Laurentian University (Ontario) offers a 4-year holistic outdoor adventure leadership program that promotes personal growth, develops leadership skills, and trains individuals to be safety-minded in various outdoor settings. A strong environmental ethic is promoted through courses in biology and Canadian Native culture. Practicums, internships,…

Research says the school-improvement mechanisms favored by policymakers-more certification tests (like the Massachusetts Educator Certification Test that 59 percent of candidates failed in 1998), higher cut scores, and severe penalties for institutions not meeting pass rates-are unlikely to deliver increased accountability and better teachers.…

This article reviews basic legal requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act relative to individuals with learning disabilities and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Within this framework, legal issues surrounding reasonable accommodations on professional licensing and screening exams are…

This article recommends revamping special education certification to support quality education in inclusive settings by aligning special education certification with general education certification, allowing for collaborative teacher training for general and special education at the initial certification level, and providing advanced training for…

This commentary reviews previous articles highlighting key issues relevant to special education teacher certification. It discusses the low percentage of students who complete teacher education courses and are teaching three years later, the need to restructure special education certification, and the promise of distance education in teacher…

Describes the Milwaukee Teacher Education Center (MTEC), a new system of alternative preservice and inservice teacher education which meets the needs of the Milwaukee Public Schools and prepares teachers to succeed with children in poverty within an urban school district. The paper discusses what works in preparing urban teachers and explains how…

The town of Greeley, perched on northern Colorado's prairie, is like many other communities across the United States that are experiencing an influx of immigrants. The picturesque town of 85,000 people had a 30 percent minority population as of the 2000 U.S. Census. Estimates place that figure closer to 40 percent today, most of whom are Hispanic.…

There is increasing use of distance-learning technologies to deliver alternative teacher licensure and certification programs for those areas of shortage such as rural and urban areas and those content areas for which it is difficult to find highly qualified teachers. This article reviews those collaborative groups, partnerships, and institutions…

The first day's session of the 2003 Brookings conference on education concluded with a roundtable discussion of the obstacles to recruiting new teachers into the profession, especially for urban schools. The discussion, moderated by Diane Ravitch, began with informal presentations by two people who have been deeply involved in addressing this…

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) is the professional, scientific, and credentialing association for more than 109,000 audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists. ASHA's mission is to ensure that all people with speech, language, and hearing disorders have access to quality…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the objectives of roadside mechanic apprenticeship programs in mid-western Nigeria. Seven statements of objectives were derived for the study, and respondents were required to score each of the seven statements between "1" and "7" in their order of importance and representative of…

In large urban school districts across the country, shortages of teachers who are qualified for and interested in working in critical content areas are reality. Alternative licensing routes, broadly defined as licensure programs not requiring traditional university teacher preparation work, are increasing in number and a variety of structures.…

This study focused on the attitudes that elementary teachers have toward their English language learner (ELL) students' native languages (e.g., Spanish) and their use in instruction. A 27-item Likert-scale survey was administered to 152 first- through fourth-grade teachers from five school districts in Maricopa County, Arizona. These school…

This report describes findings on the quality of the More at Four Program and the outcomes for children during pre-k from two program years: 2003-2004 (year 3) and 2005-2006 (year 5). Separate results for the 2005-2006 cohort are presented to provide a picture of the program in its most recent year of operation as well as results from the 2…

Emiliana Vegas surveys strategies used by the world's developing countries to fill their classrooms with qualified teachers. With their low quality of education and wide gaps in student outcomes, schools in developing countries strongly resemble hard-to-staff urban U.S. schools. Their experience with reform may thus provide insights for U.S.…