Unintended Consequences of Expanding Teacher Preparation Pathways - Does Alternative Licensure Attenuate New Teacher Pay?

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam

The study analyzes how Texas’s 2001 reduction of mandatory teacher preparation contact hours expanded alternative licensure pathways and reshaped new-teacher labor supply. Using first-difference models, it relates the increased supply of alternatively licensed new teachers to changes in new-teacher salaries before the policy and over the following 15 years. Findings show increased entry through alternative licensing but declining pay for EC-6 new teachers, with effects varying by the share of districts hiring alternatively licensed teachers.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

AccessFree to download

Context and Background

Purposes and Consequences of Alternative Teacher Licensure

AERA Open January-December 2023, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 1–14 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584231159900 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2023. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) Unintended Consequences of Expanding Teacher Preparation Pathways: Does Alternative Licensure Attenuate New Teacher Pay? Sarah Guthery Texas A&M University-Commerce Lauren P. Bailes University of Delaware Texas reduced new teacher preparation requirements in 2001 to allow more alternate paths to licensure. Within 5 years, this policy change resulted in more than half of the state’s new teachers being alternatively licensed. Using a series of first difference models, this study examines the relationship between the increased supply of new teachers in Texas and new teacher salaries prior to the policy change and in the 15 years thereafter. We find that the policy change did increase the supply of new teachers via alternative licensing, but pay for new EC-6 teachers declined by 2%–13% with differential effects based on the rate at which districts hired alternatively licensed teachers. Keywords: new teacher pay, alternative certification, teacher labor market, educational policy Context and Background Teaching has historically been a licensed profession in which a limited number of schools of education were typically housed in universities and offered a traditional path to certification (Kleiner, 2000) . However, 30 years of documented teacher shortages in the United States resulted in federal and state policies that reduce barriers to teacher licensure (Cross, 2017). The goal of these policies is to create a larger pool of new teachers in less time than it typically takes schools of education to produce teachers. Nonunion (also called right-to-work) states are states in which teacher union bargaining is prohibited by state constitutions. Those states have consistently ratified policies that open new pathways to teacher licensure (Guthery, 2018) . In 2001, the Texas State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC), which establishes teacher preparation and certification requirements, reduced the mandatory number of contact hours for teacher candidates to generate more teacher licensure programs (May et al., 2003) . By reducing that number of required contact hours, the policy change facilitated the proliferation of alternative licensure programs and has consequently increased the number of new teachers with alternative licensure (Baines et al., 2001; May et al., 2003; Walsh & Jacobs, 2007) . Previous studies have examined the effects of instituting teacher licensure exams and found that increased credentialing barriers resulted in higher wages for new teachers (Angrist & Guryan, 2008; Goldhaber & Hansen, 2010) . Collectively, these studies assert that when states increase barriers to teacher licensure, the number of newly licensed teachers decreases. In turn, this decrease of newly licensed teachers generates more competition among districts to hire fewer available people and tends to drive up wages. Our study considers the opposite: the consequences for wages when reduced preparation and licensure requirements make it easier—rather than harder—to enter the teaching profession. Specifically, we investigate what happens when a teaching license becomes more obtainable and the profession less restrictive. Previous research on licensed professions has found that licensed professionals were paid more for their skill set than were equivalent professionals in nonlicensed fields because the institution of licensure serves as a barrier and regulates the number of people in the profession, thus protecting the higher wages (Kleiner, 2000) . This study investigates whether reduced barriers to entry and the resultant increase in teacher supply influenced salaries for elementary Texas educators. We ex

FAQs

What policy change in Texas shaped the study’s setting?

In 2001, Texas reduced mandatory teacher candidate contact hours through the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC), enabling more alternative licensure programs.

How did the policy affect the supply of new teachers?

Within five years, the policy change increased the number of new teachers, with more than half of newly hired teachers in Texas being alternatively licensed.

What was the impact on new teacher pay for EC-6 teachers?

Pay for new EC-6 teachers declined by roughly 2%–13%, and the magnitude varied depending on how heavily districts hired alternatively licensed teachers.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam