Pathways to a Profession: An Introduction to the Yearbook

Abstract

The need for large numbers of individuals who can serve as effective teachers for the nation's young people has generated continuing interest in the recruitment, preparation, and retention of talented teachers for the past half-century, particularly since the civil rights and women's rights revolutions opened a wide range of career opportunities to many for whom teaching was historically one of the few fields available. Among the policy options under development in recent decades have been alternative routes into teaching, typically preparation experiences that differ in form and/or format from the established college-based certification programs. In this Teachers College Record Yearbook, we present the results of a longitudinal examination of one early alternative route program developed by the state of New Jersey. The New Jersey Provisional Teacher Program (or Alternate Route) is of particular interest both because it was the first of a generation of such programs created by various states in the final years of the 20th century and because its creation surfaced a range of issues and tensions that all the programs following in its wake have experienced.