Partnering with Secondary Schools to Prepare Highly Qualified Teachers: Alternative Certification through a Professional Development School Model

Recruiting Educators through Alternative Licensure (Project REAL) is funded through the Transition to Teaching grant initiative. Project REAL is designed to enable university faculty and classroom teachers to work collaboratively within a professional development school model in order to provide secondary pre-service teachers with a high quality, fast-track, alternative certification program. Not only does this article document our implementation of a unique project design, but it also analyzes our pilot cohort's perceptions of those characteristics that are necessary for effective teacher preparation and instruction. Emergent issues described within this article include those raised by others as to the quality of alternative certification programs. Data sources collected from the pilot semester suggest that establishing "mentoring mosaics," expanding field experiences, and collaborating with professional development schools hold the potential to ensure that any certification program--even of the fast-track variety--can be of high quality. Implications for further studies are also discussed.