Harvard Education Press

Alternative Routes to Teaching
Mapping the New Landscape of Teacher Education

Edited by Pam Grossman and Susanna Loeb

Over the past 20 years, alternative certification for teachers has emerged as a major avenue of
teacher preparation. The proliferation of new pathways has spurred heated debate over how
best to recruit, prepare, and support qualified teachers.

Drawing on the work of leading scholars, Alternative Routes to Teaching provides a thorough and dispassionate review of the research evidence on alternative certification. It takes readers beyond the simple dichotomies that have characterized the debate over alternative certification, encourages them to look carefully at the trade-offs implicit in any route into teaching, and suggests ways to “marry” the proven strengths of both traditional and alternative approaches.

Advance Praise:

“ Alternative Routes to Teaching is a timely, thoughtful book about one of the most pressing and controversial problems in American education today. This volume brings new and much-needed sophistication to ongoing debates about teacher preparation.”
—Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Professor of Education, John E. Cawthorne Millennium Chair in Teacher Education for Urban Schools, and Director of the Doctoral Program in Curriculum and Instruction,
Lynch School of Education, Boston College

“ A better book on this subject could not have been written. Alternative Routes to Teaching is a must-read for everyone involved in planning for the future of teaching.”
—Emily Feistritzer, President and CEO, National Center for Education Information, National Center for Alternative Certification

“ At a time when the education of teachers is undergoing tectonic shifts, this work by Grossman, Loeb, and their colleagues represents an invaluable contribution. They introduce evidence where empty rhetoric has reigned and offer prudent evaluations of the available data to inform a policy debate dominated by ideology.”
—Lee S. Shulman, President, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Emeritus, Stanford University

About the Editors: 

Pam Grossman is a professor of education at Stanford University. Her research focuses on the relationship between policy and practice in teacher education, adolescent literacy, and professional education. Susanna Loeb is an associate professor of education at Stanford University and director of the Institute for Research on Education Policy and Practice.