five preferences for a future teaching position included working with marginalized student populations (low-income, ELL, Latino, Black, low-achieving).

Results

Research Question 1: What Are the Similarities and Differences in Preservice Teacher Characteristics Across Pathways?

We first investigated how PSTs varied by pathway in terms of their demographic and educational characteristics (see Table 1). Due to the multiple comparisons made throughout this article, we use a more conservative criterion for statisti- cal significance and focus on results at the p < .01 level.

6 Journal of Teacher Education 00(0)

As is true nationally, many Chicago-area student teachers in our sample are female and White. We found that the pro- portion of White PSTs in traditional programs was 61%, compared with 54% of PSTs in residency programs and 50% in alternative programs. Although not significant, these dif- ferences between pathways are consistent with one intended goal of nontraditional pathways—to attract more teachers of color. Compared with nontraditional pathways, traditional pathways had significantly fewer Black PSTs only 7%, com- pared with 18% of PSTs in alternative programs and 17% of PSTs in residency programs.16 We found no other significant differences across pathways by race/ethnicity or gender in our sample.

To determine other differences across pathways, we asked PSTs whether they had prior experience with children in a school or child care facility,17 finding that a significantly higher proportion of alternative and residency PSTs in our sample had prior teaching experience compared with tradi- tional pathway PSTs. Residency PSTs reported prior teach- ing experience at the greatest rate (48%) followed by alternative (42%), then traditional (21%).

We also asked PSTs to identify whether they were under- graduate education majors. Of all PSTs, 48% reported major- ing in education, and traditional PSTs were significantly more likely (59%) to have majored in education than their nontraditional peers (26% in residencies, 14% in alternative pathways). When asked to estimate their undergraduate GPA on a scale of 0.1 to 4.0, the average self-reported of our sam- ple of PSTs was 3.5; residency PSTs had significantly lower GPAs compared with traditional and alternative PSTs.

Finally, we asked PSTs to indicate the primary reason they chose their programs (see Appendix Table 9, available with the online version of this article). PSTs in all three </p

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