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Purpose: This paper describes the rationale and key aspects of how one school-university partnership leveraged resources to create, implement and refine an innovative professional pathway called the Early Childhood Certificate (ECC) program which reflects the National Professional Development Schools (NAPDS) Essential Guideline 4: Reflection and Innovation. The ECC program is an innovative, career-building model that leverages resources between a predominantly white regional state university, a nonprofit organization serving as a Head Start grantee, a large urban school district and community-based education settings across a Midwestern metropolitan region. Design/methodology/approach: This descriptive narrative documents how the ECC program developed as a professional pathway for early childhood educators to scale up their skills for teaching young children while strengthening their capacities and credentials within the early childhood education (ECE) profession pipeline. The narrative includes relevant literature and examples from the field. Findings: This paper includes a discussion of the benefits and challenges related to the design, implementation and refinement of the professional learning ECC program. Research limitations/implications: This is a descriptive narrative. As such, generalizability is lacking. Research is needed to determine the effectiveness and sustainability of innovative teacher education programs. Practical implications: Relevant research and lessons learned provide guidance for other school-university partnerships to consider how to meet workforce and career needs for educators in the field of ECE. Social implications: School-university partnerships can be change agents and positively impact early childhood educators' career development. Originality/value: This paper addresses the need for understanding how predominantly white early childhood teacher education programs can partner with schools and agencies and then together leverage resources to support workforce and career development opportunities.

This article brings together a number of key issues that emerge in research around the problem of teacher shortages in hard-to-staff schools. It offers a broad overview of the hard-to-staff schooling sector as discussed in recent academic literature and provides a context-specific overview of the literature around workforce shortages in hard-to-staff schools with relevancy for high poverty contexts. In line with Williams et al. (2022) position on "Local Strategies, Global Inspiration," this paper focuses on the problem of teacher shortages in hard-to-staff schools in Australia while looking to both Australian and broader Anglosphere literature (p. 120) to reconsider responses to teacher recruitment and retention. The paper begins with a survey of the current state of this issue of workforce shortages in hard-to-staff schools in Australia. Turning our attention to literature from both Australia and Anglosphere countries, the summary then focuses on the specific initiatives and mechanisms employed for recruiting and retaining teachers in hard-to-staff schools, particularly the organisational contributions of Initial Teacher Education that support recruitment into hard-to-staff schools. The article concludes by highlighting limitations and critiques of hard-to-staff initiatives in the literature to inform policy and organisational considerations when addressing the issue of teacher shortages going forward.

Teach For America (TFA) has left an indelible mark on education in the United States and worldwide through its expansion via Teach For All. A considerable body of research examines the impact and experiences of teachers who enter the profession via TFA and related organizations, including the ways in which they embody controversial policies and new forms of teacher expertise and professionalism. Scant research, however, has examined the experiences of non-TFA teachers who work alongside them. This instrumental case study draws on interviews with nine non-TFA teachers working in traditional public schools to explore their experiences of interacting with TFA teachers at their schools. The findings focus on the perceived inexperience of TFA teachers as well as the labor expended by non-TFA teachers in support of these novice teachers. The paper also examines experiences of TFA teacher attrition and its impact on other teachers, students, and staff at the schools. The paper concludes by discussing the significance of this study and related research across individual, institutional, and broader structural levels.

In an effort to understand the impact of the international education network, Teach for All, this paper focuses on one Teach For All affiliate program, Ako Matatupu/TFNZ (AM/TFNZ), to consider how Teach For All and its affiliates are reshaping notions of teacher expertise and professionalism as it defines itself in contrast to university-based teacher education. In an effort to understand the impact of the international education network, Teach for All, this paper focuses on one Teach For All affiliate program, Ako Matatupu/TFNZ (AM/TFNZ), to consider how Teach For All and its affiliates are reshaping notions of teacher expertise and professionalism as it defines itself in contrast to university-based teacher education.

Accountability-era reforms have promulgated a discourse of crisis and a looming threat for public schools. While these threats negatively affect all, this paper focuses on how schools' responses to these threats shape novice Teach for America Corp Members' (CM) socialization. By analyzing nearly 6,000 daily reflections from 38 CMs about their experiences during a high-stakes cheating scandal, we argue that schools' responses indicated a threat rigidity response that allowed what we call the mesosystem of transgressions to occur. Our implications present ways to (a) mitigate threats inflicted on schools through unjust policies and practices and (b) enact equitable public schools.

What happens when Initial Teacher Education shifts focus from preparing teachers as change agents to focusing on fast-tracking candidates into the profession? In this paper, we focus on the implications of the accelerated push in teacher education for key social justice and transformative aims of preparing critically reflective, culturally responsive teachers. We tease out what these emerging priorities mean for work of capacity-building for equity, diversity and social justice in teaching and teacher education. We unpack how alternative teacher education programmes that prioritise "employment" present both caveats and opportunities in this regard. We conclude by suggesting ways to harness existing challenges in the service of closer alliances between teacher educators, school staff, members of communities and the education departments for preparing a teaching workforce capable of responding to the needs of their students.

This paper explores the experiences of practicing bilingual (English/Spanish, English/Portuguese, and English/Haitian Creole) and English as a Second Language teachers after completing a Bilingual Bicultural Education Certification program. It highlights how teachers defined success when working with their emergent bilingual students and names the barriers that teachers identified as preventing them from success. Using a Systems Theory for Career Development framework, analysis indicated that, from teachers' perspectives, elements that contributed to success were often framed as the result of interpersonal and social factors while major barriers to success were often described as resulting from environmental and, to a lesser degree, social factors. Implications for teacher education and professional development are provided.

Recruiting high-quality teachers is critical in supporting the delivery of an effective education experience for learners in schools. This paper examines how a new flexible two-year postgraduate teaching qualification is contributing to addressing the challenges of teacher recruitment in Wales. There is a shortage of teachers able to teach mathematics and science. It is also challenging to recruit Welsh-medium teachers, teachers from minority ethnic backgrounds and to fill vacancies in rural schools. To widen access to teacher education and diversify the teaching workforce, individuals with an appropriate undergraduate degree are offered the opportunity to train to teach via a flexible blended distance learning route, which is either part time or salaried. Early indications show that the flexibility of the programme has attracted career changers, who bring important transferable skills to their teaching practice. Although this is a relatively small-scale case study, it is apparent that offering a more flexible opportunity to those wishing to train to teach is of benefit to individuals, schools and the wider education system.

Teacher residencies have been an ongoing discussion in the educator preparation world for nearly a decade. This paper describes a promising practice in program design at a university that offers alternative pathways to licensure to meet the demands of school districts, especially in economically disadvantaged communities in one region of the United States. The one-year residency model was developed to address the teacher shortage in a state with growing teacher attrition. Aligned with recent legislation that created a residency license, a traditional educator preparation program examined its strengths and incorporated the most critical needs for novice teacher success to offer a one-year teacher residency as an alternative pathway. The residency model was co-constructed with school district personnel and teacher education faculty to focus on the most critical dimensions of teaching that include planning, instruction, and assessment. After one year, the feedback from school district personnel included high favor for readiness to teach. Residency candidates reported increased self-efficacy. The residency program has implications for future research and potential replication at other institutions of higher education.

In New York City, a partnership between Teach For America (TFA), the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE), the Relay Graduate School of Education (Relay), and three charter school networks produced a "parallel education structure" within the public school system. Driving the partnership and the parallel education structure are the free market ideologies that emerged in the late 1970s that helped to open education to outside organizations. This paper captures two intertwined phenomena; the formation of the parallel education structure and the various partnerships that helped build it. This has resulted in two unique pathways within the public school system. One pathway focuses upon local area conventional public schools that are administered by the NYCDOE. The other pathway represents failing local area public schools that are run by charter school networks. This paper looks "beyond" TFA's current influence within the classroom and explores how market forces led to its role with other educational organizations.

In recent years, alternative teacher preparation programmes are globally emerging to address teacher quality in 'hard-to-staff' schools. These programmes commonly attract graduates from prestigious universities to teach in disadvantaged schools for two years. One programme of this kind in China is the 'Exceptional Graduates as Rural Teachers' (EGRT). In this paper, we repurpose Bourdieu's sociology to understand the power shift and social change through EGRT fellows' position-(re)takings in subjective and objective crisis during their EGRT service term. Interviews with 16 EGRT participants reveal two themes: (1) In the initial stage of EGRT service, contemptuous habitus navigated EGRT fellows to a position of assumed privilege and misrecognised the arbitrary value of educational capital; (2) Over the EGRT service term, position-retaking gradually came to the fore. EGRT fellows learned to recognise a range of rural teachers' attributes termed as 'localised pedagogical capital'. We conclude the paper with some recommendations for EGRT to transform both EGRT fellows and local teachers into reflexive sociological workers. These recommendations have important implications for a long overdue response to the urban-oriented rural education.

There is a critical shortage of special education teachers. To address this shortage, states have allowed alternative licensure paths such as issuing provisional licenses in order for individuals to take teaching positions while they complete coursework for the teaching license. These provisionally-licensed teachers are expected to fill the roles of fully-licensed teachers on day one. In this paper, we describe a pilot program for provisionally-licensed teachers in which we incorporated eCoaching and bug-in-ear coaching in the first semester and second semester of coursework. Results are largely positive. Implications are discussed.

Background: A raft of initiatives and reforms have been introduced in many countries to attract and recruit school teachers, many of which do not have a clear evidence base, so their effectiveness remains unclear. Prior research has been largely correlational in design. This paper describes a rigorous and comprehensive review of international evidence, synthesising the findings of some of the strongest empirical work so far. Methods: The review synthesises a total of 120 pieces of research from 13 electronic databases, Google/Google scholar and other sources. Each study is weighted by strength of evidence. Results: The strongest evidence suggests that targeted money can encourage people into teaching but does not necessarily keep them in the teaching profession. The money needs to be large enough to compensate for the disadvantages of working in certain schools and areas, and competitive enough to offset the opportunity costs of not being in more lucrative occupations, and its effect is only short-term. Conclusions: Continuing professional development (CPD) and early career support could be promising approaches for retaining teachers in the profession, but the evidence for them is weak. There is no evidence that any other approaches work, largely because of the lack of robust studies.

Alternative teacher preparation programs have triggered global debates. This study analysed 16 fellows of an alternative teacher preparation program who entered rural schools located in China--a high-stakes testing context--with a strong disposition toward quality-oriented education. Drawing on Bourdieu's sociology, we revealed four forms of fellows' responses to the tensions between quality- and examination-oriented education: (1) Resistance to examination-oriented education; (2) "Betrayal" of quality-oriented education; (3) Reconciliation of the two educational orientations; and (4) Confusion about both. Pursuant to these findings, we suggest that program recruitment and training keep some distance from the "star fellow" narrative and develop localised materials to prepare fellows for the real-world challenges. Our paper situates EGRT fellows in coexisting and competing educational orientations, calls for more studies to construct global alternative teacher preparation as a space of contestation, and ignites more discussion regarding what educational quality is.

This paper sets out to explain the Deakin University-Teach For Australia (DU-TFA) program for preparing teachers Australia-wide, with a focus on Western Australia (WA), and to offer insight into how the DU-TFA beginning teachers, known as Associates, 'dealt with' the demands of the program. It is not an evaluation of the DU-TFA program; rather, through qualitative research methods, it offers the perspectives of four Associates on how they 'dealt with' the demands of the program, and the suggestions they make for modifications to the program to alleviate some of these demands. The suggestions may prove useful to TFA and its new partner university, as well as to other initial teacher education (ITE) programs. The paper provides the background to the TFA program, inclusive of its purpose, its operations, and the mentoring approach it employs with its partner university to support the Associates. The qualitative research methodology used to gather the data, and the limitations of the study, are also explained.

Addressing teacher turnover is critical to stemming the country's continuing teacher shortages. It is also important for school effectiveness, as the academic and financial costs of teacher turnover to student learning and district budgets are significant. Using the most recent nationally representative data from the National Center for Education Statistics' Schools and Staffing Surveys, the authors detail which teachers are leaving, why, and which students are most impacted. The study finds higher turnover rates in the South; among mathematics, science, special education, English language development, and world languages teachers; in schools serving students of color and from low-income families; and among teachers of color. The study also finds that several factors are associated with higher turnover rates, including lack of administrative support, teacher salaries, and alternative certification. The paper reviews policy strategies that can address teacher turnover.

The diversity of teachers is half that of the student population in Australia. Despite government policies to support internationally trained teachers (ITTs), there remain major structural and institutional barriers working against access to the profession: an information gap, the lack of professional advice, the absence of programmes to help teachers gain accreditation and the lack of mentoring or support programmes. This paper focuses on ITTs undertaking volunteer teaching in community languages schools; these are community-run organisations where over 100,000 children across Australia learn their home language. These sites were selected as they represent a key pathway into further study and employment for ITTs. Findings are drawn from online survey (n=954) and interviews (n=62) exploring professional strengths, needs and experiences. The key finding is the exclusion and 'problematisation' of ITTs, rather than recognition of the social, educational and economic benefits represented by this group. The article explores recent government-funded provision of pathways to teacher accreditation and the extent to which these address the barriers identified. There is a discussion of how such a model may be embedded in mainstream teacher education pathways.

This forum explores contradictions that arose within the partnership between Teach for America (TFA) and a university teacher education program. TFA is an alternate route teacher preparation program that places individuals into K-12 classrooms in low-income school districts after participating in an intense summer training program and provides them with ongoing support. This forum is a conversation about the challenges we faced as new science teachers in the TFA program and in the Peace Corps program. We both entered the teaching field with science degrees and very little formal education in science education. In these programs we worked in a community very different from the one we had experienced as students. These experiences allow us to address many of the issues that were discussed in the original paper, namely teaching in an unfamiliar community amid challenges that many teachers face in the first few years of teaching. We consider how these challenges may be amplified for teachers who come to teaching through an alternate route and may not have as much pedagogical training as a more traditional teacher education program provides. The forum expands on the ideas presented in the original paper to consider the importance of perspectives on socially just science education. There is often a disconnect between what is taught in teacher education programs and what teachers actually experience in urban classrooms and this can be amplified when the training received through alternate route provides a different framework as well. This forum urges universities and alternate route programs to continue to find ways to authentically partner using practical strategies that bring together the philosophies and goals of all stakeholders in order to better prepare teachers to partner with their students to achieve their science learning goals.

Research on the development of professional identity for teachers who enter the profession through alternative routes is still in its infancy. In contrast to their peers who complete traditional initial teacher education programs, these teachers are exposed to different conditions and constraints that produce a range of sub-identities previously unidentified in the literature. This paper draws on interviews with 27 teachers who entered teaching through Teach For America and wrestled with these sub-identities as they considered their emerging professional identity. We argue that these sub-identities point to structural challenges embedded within Teach for America, and we highlight the need for additional research on the growing cadre of teachers entering the teaching profession through alternative routes, and subsequently influencing policymaking processes.

In an era of increasing teacher accountability, charter schools are finding ways to circumnavigate the restrictions placed on public schools in regard to teacher certification. These efforts purportedly are being made to fill teacher shortages in high need areas, but realistically allow charter school teachers to avoid expensive and time-consuming training and certification procedures. This paper will examine and elaborate on the negative impacts of these maneuvers in New York State. It concludes with a discussion of how the lack of teacher certification will affect the most vulnerable populations attending these charter schools while contributing to the permanence and reinforcement of socioeconomic structural inequalities.

To analyze the counternarrative in the public discourse surrounding Teach For America (TFA), this paper represents the first digital ethnography in education policy. We conduct a qualitative analysis of Truth For America, an education policy podcast. We found four overarching themes that arose from conversations with respondents: (1) problematic practice, preparation, and pedagogy; (2) concerns linked to critiquing TFA and the organization's responses to that critique; (3) issues related to race and diversity; and (4) disconcerting funding practices and political power. We conclude by discussing the implications of how individual-level stakeholder experiences inform the public discourse about TFA.

As the educational community continues to consider the impact of the proliferation of accountability-aimed reform on students, schools, and communities, the consequences of said reforms on teachers must be included. Results of this study indicate that even distant, broad educational policies manifest in specific and profound ways in teachers' daily, lived experiences, shaping novice teachers' identity, beliefs, and efficacy. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the perspectives of 38 Teach for America Corps Members (CMs) to situate how the educational reform climate socializes and oppresses teachers from all layers of influence, resulting in permeated macrotransgressions, which negatively impacts teachers. While this oppressive culture poses serious threats to the teaching profession, particularly in urban contexts, we also highlight the ways in which CMs resisted the confluence of socializing forces resulting from neoliberal shifts in educational policy and reform. Implications for teachers, educational leaders, policy makers, reformers, teacher educators, and communities are considered in order to envision a reprofessionalization of teachers working in tandem with the communities they serve to (re)construct a more just society.

As the educational community continues to consider the impact of the proliferation of accountability-aimed reform on students, schools, and communities, the consequences of said reforms on teachers must be included. Results of this study indicate that even distant, broad educational policies manifest in specific and profound ways in teachers' daily, lived experiences, shaping novice teachers' identity, beliefs, and efficacy. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the perspectives of 38 Teach for America Corps Members (CMs) to situate how the educational reform climate socializes and oppresses teachers from all layers of influence, resulting in permeated macrotransgressions, which negatively impacts teachers. While this oppressive culture poses serious threats to the teaching profession, particularly in urban contexts, we also highlight the ways in which CMs resisted the confluence of socializing forces resulting from neoliberal shifts in educational policy and reform. Implications for teachers, educational leaders, policy makers, reformers, teacher educators, and communities are considered in order to envision a reprofessionalization of teachers working in tandem with the communities they serve to (re)construct a more just society.

This paper presents an analysis of how school mathematics credentials, particularly calculus, coupled with elite college degrees can allow for presumed proficiencies, resulting in acceptance to a selective alternative route program (SARP) for secondary mathematics. However, such credentials do not guarantee deep mathematics knowledge nor effective teaching, particularly in low-income schools serving a majority of Black and Latinx students. We present a portrait of two NYC Teaching Fellows secondary mathematics teachers, their mathematics preparation and credentials, and how their supervisors viewed them. We further present findings from two years of classroom observations and show that these SARP mathematics teachers resorted to the direct, procedural teaching style they had known themselves, held superficial mathematical understandings, regularly made math errors, and often struggled to coherently answer students' mathematical questions.

The Swedish welfare state has social protection policies focusing on labour market participation. Initiatives have been introduced after the increase of asylum seekers in 2015, focusing on so-called 'fast tracks'. In this paper I consider one of these fast track courses aimed at newly arrived teachers wishing to continue their teaching career in Sweden. Based on interviews and observational data I have followed one cohort throughout their course. The research aims for an understanding of the teachers' experiences from their own perspective as well as from the stakeholders'. The theoretical framework is mainly taken from the concepts of the capital market introduced by Bourdieu. In light of the findings, while the education the participants receive may be useful in order to understand the educational system, many are disappointed to find that fast track courses do not give them a clear advantage in terms of finding a faster way into the Swedish labour market. In addition, there are tendencies for local teacher communities to devalue the qualifications of this group. Generally, the emphasis on 'fast tracks' may ignore the need of individuals to complete formal Swedish education and to navigate complex processes of nationally set standards of professional requirements, which impede a fast integration process.