A Comparison Between First-Year Alternative Certified Teachers and First-Year Traditional Certified Teachers Based on Students\u27 Academic achievement: The Case of a High-Need Urban Southeast District in Virginia

Debate about teacher supply and demand has been renewed in recent years by an increased concern about the reduced numbers of students entering teacher education programs and the resulting teacher shortages. Thus, American schools are experiencing teacher shortages, especially in low-income urban areas, because of increased school enrollment, teacher retirement, reduction of class size, teacher attrition, and turnover related to low salaries, job dissatisfaction, lack of administrative support and influence over decision-making. Recently, the increased interest in teacher quality has been the topic of debate for educational policy makers, and many researchers have focused on teacher certification. The purpose of this study is to determine if the Transition to Teaching (T2T) program in Virginia is a viable way to ease the teacher shortages in a midsize high-need urban school system, and at the same time, to evaluate its impact on students\u27 academic achievement. The results of this study provide evidence that the students taught by first year T2T teachers achieve as well as or better than their peers taught by traditionally licensed first year teachers according to the mathematics Algebra I test scores