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Licensure and Worker Quality:
A Comparison of Alternative
Routes to Teaching
Tim R. Sass Georgia State University
Abstract
In this paper I use a rich longitudinal database from Florida to compare the
characteristics of alternatively certified teachers with their traditionally pre-
pared colleagues. I analyze the relative effectiveness of teachers who enter the
profession through different pathways by estimating value-added models of
student achievement. In general, alternatively certified teachers have stronger
preservice qualifications than graduates of traditional university-based teacher
preparation programs do, with the least restrictive alternative route attracting
the most qualified prospective teachers. Teachers who enter through the path re-
quiring no coursework have a substantially larger effect on student achievement.
In contrast, the alternative pathway that requires substantial occupation-specific
human capital investment yields teachers who are less effective than either
traditional-route teachers or teachers who entered the profession through other
alternative pathways. These results suggest that any benefits from preservice
training are overwhelmed by the adverse selection into programs that require
nontransferable human capital investments.
1. Introduction
Workers in licensed occupations make up a large and growing proportion of the
US workforce, with nearly three out of 10 US workers being required to hold a
license in order to do their job (Kleiner and Krueger 2010). There are two oppos-
ing views on the prevalence of licensure. In the public interest approach, licens-
Previous versions were circulated under the title Certification Requirements and Teacher Qual
ity: A Comparison of Alternative Routes to Teaching. This research was supported by the National
Center for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, funded through grant no.
R305C120008 to the American Institutes for Research from the Institute of Education Sciences, US
Department of Education. I wish to thank the staff of the Florida Department of Education's Edu
cation Data Warehouse and the Office of Teacher Certification for their help in obtaining and inter
preting the data used in this study. Thanks also go to Micah Sanders for able research assistance and
to Jeanne Burns, Stuart Elliot, Cory Koedel, George Noell, Steve Rivkin, Jake Vigdor, Jim Wyckoff,
and seminar participants at the University of Missouri for valuable conversations and suggestions.
Any opinions or errors are solely attributable to me.
[Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 58 (February 2015)]
© 2015 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0022 2186/2015/5801 0001$10.00](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jlecono58&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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