Missouri lawmakers have banned educators from leaning on a model of reading instruction called the “three-cueing” method as part of a bipartisan education package signed by Gov. Mike Kehoe on Wednesday.
The so-called “science of reading” continues to win converts. The Missouri Legislature recently banned the use of “three cueing,” which is an essential element of Balanced Literacy. Just as “Whole Language” swept the country in the 1990s, just as “Whole Language” was replaced by “Balanced Literacy,” several state legislatures are now certain that “the science of reading” is the key to their state’s educational revival.
The law mandates that three cueing, which teaches students to read using context clues, can be used to supplement lessons, but phonics should be the majority of instruction.
State Rep. Ed Lewis, a Moberly Republican and sponsor of the legislation, told The Independent that the law builds on prior legislative efforts and work from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
“We’ve come to the realization that phonics is crucial,” Lewis said. “The three cueing system, when used as the primary source, evidence shows a decrease in the amount of learning that occurs, and for that reason, we want to use it less.”
Three cueing is widely criticized for encouraging kids to make guesses when reading and doesn’t show how to sound out words, which is important for understanding complicated texts.
Missouri isn’t the only state to ban three cueing. By the end of 2024, at least 11 states had explicitly banned the method.
My own view is that legislatures are unqualified to tell teachers how to teach.
Juniors attend a U.S. History class at Oakland Technical High School in Oakland, Calif., May 1, 2017.
Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource
Top Takeaways
The number of teachers in the state increased to 285,891 since the 2019-20 school year.
Hispanic teachers increased 19%, growing from 61,518 to 73,400.
Student-to-teacher ratios and administrator-to-student ratios are improving.
California added 3,000 new classroom teachers and a significant number of new administrators despite declining student enrollment and budget reductions brought on by the end of pandemic funding, according to long-awaited data released by the California Department of Education on Thursday.
Researchers and education advocates have been calling for the release of the data for years. Although the information is submitted by school districts annually, it had not been updated on the CDE’s DataQuest website since the 2018-19 school year. The release fills in the gaps, including data through the 2023-24 school year.
“It’s very difficult to do this work without having the data in front of us to know what we can do and what is working,” said José Magaña, executive director of Bay Area Latinos for Education. “It’s something that we hope can become accessible or more accessible to folks now and in the future years, so that we can continue to invest in things that are working and also make tweaks and say what can we do differently.”
The delays were due to a lack of staffing, additional state reporting requirements and a backlog of reports that had to be reconfigured because the state changed course codes in 2018-19, said Cindy Kazanis, the director of the Analysis, Measurement and Accountability Reporting Division at CDE, in a previous interview with EdSource.
Now, parents, educators and researchers using the CDE’s DataQuest database can access information, updated through the 2023-24 school year, about teachers, administrators and other credentialed staff. The CDE plans to release data for the 2024-25 school year later this year.
The release is expected to include an upgrade that gives users the ability to filter information by gender, grade span, school or staff type, allowing them to learn, for example, how many Hispanic teachers worked in non-charter public schools in a district in a particular year, or how many credentialed administrators in elementary schools in a district were women.
The CDE has also added student-to-teacher ratios and administrator-to-student ratios, which also seem to be improving, according to the CDE.
The data is crucial to ensure California schools have a diverse teacher workforce, said Natalie Wheatfall-Lum, director of TK-12 policy for EdTrust-West.
“Essentially, we can’t give California students the teachers that they need, which are diverse teachers, without being able to see where they are and see how they are being recruited and retained,” Wheatfall-Lum said. “It’s very important for us to have this information because we know the significant impact having teachers of color has on students of color and their success.”
Growth takes off in Fresno
The state has added 3,000 classroom teachers since the 2019-20 school year for a total of 285,891. The data shows that Fresno had the largest increase in the number of teachers in its schools, with 8% more over the five-year period ending in 2023-24. Napa County, on the other hand, lost 6.5% of its teachers over the same period.
It’s unclear if the number of teachers in the state has changed in the 21 months since the data for 2023-24 was collected. Declining enrollment, a smattering of teacher layoffs and tightened school budgets may have erased some of the increases in schools where 5% of the teachers are not qualified to teach the courses they teach.
The state has also had an increase in the number of new administrators and pupil services staff in 2024-24. The number of administrators grew from just over 25,000 in 2019-20 to 28,780 in 2023-24. Pupil services staff grew from more than 30,000 to 36,535 in the same time period.
Number of Hispanic teachers growing
Much has changed in the five years since the data was last updated. The number of Hispanic teachers in California classrooms increased by more than 19% during that time, growing from 61,518 to 73,400, according to the CDE.
There was also a 21% increase in the number of Hispanic administrators and a 48.2% increase in the number of Hispanic school nurses, counselors and other pupil services positions.
The number of white teachers declined over the five-year period by 7%, reducing their number to 158,064, or 55% of the teaching workforce.
The change in the racial makeup of teacher candidates coincides with the evolving population of the state, where 56% of the K-12 student population was Hispanic in the 2023-24 school year, according to the CDE.
There has also been an increase in the number of Filipino, Asian, American Indian and Pacific Islander teachers, while the number of Black teachers declined incrementally, despite state initiatives to recruit and retain them.
The trends are exciting, but more needs to be done to recruit and retain educators, especially as new research shows that 1 in 3 teachers anticipate leaving the profession, Magaña said.
Teachers of color are asking for more inclusive and supporting school environments, stronger systems to meet students’ behavioral and academic needs, and a healthier work-life balance, he said.
The increase in the number of teachers of color and teachers overall could be attributed to efforts by state lawmakers to ease the teacher shortage and diversify the teacher workforce by making earning a credential easier and more affordable. The state has also offered degree and coursework alternatives to several tests, established residency and apprenticeship programs, and paid for school staff to train to become teachers.
Guillermo Tejeda and the Neighborhood Orchestra performing at the Venice Beach Jazz Festival.
Guillermo Tejeda
The first thing Guillermo Tejeda does when he visits a new school is hunt for the piano. At most schools, the teacher finds a dusty old instrument, out of tune, stashed away in a dark closet.
The cobwebs tell him all he needs to know about how little arts education those students have been getting. His go-to technique to get them more jazzed about learning is to tickle the ivories, make that piano come back to life.
“I’ll bring it out, dust it off. I’ll bring students into the auditorium and I’ll do lessons there,” said Tejeda, a fourth grade teacher at Wadsworth Elementary in hardscrabble South Central Los Angeles. “I’m telling you, when I bring in song, when I bring music and performance into the classroom, the students light up in a way that really creates a meaningful experience for them.”
A schoolteacher who is also a jazz musician and a member of the Neighborhood Orchestra Collective, Tejeda uses music in general and the narrative of the LA jazz scene in particular, to teach about history, race and culture, as well as to spark joy in the classroom. A father of three currently on parental leave with his 11-month-old daughter Maya, Tejeda started playing the guitar at the age of 6. His grandfather, a migrant farm worker with a love of mariachi and a hand gnarled from picking in the fields, taught him how to play.
“I’m from East LA and I became a teacher because I wanted to be the teacher that I never had,” he said. “We come from a marginalized community where it’s hard to be a teacher. A lot of the adults are stressed out. People are not feeling joy. How do we bring more joy? How do we bring more meaning into our lives? I think music is that vehicle.”
Tejeda takes an expansive view of education that integrates the arts into all the disciplines to bring learning to life for children. His teaching feeds his music, he says, and his music feeds his teaching.
“I wish I had a teacher like Guillermo when I was in fourth grade,” said Elmo Lovano, the founder of Jammcard: The Music Professionals Network, who developed School Gig, an app that connects artists to schools. “He’s a passionate guy. He’s incredibly talented. It’s important for artists to know you can still be doing your art, but being a teacher could be an amazing opportunity for you to make a living, stay at home, support your family, give back to the kids, the next generation, and also still do you.”
Music is the prism through which his students become immersed in the history of their city, its politics and culture. He wants his students to be in tune with their heritage.
“I teach on 41st and Central, which is a historic jazz corridor,” he said. “And when I got to that school site, it surprised me that so few teachers talked about that. The first thing I did was write a lesson plan about it.”
Tejeda, whose students call him ‘Mister’ as a nickname, makes sure his class learns about the rich legacy of jazz in Los Angeles. For example, the historic Central Avenue jazz corridor was, for decades a cultural mecca, the heart of the African-American community in the city. At a time when most of the country was rigidly segregated, it was also something of an oasis, a place where people of all races and classes came together over music. There, a pantheon of jazz luminaries, including Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Jelly Roll Morton, played to full houses.
“The giants of Central Avenue may have gone, but their footprints still remain on all of American culture,” as basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once put it. “The jazz musicians and record promoters also gave birth to rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm and blues, hip-hop and rap.”
Guillermo Tejeda and members of the band Steam Down at the Venice Jazz Festival.credit: Luis Hernandez
Steeping in the often overlooked history of their neighborhood, Tejeda says, can help children sharpen their sense of identity, belonging and pride.
“These kids have no idea how special and beautiful their neighborhoods are because all they see on the news is how messed up it is,” said Tejeda, long a champion of culturally relevant pedagogy. “I want them to know this is the place, right here in your hood, this is where a lot of jazz music was born.”
Music often resonates with children on a deeper level than other forms of instruction. Tejeda is moved to tears remembering one little boy who had trouble engaging at school because of trauma at home. He only opened up when they began to play the piano together at recess. The piano became his sanctuary.
“I’m shook when I come home because a lot of these kids are dealing with very hard stuff and they’re so resilient,” said Tejeda, his voice thick with emotion.
“Yes, math and science is important but the whole child is important, that’s what drives me.”
Music also enhances both math and reading performance, experts say, perhaps partly because it enhances the neuroplasticity of the brain. Music amplifies learning across subject areas, experts say.
“Music and movement in addition to the more common modalities of written and verbal instruction is critical for including all kinds of learners in a well-rounded education,” said Jessica Mele, interim executive director of Create CA, an advocacy group. “It’s particularly beneficial for students whose first language is not English. Using art as a window into culture, race and history can engage students in complex conversations that they might not otherwise engage in.”
Music can also be healing, research suggests. As a boy, Tejeda suffered from a stutter that only subsided when he sang.
“I keep it real with the kids because I see myself in them,” he said. “It’s crazy how impactful music has been for me.”
It’s also a uniquely social experience that invites children to collaborate with their peers on projects that both require and reward focus and discipline, qualities that fuel academic success, experts say. Children practiced in the arts become accustomed to working collectively toward ambitious long-term goals.
Perhaps most importantly for Tejeda, children often find their voice through music and the arts. They can gain a sense of confidence, social-emotional well-being and a passion for lifelong learning.
“The end goals of music and education aren’t to memorize curriculums or key terms,” said Tejeda. “It’s really to find out who you are. It’s about self-determination and growing the full human being. I’m so excited to see this synergy of music and education because they are inextricable.”
Tejeda’s ambition is to make school so stimulating that children want to go there every day because they are deeply engaged in their studies. At a time of chronic absenteeism and plummeting test scores, he has a transformative vision of arts education as reinvigorating the classroom.
“I feel a deep calling to help effect change across California classrooms,” he said. “I am never going to stop teaching, because teaching and education is so essential to my soul. It is at the core of who I am,” but this “is a critical time for me to put my work into the next gear and figure out how I’m going to apply my passion and expertise to affect tangible change, more urgently, on a wider scale.”
Going forward, he hopes to pursue arts education advocacy on a broader level. He is also developing a new arts-driven curriculum, to “unleash the symphony of learning,” as Proposition 28, the state’s groundbreaking 2022 arts initiative, ramps up.
“It’s like out of my dreams and into reality,” he said. “We’re going to create a new world for students. This is a revolutionary time.”
High school students conduct a science experiment with their teacher, right.
Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education
It’s not hard to imagine why we are currently confronted with a crisis of teacher burnout. After decades of being severely underpaid while costs of living skyrocket, combined with heightened safety issues and the incredible stress of the pandemic, it’s no wonder why countless teachers across the country are fleeing the profession.
It has resulted in a national teacher shortage that we are experiencing acutely in California. According to the California Department of Education, there were more than 10,000 teacher vacancies during the 2021-22 school year, particularly concentrated in rural communities, communities of color and low-income communities, as well as a 16% reduction in new teacher credentials, the first decline in nearly a decade.
Even when people decide to make the courageous decision to become teachers, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ensure they stay in the profession. A recent nationwide survey found that 1 in 3 teachers say they are likely to quit in the next two years.
It’s a dire crisis that must be addressed with urgency, coordination and innovative solutions. As state superintendent of public instruction, I have partnered with educators and legislators across California to craft teacher recruitment and retention policies that comprehensively confront this momentous challenge.
SB 765, which Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed, will help develop a statewide recruitment strategy that’s never been seen before, incentivizing longtime, qualified educators back in the classroom to provide short-term help and removing financial barriers to those attempting to enter the profession.
The financial incentives include expanding the Golden State Teacher Grant Program to provide a $20,000 scholarship for anyone who wants to be a teacher or school mental health clinician, as well as a $10,000 undergraduate scholarship for any student who is enrolled to become a tutor in our College Core program. It also offers people who complete the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification a $5,000 annual grant for five consecutive years of their teaching career.
These measures are invaluable tools to provide bonuslike incentives for people from marginalized communities looking to enter the profession, which many believe is critical in hiring more teachers of color across the state to ensure that our classrooms actually look like California — something that greatly benefits every student.
We’re also working to expand outreach to specific communities that may have an interest in teaching in our state, including recently retired educators, the spouses of military personnel who have teaching backgrounds in other states, as well as recruiting from the ranks of the classified staff and expanded learning educators.
Teacher recruitment has historically been a disparate process that is executed at the individual district level. But due to the overwhelming scale of the crisis, we’ve made creating a coordinated statewide effort under the California Department of Education a top priority, including developing a one-stop portal that’s a resource for teaching credentials, scholarships and teacher openings throughout the state.
In addition to building a comprehensive teacher recruitment system, California must invest in providing desperately needed raises for educators. AB 938, which was introduced this year by Assembly Education Chair Al Muratsuchi but didn’t make it through the state Legislature, would have increased teachers’ salaries across California 50% by 2030, aiming to close the existing wage gap between teachers and similarly educated college graduates in other fields.
At a time when costs of living in our state, including the skyrocketing cost of a four-year degree, are greatly outpacing the rate of stagnating teacher pay, it’s absolutely essential that we fund a significant increase in pay so educators, including classified employees, can remain in the communities they teach in.
It’s one thing to recruit teachers to teach in local schools, but it’s another to retain them for decades in our communities. The best way to do that is by providing a living wage for educators in every California neighborhood. That’s why ensuring that teachers are properly compensated for their tireless work next year through the budget or a bill like AB 938 that would significantly increase their salaries is so important.
Ultimately, the best way to combat our teacher shortage crisis is by developing a coordinated recruitment strategy, increasing compensation and providing additional financial incentives to build a sustainable pipeline of educators in our communities. In California, we’ve invested in bold recruitment and retention strategies that, if paired with the doubling of teacher salaries, will be a comprehensive solution to this overwhelming crisis.
During small group reading instruction, AmeriCorps member Valerie Caballero reminds third graders in Porterville Unified to use their fingers to follow along as they read a passage.
Credit: Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource
Top Takeaways
On July 1, the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment will be replaced by a literacy performance assessment.
The licensure test puts a sharpened focus on foundational reading skills.
The new test is one of many new changes California leaders have made to improve literacy instruction.
Next week, the unpopular teacher licensure test, the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment, will be officially retired and replaced with a literacy performanceassessment to ensure educators are prepared to teach students to read.
The Reading Instruction Competence Assessment (RICA) has been a major hurdle for teacher candidates for years. About a third of all the teacher candidates who took the test failed the first time, according to state data collected between 2012 and 2017. Critics have also said that the test is outdated and has added to the state’s teacher shortage.
The literacy performance assessment that replaces the RICA reflects an increased focus on foundational reading skills, including phonics. California, and many other states, are moving from teaching children to recognize words by sight to teaching them to decode words by sounding them out in an effort to boost literacy.
Mandated by Senate Bill 488, the literacy assessment reflects new standards that include support for struggling readers, English learners and pupils with exceptional needs, incorporating the California Dyslexia Guidelines for the first time.
“We believe the literacy TPA will help ensure that new teachers demonstrate a strong grasp of evidence-based literacy instruction — an essential step toward improving reading outcomes for California’s students,” said Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice, a nonprofit education advocacy organization.
Literacy test on schedule
Erin Sullivan, director of the Professional Services Division of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, said the literacy performance assessment is ready for its July 1 launch.
“We’ve been field-testing literacy performance assessments with, obviously, the multiple- and the single-subject candidates, but also the various specialist candidates, including visual impairment and deaf and hard of hearing,” Sullivan said.
California teacher candidates must pass one of three performance assessments approved by the commission before earning a preliminary credential: the California Teaching Performance Assessment (CalTPA), the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA), or the Fresno Assessment of Student Teachers (FAST).
A performance assessment allows teachers to demonstrate their competence by submitting evidence of their instructional practice through video clips and written reflections on their practice.
“It’s very different,” said Kathy Futterman, an adjunct professor in teacher education at California State University, East Bay. “The RICA is an online test that has multiple-choice questions, versus the LPA — the performance assessment — which has candidates design and create three to five lesson plans. Then, they have to videotape portions of those lesson plans, and then they have to analyze and reflect on how those lessons went.”
Field tests went well
This week, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing board is expected to hear a report on the field test results, approve the passing score standards for the literacy cycle of the performance assessment and formally adopt the new test.
All but one of the 280 teacher candidates who took the new CalTPA literacy assessment during field testing passed, according to the report. Passing rates were lower on the FAST, with 51 of 59 passing on the first attempt, and on the edTPA with 192 of 242 passing.
Cal State East Bay was one of the universities that piloted the test over the last two years.
“It’s more hands-on and obviously with real students, so in that regard I think it was very helpful,” Futterman said.
State could offer flexibility
Upcoming budget trailer bills are expected to offer some flexibility to teacher candidates who haven’t yet passed the RICA, Sullivan said.
The commission is asking state leaders to allow candidates who have passed the CalTPA and other required assessments, except the RICA, to be allowed to continue taking the test through October, when the state contract for the RICA expires, she said.
“We are looking forward to putting RICA to bed and moving on to the literacy performance assessment, but … we don’t want to leave anybody stranded on RICA island,” Sullivan said.
The commission has approved the Foundations of Reading examination as an alternative for a small group of teachers with special circumstances, including those who would have completed all credential requirements except the RICA by June 30, but the test may not be the best option for them, Sullivan said.
“It’s just a very different exam,” Sullivan said. “It’s a national exam. And while the commission looked at it and said, ‘We think this will work for our California candidates,’ it’s not the best-case scenario. So, trying to get these folks to pass the RICA and giving them every opportunity to do that until really it just goes away, that’s kind of what we’re looking at.”
The Foundations of Reading exam, by Pearson, is used by 13 other states. It assesses whether a teacher is proficient in literacy instruction, including developing phonics and decoding skills, as well as offering a strong literature, language and comprehension component with a balance of oral and written language, according to the commission’s website.
Teacher candidates who were allowed to earn a preliminary credential without passing the RICA during the Covid-19 pandemic; teachers with single-subject credentials, who want to earn a multiple-subject credential; and educators who completed teacher preparation in another country and/or as a part of the Peace Corps are also eligible to take the Foundations of Reading examination.
The Foundations of Reading test has been rated as strong by the National Council on Teacher Quality.
State focus on phonics
SB 488 was followed by a revision of the Literacy Standard and Teaching Performance Expectations for teachers, which outlined effective literacy instruction for students.
California state leaders have recently taken additional steps to ensure foundational reading skills are being taught in classrooms. On June 5, Gov. Gavin Newsom confirmed that the state budget will include hundreds of millions of dollars to fund legislation needed to achieve a comprehensive statewide approach to early literacy.
Assembly Bill 1454, which passed the Assembly with a unanimous 75-0 vote that same day, would move the state’s schools toward adopting evidence-based literacy instruction, also known as the science of reading or structured literacy.
Teacher candidates in the Claremont Graduate University teacher residency program spend an entire year working with a mentor teacher in Corona Norco Unified classrooms.
Courtesy: Claremont Graduate University School of Education Studies
Public schools in California are facing historic staffing challenges: rising rates of dissatisfaction and burnout within the current workforce and unprecedented shortages of future teachers, as increased housing and education costs deter potential teachers from entering the field.
But university teacher preparation programs and school districts can create more effective partnerships to meet these demands.
Historically, the partnerships between teacher preparation programs and school districts have been transactional: teacher preparation programs place student teachers in districts for short periods of time without considering district needs. To change this dynamic, teacher preparation schools launched residency programs to ensure new teachers better understood the communities they were serving. Residencies are similar to student teaching models, but differ in that they are for a full year. Within a residency, aspiring teachers take on increasingly more responsibility in the classroom alongside a mentor teacher for the entire year, gain familiarity with the ebbs and flows of the school year, and assume full teaching responsibilities by the end of the year.
Over the last five years, California has dedicated more than $350 million for teacher residencies to better prepare future educators and help diversify the workforce. Research shows candidates who go through a residency become more effective teachers more quickly than those launching their careers through other pathways, and they are likely to remain in the profession longer. It costs a district roughly $20,000 to hire a new teacher; by reducing turnover, residencies are not only good for new teachers and K-12 students, but also for school district budgets.
One promising avenue to meet these challenges is by creating mutually beneficial partnerships between university teacher preparation programs and school districts to help place and nurture new teachers in the field. These partnerships require transparency, a clear vision, and shared investments. With these elements in place, they have the opportunity to meet districts’ staffing needs and teacher preparation programs’ enrollment goals while surrounding new teachers with systems of social and professional support. These partnerships also provide stipends and embedded professional development that enrich existing teachers’ work with new avenues for leadership as mentors to new teachers.
One example of a creative and effective partnership can be found between Claremont Graduate University and Corona-Norco Unified School District. The university and the district had worked together for many years, with Corona-Norco hiring many Claremont alums, but they had never formalized a partnership. With a foundation of mutual trust and understanding, the district shared data about their current and anticipated staffing needs, and the faculty of the Claremont teacher education program shared insight into their students’ experiences, strengths and needs entering the profession. Understanding the benefits that a residency program provides to veteran teachers, students and the district as a whole, the district committed to paying residents a living stipend from reallocated budget dollars.
A shared vision is key to a successful partnership. For example, both the university and the district have a strong commitment to diversity. This is visible in the diverse participants recruited by Claremont’s teacher education program, who are drawn to its deeply rooted commitment to social justice and humanizing relationships. It also reflects Corona-Norco Unified’s mission to foster the wellness of their students by cultivating an educator pool that better reflects the diversity of its students and communities. This mutual commitment to what teaching can and should be created pathways for recruiting experienced mentor teachers from the district interested in professional development with the university that leveraged and built from their knowledge and expertise. Research shows that grouping mentors in community with other experienced teachers and giving them opportunities to engage not only as practitioners but also as intellectuals helps fend off burnout and gives them a renewed sense of purpose.
The teacher residencies that have come out of this partnership buffer participants from the overwhelm and burnout so many other new teachers face by embedding them within a community of support that includes university advisers and faculty alongside mentor teachers and advisers at the district. The residents not only learn from their university classes and experiences in their mentor teachers’ classrooms, but also from opportunities to work with colleagues to support students who are struggling academically, working with small groups of students, analyzing students’ work with department teams, and interacting with parents and caregivers at drop-off and during teacher conferences. The breadth and depth of these experiences give residents confidence that when they step into their own classroom, they’ll be ready to meet the needs of students and have colleagues to call upon when they need support.
District leaders are ready to hire their residents after they earn their master’s degree and credential and eager to have more residents at their school sites. School principals note that residents provide data-driven, hyper-personalized instruction to students that they otherwise would not be able to offer. Students love residents, often running up to them during lunch and recess for hugs. And parents and caregivers appreciate having more people around who care about their kids. Having more adults on campus who know and are known by more students benefits everyone.
With more partnerships like this, the possibilities to innovate and strengthen learning for everyone at our schools grow exponentially. This story is just the beginning.
•••
Rebecca Hatkoff, PhD, is the interim director of teacher education at Claremont Graduate University.
Debra Russell works as part of the California Educator Preparation Innovation Collaborative team at Chapman University to promote strategic teacher residency models across the state.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the authors. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Teacher apprentice Ja’net Williams helps with a math lesson in a first grade class at Delta Elementary Charter School in Clarksburg, near Sacramento.
Credit: Diana Lambert / EdSource
Apprenticeships are being added to the long list ofinitiatives California has undertaken in recent years to address its enduring teacher shortage. State leaders hope that the free or reduced-priced tuition and steady salary that generally accompany apprenticeships will encourage more people to become teachers.
Apprentices complete their bachelor’s degree and a teacher preparation program while working as a member of the support staff at a school. They gain clinical experience at work while taking courses to earn their teaching credentials.
“It opens up the pipeline to teaching for folks who are hired into the school district,” said Joe Ross, president of Reach University, a nonprofit that operates a teacher apprenticeship program. “We have people at Reach who are in positions such as janitors, working in the lunchroom, working in the office. The majority are teacher’s aides, but you have this entirely larger, until now, really overlooked pool.”
California has joined 30 other states that have committed to launching registered teacher apprenticeship programs at the encouragement of the federal government. Last July, the Labor Department developed new national guidelines and standards for registered apprenticeship programs for K-12 teachers and provided funding to develop and expand programs. Twenty states have already started registered teacher apprenticeship programs.
Registered apprenticeship programs must be approved by either the Labor Department or a state apprenticeship agency. They offer a high-quality, rigorous pathway into a profession through an “earn-and-learn” model, according to the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency. The salaries of apprentices in these programs increase as they complete coursework and take on more responsibility.
Apprenticeships attract and retain candidates of color
Research shows that “grow your own” programs, such as apprenticeships, help to diversify the educator workforce because school staff recruited from the community more closely match the demographics of the student body than traditionally trained and recruited teachers. Apprenticeship programs also increase recruitment and have a 90% retention rate, according to the Labor Department.
“We know, for our candidates of color, that affordability is one of the key considerations,” said Shireen Pavri assistant vice chancellor of the Educator and Leadership Program at California State University.
Clinically rich preparation programs with mentorship, like apprenticeships and residencies, attract and retain more candidates of color, Pavri said. The candidates in these programs usually remain in the preparation program and with the school district they trained in, and stay in the field longer, she said.
Residencies, unlike apprenticeships, focus on teacher candidates who have already earned a bachelor’s degree and are new to the classroom.
“Apprenticeships are relatively new nationwide but really rapidly growing as a way to address teacher shortages,” Pavri said. “The Department of Labor has supported apprenticeships for quite a while, but not in teaching.”
Longtime school employee works toward dream job
On a recent Thursday, apprentice Ja’net Williams, 48, worked with small groups of first grade students as they rotated through a series of stations during a math lesson at Delta Elementary Charter School. She has worked as a paraeducator at the rural school in the tiny Delta town of Clarksburg, near Sacramento, for 14 years.
Williams has always wanted to be a credentialed elementary school teacher, but she couldn’t afford to enter a conventional preparation program. This year she joined the teaching apprenticeship program at Reach University.
Although it is not yet a registered apprenticeship program, which would allow it to access federal funding and resources, Reach University is currently one of the few programs in the state with an apprenticeship program preparing K-12 teachers.
As an apprentice, Williams continues to draw her salary as a paraeducator, and also earns, annually, a $2,300 stipend and is reimbursed up to $1,000 of her expenses from the school district. Reach University charges $75 a month for tuition.
“I was looking at different options,” she said. “It came down to, it’s affordable. I’m a mom. I have a daughter in Sac State and one that will be starting at Sac City (College) next year. So I want to help them financially as much as possible, and take off the burden for them. So I couldn’t take on, you know, $40,000 of debt for myself when I would want to put that toward my children.”
Williams works in the classroom during the day and takes classes on Zoom two evenings a week to complete her bachelor’s degree and teacher preparation courses. She and her classmates discuss their day’s experiences and incorporate them into their coursework, Williams said.
After completing her teaching credential, Williams plans to continue to work at Delta Elementary Charter as a teacher. “I want to stay here,” she said. “This is where my heart and soul is.”
Experts plan state teacher apprenticeship program
There are 17 registered teaching apprenticeship programs in California, but they are mostly limited to early childhood education. There are no registered apprenticeships for K-12 credentialed teachers, said Erin Hickey, a spokesperson for the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency.
They may be more common soon. Pavri is part of a group of educators, researchers, state and county officials, and labor and policy representatives who have been working with the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency and the Division of Apprenticeship Standards for nearly a year to develop a Roadmap for Teacher Apprenticeships for California. Their work is being funded with philanthropic support.
The road map will help school districts, teacher preparation programs and other partners navigate the process and find funding to launch, scale and sustain registered teacher apprenticeship programs, Hickey said. The road map is expected to be released later this year.
The road map will take into consideration multiple on-ramps and pathways for different teacher candidates, including high school students, post-secondary students, current classified staff and other career changers, Hickey said.
Preparing the road map hasn’t been easy, Pavri said. The work group has had to clarify and streamline regulations from both the California Division of Apprenticeship Standards and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. The agencies are working together to develop a joint approval process that will be informed by the work group and by pilot programs expected to begin next school year.
San Diego, Los Angeles, Fresno, Sacramento and the Bay Area have been identified as potential pilot locations, according to Hickey.
The work group is also trying to identify a sponsor for the state program from a university, county office of education or state agency, or a consortium of partners, Pavri arvi said.
“Without adequate funding, it’s going to be really hard to ask for existing staff to take on these responsibilities,” Pavri said. “So, we’ve been trying to figure out what the roles and responsibilities for each of these entities are, and what kinds of funding would be available to administer the program.”
Funding for teacher recruitment drying up
California has spent more than $1.2 billion since 2016 to address teacher shortages, including $170 million for the California Classified School Employee Credentialing program, which also helps school staff to earn a degree and teaching credential. But budget shortfalls have state leaders looking for other sources of funding to grow the teacher workforce and to help teacher candidates to get paid while they learn, Pavri said.
Registered apprenticeship programs receive federal funding through the Department of Labor.
“Here in California, there have been recent incredible state investments for us to grow and diversify our teacher workforce,” Pavri said. “But all of these funds are one-time legislative appropriations. And then we’re also concerned about the health of the state budget and whether these appropriations would be renewed.”
A 2022 study by the Rand Corporation found that nearly every school district in America had to combine or cancel classes or ask teachers to take on additional duties due to a nationwide shortage of teachers.
The US has struggled with shortages for decades, but the pandemic worsened the problem, according to the Learning Policy Institute, with teachers citing online teaching and disruptive student behavior as reasons why they are leaving the profession.
Join EdSource reporter Diana Lambert on Wednesday, March 6 at 3:30 p.m. for a Reddit AMA focused on the nationwide teacher shortage, why teachers are leaving and what leaders are doing to bring educators into classrooms. Not a Reddit user? Create an account here.
An AMA, which stands for “Ask Me Anything” is a crowdsourced interview. The interviewee begins the process by starting a post describing who they are and what they do. Then commenters from across the internet leave questions and can vote on other questions according to which they would like to see answered.
The interviewee can go through and reply to the questions they find interesting and easily see those questions the internet is dying to have the answer to. Because the internet is asking the questions, they’re going to be a mix of serious and lighthearted, and interviewees will end up sharing all sorts of things you won’t find in a normal interview.
A mixed class of students, some with special needs, learn music in the Coronado Unified School District.
Credit: Jane Meredith Adams/EdSource
In response to California’s long-standing teacher shortage, the state has been investing in recruitment efforts such as internships, apprenticeships and residencies, all designed to attract new teachers to the profession. Now, in light of the thousands of jobs being generated by Proposition 28, many arts education advocates are aspiring to lean into the same strategies, looking to create more alternate pathways into arts education at the TK-12 level..
Teacher residencies are one such route. Part of the “earn-and-learn” model, these positions offer on-the-job training as well as mentorship that often appeals to candidates who may not be able to afford to enter a conventional teacher-preparation program. That may help diversify the ranks.
Merryl Goldberg, a veteran music and arts professor at Cal State San Marcos, is helping develop a residency program that would meet the needs of her arts education students, most of whom are the first in their families to go to college. Without paid learning opportunities, becoming an arts teacher can be a hard path to walk, she says, because it means giving up much-needed income for years.
“This can be a game changer for many students,” said Goldberg, who has plans to partner with several North County San Diego schools in the next school year. “Many of our students have to work while in school to support themselves and contribute to their family. … Imagine that their work is their school, how much more time and energy they can put into becoming an amazing teacher.”
Jacquelyn Ollison, program director of the California Teacher Residency Lab, points out that residency programs can help boost diversity, recruiting teachers who reflect the students they serve. Residents often teach alongside a mentor teacher for a year of clinical training even as they complete required coursework in a teacher preparation program.
“From an equity perspective, residency programs are just so amazing,” Ollison said. “You have funding to diversify the workforce, to recruit and retain candidates of color, who reflect what our student population is. Then, when you think about art and who has access to amazing art teachers and who doesn’t, this is a way to ensure that we’re having these art teachers come in really prepared, reflecting local diversity and kids getting the opportunity to benefit from it.”
Eric Engdahl, professor emeritus at CSU East Bay and past president of the California Council on Teacher Education, is among those working on plans for how best to extend these programs into the arts ed space, but he cautions that institutional change is rarely swift.
“I think it will be a very important venue to expand Prop. 28 and get teachers in the pipeline, but it is complicated, as are all things in education,” said Engdahl, who spearheaded an online credential program in theater and dance at Cal State East Bay in 2021, making it the first CSU to offer those credentials amid the implementation of Proposition 28, “and may take time to make any real impact.”
However, a sense of urgency is part of this vision for nurturing a generation of teachers who better connect with the students they teach in this deeply diverse state.
“This impacts not only the students by giving them the time to really engage with learning, but benefits their future students as their time is really focused on their studies to become a reflective, thoughtful and engaged teacher,” Goldberg said. “The population of the students we reach, no doubt, is the very population of students who have less opportunities and privileges. The students we are targeting mirror the population of the students they will go on to educate.”
Research has long shown that the benefits of the arts are rich and nuanced, from boosting social-emotional learning to supporting literacy and numeracy. And yet, until Proposition 28, it’s been the least privileged students, the ones most hurt by school closures and learning loss during the pandemic, who have also been the least likely to have access to the arts.
“We know that the arts are powerful for students and self-expression, and they have tremendous benefits at school,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. “Arts is something that everyone should have, regardless of your neighborhood or your ZIP code. And Prop. 28 guarantees that with equity, all students have access to arts.”
In an era of chronic absenteeism, student disengagement and a youth mental health crisis, many are hopeful that arts education may be a key way to bring magic back into the classroom at a time when many children have zoned out.
“From my perspective, we are all dealing with trauma at some level in our schools today,” said Peggy Burt, a statewide arts education consultant based in Los Angeles. “The pandemic created this new era of ‘learning loss’ that is driving both teachers and students to make up for lost time. As students hurry to catch up, they are experiencing a sense of overwhelm and disconnection. The arts, coupled with social-emotional learning, can be a path back to integration and belonging. … The arts create a culture and environment where students can thrive.”
The arts can be a powerful way to let students explore their darker feelings and turn those emotions into something beautiful.
“While so many of our students are struggling with anxiety and depression, theater, in my opinion, is one of the best forms of therapy,” said Catherine Borek, AP English literature and drama teacher at Dominguez High School in the Compton Unified School District. “We expose them to good stress, and we help them strengthen their wings so that they can fly. That is the power of the arts.”
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 permanentchange 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.
•••
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.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
