U.S. Department of Education

Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development

Policy and Program Studies Service

Results in Brief:

Highly Qualified Teachers Enrolled in Programs Providing

Alternative Routes to Teacher Certification or Licensure

June 2015

Alternative pathways to teacher certification, which typically allow candidates to serve as teachers of record in a classroom while 

they complete their coursework for full state certification or licensure, are intended to expand the pool of potential teachers and 

enable a more diverse array of people to enter the teaching profession. Teachers who are enrolled in alternative route programs

may, if the programs have certain minimum elements, meet the certification requirements to be considered a highly qualified 

teacher (HQT) under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Some 

policymakers have raised concerns that teachers enrolled in alternative route programs may be disproportionately assigned to teach 

students with greater needs. At the same time, because one purpose of alternative route programs is to recruit teachers to fill 

critical shortage areas in hard-to-staff schools and subjects, it may not be surprising if high-need schools have above-average

percentages of such teachers. To better understand this issue, Congress asked the U.S. Department of Education to provide data on 

the extent to which students with disabilities, English learners, students in rural areas, and students from low-income families are 

taught by teachers currently enrolled in alternative route programs and classified as “highly qualified” under ESEA. In response to 

the request from Congress, this report examines data for the 2013–14 school year reported by 49 states and jurisdictions.

STUDY QUESTIONS 

1. What percentage of highly qualified teachers are enrolled 

in alternative route programs, overall and for special 

education teachers, Title III teachers, teachers in highpoverty school districts, and teachers in rural school 

districts?

2. How many states and districts have highly qualified 

teachers enrolled in alternative route programs? How 

many have relatively high percentages of such teachers?

3. How does the percentage of highly qualified teachers

enrolled in alternative route programs vary across 

districts? Are they more prevalent in high-poverty districts 

or rural districts?

STUDY DESIGN 

This study analyzed district- and state-level data reported to 

the Department by states through a new data collection on 

the numbers of full-time equivalent (FTE) highly qualified 

teachers who were enrolled in alternative route programs for 

three groups of teachers: (1) all teachers, (2) special 

education teachers, and (3) teachers in language instruction 

educational programs for English learners (ELs) under Title III 

of the ESEA (Title III teachers). States were asked to report 

these data because the Department determined that most 

states did not have the capacity to report data on the 

numbers of students taught by various types of highly 

qualified teachers.

To supplement state-reported data, the Department 

calculated estimates for high-poverty districts and rural 

districts by incorporating district-level classifications from 

extant data sources.

Highlights

• While most states employed some HQTs who were 

enrolled in alternative route teacher preparation 

programs, these teachers made up a small proportion of 

total HQTs, both overall as well as for the four subgroups 

of HQTs examined in this study.

• Overall, across 48 states and the District of Columbia, 

1.5 percent of HQTs were enrolled in alternative route 

programs. The average percentage of HQTs enrolled in 

alternative route programs was 1.9 percent for special 

education teachers, 1.3 percent for Title III teachers, 

2.3 percent for high-poverty school districts, and 

1.3 percent for rural school districts. 

• A majority of the responding states reported that less 

than 1 percent of all HQTs were enrolled in alternative 

route programs. Four states reported that none of their 

HQTs were in alternative route programs, while 12 states 

had one or more HQT subgroups in which 4 percent or 

more were enrolled in alternative route programs.

• Most LEAs had no HQTs enrolled in alternative route 

programs. In the LEAs that did have such teachers, most 

had fewer than five such teachers, and they usually 

accounted for less than 4 percent of all HQTs in the LEA.

• High-poverty school districts had higher percentages of 

HQTs enrolled in alternative route programs (2.3 percent), 

on average, than districts with low poverty rates (1.0 

percent).

• Across all rural school districts, there was a lower 

percentage of HQTs enrolled in alternative route 

programs than in all urban districts (1.3 percent vs. 2.2 

percent, respectively).
KEY FINDINGS

States reported that a small percentage of HQTs were 

enrolled in alternative route programs, for all HQTs and for 

the subgroups examined in this study.

Table 1. Percentage of highly qualified teachers who 

were enrolled in alternative route programs

Type of teacher or LEA Mean Median

All HQTs 1.5 0.9

Special education HQTs 1.9 0.6

Title III HQTs 1.3 0.0

High-poverty LEAs 2.3 1.1

Rural LEAs 1.3 0.7

A majority of the responding states and jurisdictions (30 out 

of 49) reported that less than 1 percent of all HQTs were 

enrolled in alternative route programs. The same was true for 

special education HQTs (25 states), Title III HQTs (27 states),

and HQTs in rural areas (31 states). Twenty-one out of 49

states reported that less than 1 percent of all HQTs were 

enrolled in alternative route programs in high-poverty LEAs.

Four states reported that none of their HQTs were enrolled in 

alternative route programs (Connecticut, Massachusetts, 

Minnesota, and Wyoming). 

Table 2. Number of states by percentage of highly qualified 

teachers who were enrolled in alternative route programs

Type of teacher or LEA Zero >0 to <1% 1 to <4%

4% or 

more

All HQTs 4 26 15 4

Special education HQTs 15 10 16 7

Title III HQTs 22 5 8 3

High-poverty LEAs 4 17 18 8

Rural LEAs 9 22 14 2

Although most states had relatively low percentages of HQTs 

enrolled in alternative route programs, 12 states reported 

that one or more subgroups of teachers examined in the

report had 4 percent or more of HQTs enrolled in alternative 

route programs.

The state with the highest percentages of HQTs enrolled in 

alternative route programs varied by the type of teacher and 

LEA. For all LEAs, the highest percentage was in the District of 

Columbia (5.5 percent). For the four HQT subgroups, the 

highest percentages were: special education HQTs, 10.7 

percent in New Mexico; Title III HQTs, 8.9 percent in New 

Jersey; HQTs in high-poverty LEAs, 8.2 percent in Alabama; 

and HQTs in rural LEAs, 4.5 percent in Alabama and Texas.

Across all LEAs, the average percentage of HQTs enrolled in 

alternative route programs in districts in the highest poverty 

quartile was 2.3 percent, compared with 1.0 percent in the 

lowest poverty quartile.

Across rural LEAs, the average percentage of HQTs enrolled in 

alternative route programs was 1.3 percent; in comparison, 

the percentage was 2.2 percent in urban LEAs, 1.5 percent in 

town districts, and 1.1 percent in suburban districts. 

As with state-level findings, most LEAs (71 percent) had no 

HQTs enrolled in alternative route programs. Among LEAs 

that did have such teachers, they usually accounted for less

than 4 percent of all HQTs (see Table 3), and most (75 

percent) had fewer than five such teachers.

Table 3. Percentage of LEAs by percentage of highly qualified 

teachers who were enrolled in alternative route programs

Type of teacher or LEA Zero >0 to <1% 1 to <4%

4% or 

more

All HQTs 71 7 12 11

Special education HQTs 93 <0.5 2 5

Title III HQTs 99 <0.5 <0.5 1

High-poverty LEAs 67 6 15 13

Rural LEAs 77 3 10 10

STUDY LIMITATIONS

States and districts are not required to maintain and report 

statewide or districtwide data on the characteristics and 

credentials of all teachers. Since states had not reported 

these data to the Department previously and many states did 

not have data systems that tracked teacher highly qualified 

status linked with certification status, the Department 

permitted states to use alternative definitions and methods if 

they said they were unable to report the required data. 

The data used in this report have several limitations.

Non-reporting states: Two states and two jurisdictions did 

not submit data for this data collection ― Mississippi, 

Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, and the Bureau of Indian 

Education. Based on state-reported data submitted to the 

Office of Postsecondary Education, these entities accounted 

for 6 percent of the nation’s teachers and 5 percent of all 

teachers enrolled in alternative route programs.

Missing data: Five of the responding states explicitly reported 

missing some data on HQTs enrolled in alternative route 

programs, and it is possible that other states or LEAs may 

have reported zeros or blanks in cases where they did not 

have information on HQTs enrolled in alternative route 

programs.

Differing definitions: Nebraska, New Hampshire, and Texas

reported teacher headcounts instead of FTEs, and Nevada 

reported classes taught by HQTs. Additionally, Montana and 

Nevada reported data for 2012–13, and Texas reported data 

for 2014–15.

Limited data on Title III HQTs: Only 16 states reported having 

Title III HQTs enrolled in alternative route programs and over 

three-fourths of such Title III HQTs were in just four of those 

states (Florida, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Tennessee). As 

a result, the data presented in this report for Title III HQTs 

enrolled in alternative route programs should be viewed with 

caution as they largely represent patterns in four states. 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The complete report is available online at 

www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/opepd/ppss/reports.html.