On the heels of the polite debate over the role teacher certification regulations play in attracting experts to change careers and become teachers comes this horror story from California.

I’m not sure which camp (over-simplified description: It’s the regulations/no, it’s the marketing) is correct. But I do believe this much is clear: We need more teachers and we need to offer them better professional development opportunities. I also think there’s general agreement from both camps that our current alternative routes system isn’t producing enough new teachers. Now we need a third party (or an arbitrator!) to discover what the real barriers are and offer possible solutions.

The two groups we all need to hear from, however, inlcude folks who have become teachers through the alternative process, and folks who tried but gave up in frustration.