Alt cert guru C. Emily Feistritzer and her National Center for Education Information have released the results of a nationwide survey of teachers who have gone through alternate routes to certification.

With a response rate of 35 percent, the report yields some valuable nuggets (e.g., alt cert programs recruit more minority teachers than do traditional programs), but the report, indeed the whole issue, is overshadowed by one rather meddlesome question: just what is alt cert these days, anyway? While a third of the respondents only had to take up to 12 credit hours in ed coursework to get certified, just as many of them reported having to take between 30 and 50 credit hours, equivalent to--if not more than--traditional certification requirements. So much for an alternative.