An Alternative Teacher Licensure Program (ATLP) can be an effective and efficient way for a qualified individual to obtain a teacher license. It is also a very valuable teacher recruitment tool especially for schools that serve high needs populations and/or have hard-to-fill positions such as math, science, special education and linguistically diverse education.

Alternative Teacher Licensure was developed to serve the needs of those who:

• Have successfully completed a Bachelor's degree or higher from a regionally accredited institution of higher education.
• Did not, but wish to, complete an approved educator preparation program with student teaching.
• Want to become licensed teachers in Colorado.
• Have completed the 30+ semester hours of content requirement for the endorsement area, determined by a thorough transcript review.
• Pass the content exam for the endorsement area.
• Pass a criminal background check, including submission of fingerprints.
• Are employed full-time by a school, facility or school district.

The Benefits of Alternative Teacher Licensure:

• Alternative Teacher Licensure has been supported by non-traditionalists in the field of education who see this as a route to providing authentic and responsive teacher training where traditional programs have failed.


• A serious teacher shortage looms for many school districts across the nation, as student enrollments swell and an increasing number of teachers retire or leave the field. It is estimated that in the next decade, American school districts will need to hire 2.2 million new teachers (220,000 a year) into a profession that now totals 2.7 million (Feistritzer, 1999). Even if these projections are overstated, the gap between teacher supply and demand remains critical for certain subject areas and in certain regions of the nation (Hirsch, Koppich, & Knapp, 1999). To address this concern, a growing number of states have begun to turn to alternative certification programs, also known as licensure programs. Today, 115 alternative programs exist in over 40 states (Feistritzer, 2000). In addition, more than 250 colleges and universities are currently involved in some type of alternative teacher preparation (Basinger, 2000). It is a reform intended to address teacher shortages in high-need content areas and high-need schools, as well as diversify the teacher workforce so that it is more representative of the national student population.


• Across the board, alternative certification programs have similar content knowledge expectations of their teacher candidates but widely diverse pedagogical approaches. All seek, ultimately, to produce teachers of the highest possible quality, who meet standards comparable to those required of traditionally trained teachers. (Ruckel, 2000)

Research on alternative certification shows that:

• Alternative certification and pathways into teaching attracts a more diverse teacher workforce;
• Higher percentages of alternatively certified teachers are willing to work in urban settings or teaching "minority" students (Wilson, Floden, & Ferrini-Mundy, 2001, p.28).
• Alternatively certified interns in urban schools made specific attempts to address the needs of hard-to-serve students through developing curriculum and instruction that was directly responsive to those needs (Wilson et al.,p. 28).
• Principals rated traditionally prepared teachers lower than those from alternative routes to teaching, and the teachers themselves agreed (Wilson et al., 2001, p. 28)
• In a paper that reviewed key issues and misconceptions related to traditional and alternative teacher certification, Stoddart and Floden (1995) state that alternative certification breaks the "monopoly" held by traditional routes to teacher certification. The authors assert that alternative certification changes the demographics of the teaching profession by recruiting older and more diverse teachers who are more likely to have job experience outside teaching.