Alternate Pathways of Certification as Ideological State Apparatuses: A Critical Race Theory Methodology of Alternate Pathways of Certification in Arizona

Abstract

A review of the literature on alternate pathways of certification and anti-racist curriculum revealed that the alternate pathways of certification requirements vary from the traditional pathways of certification that often require a course on multicultural education or diversity. In Arizona, there are 15 main alternate teacher preparation programs. Due to the federal policy of No Child Policy and teacher shortages (primarily in Arizona), there has been an increase in the number of teachers certified through an alternative method (Boe, Cook, & Suderland, 2008; McLeskey & Billingsly, 2008). The advantage for the school districts and the preservice teachers is that alternate pathways is a cheap and quick way into the classroom. But for students, especially Black students, these preservice teachers are not introduced to anti-racist curriculum and pedagogies that help address racism and combat anti-Blackness. These alternate pathways reflect neoliberal approaches to solving public problems by sidestepping racism and adopting market driven approaches to a solution. This study examines what 15 institutions of alternate pathways of certification are embedding in their programs. I examine the programs webpages and perform an autopsy on the courses they require their pre-service teachers take and critique their syllabi to determine what readings, topics, and other material they are being exposed to help offset racism in the classroom. The overall findings confirmed that 14 of the 15 institutions, selected by the Arizona Department of Education to be alternate pathways of certification, did not offer anti-racist curriculum nor even addressed the student population that were non-white. The findings support the existing alternate certification literature that most teachers have not been properly trained to teach students (Banks, 2001; Darling-Hammond, 2010; Quigney, 2010; Rosenberg & Sindelar, 2005) and that policymakers, like the Arizona Department of Education, are mostly apprehensive about the efficiency of teacher preparation programs (Boyd, Grossman, Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2008) and not about Black students in the classroom.