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Revision with unchanged content. As the population of certified teachers shrinks due to the number reaching re tirement age, alternative certification programs have been proposed and, in some cases, implemented on state and national levels. The Department of De fense Troops to Teachers Program (Troops to Teachers), originally established as a Department of Defense career transition program, was reauthorized as part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Although the program is pri ma ri ly designed to provide quality classroom teachers at the secondary school le vel, the program was neither intended nor designed to certify teachers. The in tent of the national Department of Defense program was to identify se pa ra ting service members meeting a basic transition eligibility framework upon which states could overlay their individual alternative teacher certification cri te ria. Individual states, having developed their own specific certification cri te ria, could more quickly incorporate eligible veterans into their alternative cer ti fi cation program. This study addresses the need to assess the initial competencies of Kentucky s Troops to Teachers-certified teachers against those who were traditionally trained and certified. This book is designed for education professionals concerned with teacher pre paredness.

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