In 2001, as a response to Louisiana's
growing certified teacher shortage, a unique program was formed to offer
a high-quality alternate route to certification for new teachers known
as the Louisiana Practitioner Teacher Program (LPTP). LPTP serves as
an expedient certification process that provides rigorous, relevant
training and prepares new teachers to have an immediate impact on student
achievement in high-needs schools. Our program is grounded in a simple
premise: Effective teachers can and must close the achievement gap.
LPTP works in partnership with
four different programs: Louisiana
Teaching Fellows, Teach Baton Rouge, teachNOLA, and Teach For America.
Each of these programs recruits and selects outstanding recent college
graduates and mid-career professionals with a record of academic and/or
professional achievement who have no previous classroom teaching experience.
Before enrolling, candidates complete basic entry requirements including
receiving a baccalaureate degree with a minimum 2.50 GPA, and passing
the required state exams.
While working towards certification, Practitioner Teachers (PTs) meet
state and federal highly-qualified requirements by teaching on a Practitioner
License. To earn full certification, PTs hold full-time teaching positions,
participate in a year-long seminar series called Teaching
for Results,
complete additional professional
development hours,
and successfully complete a comprehensive
portfolio demonstrating
their effectiveness in the classroom. Upon successful completion of
all components of LPTP, the teacher becomes eligible for a Level 1 Teaching
Certificate, which is the standard three-year Louisiana teaching certificate.
Teaching for Results
Specifically tailored to the backgrounds
and needs of alternate route teachers, LPTP works with beginning teachers
to leverage their content knowledge into effective teaching practice.
At the heart of the LPTP is Teaching for Results, a series of
certification seminars that focus on how to teach specific subject area/grade
level content within a standard-based instructional framework. Each
course in the series is grounded in an inquiry process through which
course participants learn research-based instructional strategies specific
to a content area and are taught to constantly evaluate the efficacy
of those strategies against authentic student performance data. This
process encourages new teachers to make real time adjustments to their
instructional practice with the goal of increasing student achievement.
Teaching for Results helps teachers maximize their impact on student
achievement and is based on the core belief that professional development for
alternate-route candidates must be field-based, highly relevant to practice, and
focused on immediately affecting participants’ ability to translate existing deep content
knowledge into effective classroom practice.
Goals
The goals of the Louisiana Practitioner Teacher Program are:
- To support our partner programs’
recruitment of outstanding individuals to teach in Louisiana
- To certify teachers in critical
shortage areas to meet the state's needs
- To develop effective teachers
through relevant, rigorous, and continuous training aligned with the
Louisiana Components of Effective Teaching (LCET) and the Louisiana
Content Standards (LCS)
- To hold LPTP teachers accountable
for student achievement through evaluation focused on effecting gains
in student achievement
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