Provisional certification has been used in vocational education to relieve a shortage of occupational skills teachers. Using an alternative certification system in other areas should be preceded by careful analysis of the experiences of vocational education and research into the effects of nontraditional teachers on the school and classroom…

California's Teacher Trainee Certification Program places responsibility for preparation of teacher trainees on local school districts with collaboration from institutions of higher education. The Professional Development Plan is reviewed and implications of alternative certification are developed. (MT)

This article reports on a survey of chief state school officers which assessed state policies that influence the quality of teachers and teaching. Twenty-one recommendations to help guide state educational policy and strengthen teacher preparation are discussed. (DF)

Traces developments following warnings that tests used for teacher education admission or licensure may prevent capable African Americans from entering teaching, using elementary student teachers' evaluations and test scores to examine the possible impact on newly licensed teachers' effectiveness if passing cutoff scores were raised by one point.…

Traditional remedies for attracting competent people to teaching will probably fail. Along with the usual recruitment of career teachers, the field should attempt to recruit undergraduates in the liberal arts and sciences whose long-term career goals are undecided, thus forming a domestic educational peace corps composed of short-term teachers.…

This article describes a lateral entry certification program (LEP) which prepared 13 new math and science teachers for rural North Carolina schools. It also presents findings which indicate that LEP participants are as competent in school classrooms and as successful on National Teacher Examinations as traditionally prepared students. (IAH)