Detroit schools will hire teachers without classroom experience, sparking debate

Detroit’s main district is proceeding with a plan to hire teachers who are certified but have received no training in the classroom — adding an element of controversy to efforts to fill hundreds of teacher vacancies by the end of summer.

The board of education on Tuesday approved a hiring plan proposed by Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, signaling that the district will lean partly on programs that offer so-called interim teaching certificates.

The move drew blowback from board members and parents, who argued that Detroit children deserve teachers who have been trained in the classroom.

“I don’t think the alternative route teachers are nearly as prepared as the traditional route,” LaMar Lemmons, a school board member, told Chalkbeat. “It will increase the academic disparity, as you have less qualified and less experienced teachers.”

Online, where much of the debate over district hiring practices took place, some parents worried that teachers with interim certificates would be unprepared to manage a classroom.

“So your first day of teaching will be your first day ever in front of children?” Cynthia Jackson, a Detroit parent, wrote on Chalkbeat Detroit’s Facebook page. “You don’t think that’s going to be a problem?”

For others, the news that the district will consider candidates with alternative certifications was a call to action. Nikki Key, a Detroit parent who has a master’s degree in business, commented on Facebook that the teacher shortage has her considering a career in education.

“I’ve seen what is being offered to our children, trust me … my lack of classroom time is not your problem,” she said. I actually am one of the ones that want to do the job that no one else is signing up for.”

The hiring plan approved Tuesday calls for district officials to undertake a wide-ranging search, recruiting candidates from other school districts, from traditional schools of education, from historically black colleges — and from alternate certification programs.

These state-approved programs require little more from prospective teachers than a bachelor’s degree. One such program is Teachers of Tomorrow, a controversial for-profit entity that provides prospective teachers with an interim teaching certificate, after they complete only 200 hours of online instruction.

District officials are holding out hope that teachers who haven’t trained in a classroom will nonetheless be an improvement over the uncertified substitutes who currently occupy the district’s more than 200 vacant teaching positions. Vitti has said that the district would prefer to hire traditionally certified teachers exclusively, but that the realities of supply and demand make that impossible for now.

Among those following the debate was Dan Finegan, a 25-year-old Michigan native with a master’s degree in social work. He is among Teachers of Tomorrow’s inaugural cohort.  Finegan expects to start work as a Spanish teacher in the Detroit Public Schools Community District this fall.

Is he ready to teach? He says yes, but he mainly credits the year he spent volunteering as a tutor in Detroit schools. And he worries that others certified through Teachers of Tomorrow, which offers no student teaching opportunities, won’t know what to expect in the classroom.

“I would not feel ready if I had not worked” previously in Detroit schools, he said.

Finegan had nearly finished his master’s degree by the time he decided against a career in social work. He thought he’d prefer working as an educator and City Year Americorps, a non-profit that places volunteers in Detroit schools as tutors and classroom assistants, gave him a chance to test that theory.

Dan Finegan’s experience as a volunteer tutor in Detroit schools convinced him to sign up for Teachers of Tomorrow. (Dan Finegan)

It didn’t take long for the students at Bethune Elementary-Middle School to convince Finegan that he should move to Detroit from the suburbs and become a Spanish teacher in the district. There was only one problem: He wasn’t certified to teach.

So when Teachers of Tomorrow gave a presentation to City Year volunteers, Finegan signed on. He considered other certification programs, but they were much more expensive, and Finegan was already saddled with student loans.

(Prices of alternative certification programs, which have fewer requirements than do traditional certification programs, vary widely. Wayne State’s Dream Keepers program charges current substitute teachers roughly $25,000 for two years of in-class support and training. A program at Schoolcraft College that offers night courses in Livonia costs about $10,000. Teachers of Tomorrow’s online program charges upwards of $5,000, but most of that  is due only after graduates find a teaching job.)

He completed the online coursework in about six weeks and passed the content-area exams to teach English and Spanish. He says he began hearing right away from schools who were turning to online Spanish courses because they couldn’t find a Spanish teacher to meet the state’s graduation requirements in world language.

After witnessing the effects of the teacher shortage in Detroit schools during his time with City Year, Finegan decided he would help fill the gap. He signed a provisional contract with a district school, a non-binding indication of that school’s intent to hire him.

With some additional training and a good review from their principal, educators with an interim teaching certificate can become fully certified after three years on the job.

“After my year of experience, it just became clear to me that I wouldn’t be happy in another district,” Finegan said, adding: “I want to show that I’m experienced, and I’m dedicated, and I’m qualified.”