برچسب: teacher

Middle school history teachers discuss their lesson plans for teaching about the Great Depression.

Credit: Allison Shelley / American Education

Twenty-five years ago, when pastor Sweetie Williams asked his 12-year-old son, Eli, why he never had homework, the answer exposed scandalous conditions that would reshape California education forever. Eli’s San Francisco middle school — like many of the 20% of California public schools then serving the greatest number of Black, Latino and low-income students — lacked books, operating bathrooms, proper heating and enough qualified teachers to permanently staff classrooms. The historic litigation that followed in May 2000, Williams v. California, established new laws guaranteeing every student three fundamental rights: permanent, qualified teachers; sufficient instructional materials; and clean, safe facilities.

Today, as Assembly Bill 1224 (Valencia) races toward a Senate hearing, we’re witnessing some of the same staffing chaos that prompted the Williams lawsuit. In the West Contra Costa Unified School District, parent Darrell Washington watched his rising fifth grader endure what he called “a chaotic game of musical chairs” with two or three different teachers in a single year. At Stege Elementary, third grade teacher Sam Cleare saw students arrive in her classroom, where she was often “their first credentialed teacher for the entire year.”

In response to teacher shortages, are legislators rising to meet the challenge? Are they grappling with how to raise teacher compensation and improve working conditions to attract and retain educators? Are they seeking to compel those districts stuck on autopilot to do more to recruit new teachers or to place in the classroom their fully certified staff who aren’t currently teaching before turning to short-term substitutes? No.

The principal response of legislators has been AB 1224, which would double the time untrained substitute teachers can remain in any one classroom — from 30 to 60 days, a full third of the school year. The bill thereby lowers teacher standards for the state’s most disadvantaged students, essentially abandoning our children’s rights to equal educational opportunity to accommodate district requests for administrative convenience.

When a teacher vacancy exists, districts are supposed to prioritize assigning the most qualified candidates: fully credentialed teachers first, then interns who have the subject matter training but are still learning how to teach it, followed by emergency-style permits that allow those with partial subject matter competence and teacher training to teach for the year under close supervision, and finally waivers, which permit individuals to teach for a year by waiving unmet certification requirements with state approval if the district can demonstrate the candidate is the best person available.

Williams requires all classrooms to be staffed by a single, designated permanent teacher who is at least minimally certified to teach the whole year, according to one of these bases. That puts the onus on districts to figure out well before the school year begins how they will staff each classroom with a state-qualified teacher.

Thirty-day substitutes — those affected by AB 1224 — are nowhere in this hierarchy precisely because they are not qualified to serve as the teacher of record for any classroom. They receive zero subject matter training and zero instruction on how to teach a subject, so they have no understanding of lesson planning, classroom management, assessing learning, or differentiating learning for special ed students or English learners. They’re educational placeholders, not teachers. 

Teachers represent the single most important school-based factor in learning outcomes. When we park unqualified staff in classrooms for months, we’re not solving teacher shortages; we’re creating educational voids that harm student progress for years to come. Our students need qualified educators who provide continuity, expertise and genuine care, not “continuity” with unqualified caretakers.

Statewide teacher assignment data reveals exactly how this policy will worsen existing inequities. While 84% of California’s teachers are fully trained, this drops to just 76% in districts serving working-class communities like West Contra Costa, but rises to 89% in affluent areas.

Schools serving larger populations of low-income students, English learners and foster children are already twice as likely to rely on emergency-style permits. AB 1224 will systematically widen these gaps, exacerbating a two-tiered system where privileged students get qualified teachers while vulnerable students get warm bodies. 

Meanwhile, AB 1224’s “accountability” measures provide legislative lip service. The bill relies on existing legal requirements that districts make “reasonable efforts” to recruit more qualified personnel before turning to long-term substitutes. Yet we know from our experiences with West Contra Costa Unified and elsewhere that districts typically make no particular efforts if an obvious candidate is not already in front of them and there is no outside enforcement of the hiring hierarchy. AB 1224 does nothing to change this. The bill does not define “reasonable,” has no documentation requirements, and has no oversight or accountability measures. 

And while this same expanded access to substitutes was temporarily allowed during the pandemic, frankly, the whole system was in chaos then, and many virtual classrooms were providing little more than day care, even with qualified teachers. Yet, AB 1224 provides no sunset date like that exception did. To the contrary, the pending proposal is for a permanent change in law, a permanent authorized dilution of instructional quality, a permanent permission for districts to avoid the hard work of recruiting and retaining qualified educators — all to be disproportionately visited upon the most disadvantaged students in the state. 

The response to teacher shortages must not be to lower standards, but the opposite. As if our collective hair were on fire, the state and districts need to be doubling down on bringing back the fully certified teachers who have left the classroom (more than enough to cover the shortages). Likewise, the state and districts need to work harder to develop the next generation of diverse and fully prepared educators. Since the pandemic, California has invested over $2 billion in evidence-based solutions: the National Board Certification Incentive Program, Golden State Teacher Grant Program, teacher residencies, a grow-your-own program, and Educator Effectiveness grants — all designed to increase supply and retention in high-need schools. The latest annual Teacher Supply Report from the Commission on Teacher Credentialing suggests the state is starting to turn a corner as a result of these efforts. New teaching credentials issued in 2023-24 were up over 18% — the first surge in new credentials since the pandemic in 2020-21. 

In the meantime, districts have existing tools: emergency permits for at least provisionally qualified candidates, intern teachers and residents, teachers with permits to cover those on statutory leave, and experienced “career substitutes” who already are allowed to teach in a single classroom for 60 days. And before even turning to these substandard options, districts’ “reasonable efforts” must include returning fully credentialed teachers to a district’s highest priority: classroom instruction. When Superintendent Alberto Carvalho took the helm of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in late 2021, one of his first actions was to fill some 700 vacancies with certified educators who had been serving in the district office and various non-teaching roles. 

That’s 700 classrooms and several thousand students’ educational lives that were not sacrificed for administrative convenience. Today’s Eli Williamses deserve no less.

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John Affeldt, who was one of the lead counsels on Williams v. California, is a managing attorney at Public Advocates, a public interest law firm in San Francisco, where he focuses on educational equity issues.

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