The teachers may teach for three years without extra coursework but are required eventually to complete a master's degree in education. States are experimenting with how to help vocational educators get those extra education hours. Teachers in Pennsylvania can earn them by taking courses at regional professional-development centers instead of universities. Vermont has brought in a Waco, Texas-based firm, the Center for Occupational Research and Development Inc., to provide workshops for vocational educators in how to weave academics into the teaching of vocational skills. Alaska and North Carolina, meanwhile, are looking into how to train vocational educators on-line.
Some administrators view provisional certifications as a positive move for vocational education.
Robert O. Brems, an associate state superintendent and the director of applied-technology education in Utah, said hiring people directly from industry is working well in his state. Even administrators who expressed concern that vocational educators are being hired without teaching credentials said their field is little understood by people who set requirements for teacher certification. Policymakers seem more interested that a construction teacher take language arts or foreign-language courses than that he or she take more relevant courses on integrating academics into the classroom, Mr. Peters added. To get around Oklahoma's formal requirements, vocational educators are opting instead for the state's provisional-certification process, which doesn't place enough emphasis on teaching methods, Ann Benson, the assistant state director of vocational education, added in an interview. Under the provisional requirements, candidates must merely pass a test in the content area for which they have a degree.