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  • West Contra Costa responds to complaints filed over teacher vacancies

    West Contra Costa responds to complaints filed over teacher vacancies


    A student at the afterschool program at Stege Elementary School in the West Contra Costa Unified School District.

    Credit: Sam Cleare

    West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD) officials responded to complaints filed over ongoing teacher vacancies earlier this month. However, complainants say the district lacks a sufficient plan to fix the problem, and the next steps could include litigation if vacancies are not addressed.

    “As teachers, our work is being harmed, our ability to do our job is being harmed,” said Sam Cleare, a West Contra Costa teacher. “But what truly hurts me the most is knowing that these students — I care about them so much — aren’t receiving an education.”

    Three teachers in the district, including Cleare, filed complaints on Jan. 31 alleging that the district failed to provide students with qualified teachers, resulting in teachers taking on more classes and sacrificing prep time. 

    The district’s response acknowledged that the allegations are true — the district was out of compliance with the law because teacher vacancies have not been filled and are being covered by long-term or day-to-day substitutes. According to the response, vacancies weren’t filled because of teacher transfers and late notices from teachers who left the district in the 2022-23 school year.

    The district also blames statewide systemic issues for contributing to the problem. Beginning in 2021, California schools had significant increases in teacher vacancies and declines in the number of new teachers, the response said, as the pandemic caused many educators to leave the profession. 

    “Any vacancy was not purposefully caused by the District,” Camille Johnson, interim assistant superintendent of human resources, said in the response. “The District has provided support and supervision for its students to the best of its ability within these limitations and has not purposefully caused any noncompliance.”

    Contra Costa County has 202 teacher vacancies, according to data from UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools. Alameda County has 504, Solano County has 38, and San Joaquin County has 125 vacancies. 

    To address teacher shortages, the district is continuing to revise its strategies to increase retention and recruitment and has implemented “recruiting, development, and hiring measures.” Additionally, since August, the district has had officials at 25 job fairs and has posted job announcements on at least six job boards.

    A coordinator has also been hired to develop and promote pathways for substitutes and employees to become permanent teachers, and the district is partnering with various universities and nonprofits for recruitment, the district’s response said. 

    Karissa Provenza, an attorney with civil rights law firm Public Advocates who is representing the three teachers said the district’s response is insufficient. 

    “They offer no solution or even a plan to discontinue these illegal practices.The response they’re supposed to provide is supposed to show how they’re actually solving the issue or attempting to solve it. Unfortunately, the district is illustrating a complacent status quo attitude towards fulfilling its legal obligations.”

    Karissa Provenza

    On April 19, nine days after the district responded to the complaints, Provenza sent the school board an appeal on behalf of her clients. The district has until Monday to provide a plan that explains how each vacancy will be filled and have a meeting with Provenza and her clients to address the vacancies.

    “Should the district’s response continue to prove inadequate, we and our clients reserve all rights to pursue additional legal measures, including by filing suit in a California Superior Court to compel lawful compliance,” Provenza wrote in the appeal. 

    The appeal acknowledged the effect teacher shortages have had on schools but said that doesn’t relieve WCCUSD from filling each class with a qualified and credentialed teacher. If substitutes covering some of the vacancies are qualified to be permanently assigned to classes, that could be a short-term solution, the appeal said. Other short-term solutions suggested were placing credentialed administrators into vacancies for the remainder of the school year, employing individuals who hold a short-term staff permit or a provisional internship permit, and employing retired credentialed teachers, which the district has done before. 

    Distict officials did not respond to requests for comment on the appeal. 

    The vacancies

    The three educators who filed complaints teach at Stege Elementary, Helms Middle and Kennedy High schools. Each school currently has four vacancies that have been open since the beginning of the school year or sometime in the fall. 

    At a school like Stege Elementary that has four out of 12 teaching positions vacant, about one-third of students “aren’t receiving an education,” Cleare said. “I’ve seen students blame themselves, or they become less interested in school.”

    For the past seven years Cleare has taught at Stege, she said, the school year has either started out with vacancies or someone has left in the middle of the year. Teachers sometimes had extra students in their class for many weeks, Cleare said. She now has a class with fourth and fifth graders because of the vacancies. 

    “I can’t believe this problem has been going on for so long and so little is being done,” Cleare said. “It almost feels like they don’t care about the students.”

    Cleare said she never has enough time to prepare lessons, and it’s common for extra students to be in classes because of substitute and teacher shortages. At one point, she had ages spanning from first to fifth grade in one class.  

    “We’re not going to stop taking action until we receive a full staff. This is a systemic issue. I know my students going to … Kennedy will also not have a teacher, so this issue follows them.”

    Sam Cleare

    West Contra Costa has fewer fully credentialed educators teaching in their field compared with the state average. According to data from the state Department of Education, the district had 78% credentialed teachers in the 2021-22 school year — the most recent data available. The state average was nearly 86%. 

    Excluding charter schools, WCCUSD also has the lowest rates of fully credentialed teachers compared with other districts in Contra Costa County, data shows. All other districts in the county are at 80% or higher. 

    Chronic absenteeism has been rising because of vacancies, according to the complaints, especially for students who need more support. There have been instances where groups of students were placed in the cafeteria because there weren’t enough teachers. Substitutes have covered some classes since the beginning of the school year to the extent that parents don’t know who is teaching their children day-to-day. 

    “We are starting to hear from parents who are really upset about what’s going on,” Provenza said. “We are continuing to hear that substitutes are not getting the support they need to support their students — it’s that turbulence that comes along with high number of vacancies.”

    Substitutes can be authorized to cover classes for longer periods — usually 30 to 60 days, Provenza said, but at Stege, Helms and Kennedy, substitutes have taught classes longer. At Helms Middle, there’s a large portion of eighth graders who don’t have permanent teachers in math, science and English, the complaints said. 

    Teacher vacancies are disproportionately affecting students of color, according to the complaints. Stege Elementary has about 38% Black or African American students and 34% Hispanic or Latino students in the 2022-23 school year, according to data from the state Department of Education. 

    Nearly 83% of students at Helms Middle are Hispanic or Latino and about 7% are Black or African American, data shows. About 73% of students at Kennedy High are Hispanic or Latino and nearly 18% are Black or African American. 

    Cristina Huerta, the Kennedy High teacher who submitted a complaint, said vacancies have been “severely” affecting students’ ability to take Spanish courses. There are 143 students who are enrolled in Spanish but haven’t had a Spanish-credentialed teacher.

    “For the first quarter of the school year, the students had a couple of long-term subs, but that did not last more than a couple of weeks, and then they bounced around as Kennedy teachers covered a different period without access to any curriculum,” Huerta said in an email. 

    Students have gaps in their Spanish education because some of the teachers covering the class aren’t credentialed to teach Spanish, Huerta said. Students will likely struggle in higher-level Spanish classes in the coming years. 

    “All in all, the vacancies have been disheartening, and I worry about the future of the Spanish program at Kennedy since the vacancy has been cut for next year, and we are no longer hiring a third Spanish teacher,” Huerta said. “ I’m not sure how our small department will be able to serve the Kennedy student population as they attempt to complete graduation requirements and enroll in higher-level classes for college preparation.”





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  • Dissent, no funding yet for statewide teacher training in math and reading

    Dissent, no funding yet for statewide teacher training in math and reading


    Credit: RDNE stock project

    Legislation that calls for providing all state teachers and aides with math and reading training passed its first legislative hurdle despite the uncertainty of funding and the skepticism of advocates for English learners who dislike the bill’s nod to instruction in the “science of reading,” including phonics.

    Senate Bill 1115 has no secure source of money heading into a tight fiscal year, with Gov. Gavin Newsom all but ruling out money for new programs. His January budget includes $20 million for a designated county office to train coaches who would then train their own teachers in what they learned.

    Neither the bill’s author, Sen. Monique Limon, D-Santa Barbara, nor its sponsor, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, offered a cost estimate at a hearing of the Senate Education Committee last Wednesday, though it would cost at least hundreds of millions of dollars to train 300,000 teachers. They said they were willing to phase in and focus funding, such as concentrating on early literacy and numeracy skills, and to look for federal and dedicated sources of money.

    Thurmond said training teachers to enable all students to read effectively “is an issue of moral clarity.” Neither he nor Limon offered a cost estimate that could run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

    “In an age when we have access to substantial brain science about how students learn, it should be unacceptable to train only some educators in the best strategies to teach essential skills,” he said.

    School districts have received billions of dollars between federal and state Covid relief funding, including money to address learning loss — money that could be used for teacher training — but none of that has been earmarked for that purpose.

    State budgets have set aside $50 million to hire and train reading teachers in the most impoverished 5% of schools. But Thurmond said training of trainers, however, does not substitute for providing sufficient funding to ensure training for all teachers and support staff in “high-quality” programs in math and literacy.

    The bill calls for the Department of Education to identify and recommend those high-quality programs by Jan. 1, 2026.  For transitional kindergarten through sixth grade, those should align with “the science of reading” by focusing on results-driven methods of teaching, which may include, but is not limited to, offerings such as Lexia LETRS and CORE Learning.”

    Singling out those specific trainings in the bill were red flags for two nonprofits that advocate for English learners: Californians Together and California Association of Bilingual Educators (CABE). The science of reading refers to research from multiple fields of science that confirm or discount theories on how children learn to read. LETRS and CORE Learning are intensive programs that explain a systematic approach to teaching phonics and other elements of reading consistent with the science of reading.

    Californians Together and CABE, however, complain that those programs overemphasize phonics and “structured literacy” at the expense of English learners’ need for more attention to oral language and vocabulary development.

    Calling Californians Together’s position on the bill a “tweener,”  legislative advocate Cristina Salazar testified at a hearing last week, “We agree that we need more professional learning for educators, but we do have concerns with the bill.  Specifically, it mentioned the science of reading, and it also names commercial programs.”

    CABE legislative advocate Jennifer Bakers said her organization shares the same concerns and “hopes to have a collaborative conversation about a path to move forward.”

    Last year, at the Legislature’s direction, the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing adopted new standards for teaching reading that emphasize explicit instruction of fundamental skills, including phonics. Starting next year, candidates in teacher preparation programs are required to be trained in those strategies.

    Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Boch, R-Yucaipa, asked Thurmond whether the intent is to train existing teachers in the new standards that new teachers will be trained on.

    “Yes, that is correct,” Thurmond said.

    Opposition from Californians Together and CABE this month factored into the quashing of a bill that would have required school districts and charter schools to train all TK to fifth-grade teachers and literacy coaches in instruction based on the science of reading and to buy textbooks from a list endorsed by the State Board of Education. Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Salinas, ordered Assembly Bill 2222 shelved without a hearing to give time for negotiations with opponents, including the California Teachers Association.

    At the hearing, Thurmond acknowledged similarities between the two bills, although AB 2222 would have been a mandate, while AB 1115 would recommend the selection of trainings.    

    Along with mandating the science of reading approach to instruction, AB 2222 would have required that all TK to fifth-grade teachers, literacy coaches and specialists take a 30-hour minimum course in reading instruction by 2028. School districts and charter schools would purchase textbooks from an approved list endorsed by the State Board of Education. 

    Thurmond said the language of AB 1115 is well balanced in that it refers to both the science of reading and the state’s English Language Arts/English Language Development framework, which includes multiple strategies necessary for all students, including English learners, to learn how to read. 

    New math framework

    July will mark a year since the State Board of Education adopted a revised California Mathematics Framework, which took four years and three revisions to pass. The drafters and supporters agree that the framework, with emphasis on tangible applications of math, as well as a deeper conceptual understanding of it, will require a shift in teaching and extensive training. But no significant money has been allocated yet, and the process of reviewing textbooks and materials has yet to begin.

    In an interview, Limon said it is important to raise the issue of teacher training now, even if legislation is tied to a future appropriation.

    Part of the public debate in committing public dollars should be, What would the program look like, and how will it serve diverse students? she said. “There is value to that discussion,” she said. Before her election to the Legislature, Limon served for six years on the Santa Barbara Unified school board.

    In 2022-23, only 46.7% of California students met grade standards on the state’s English language arts test; the percentages were 36.6% for Hispanic, 29.9% for Black, and 35.3% for economically disadvantaged students. The scores were worse in math:  34.5% of students overall, with 22.7% of Latino, 16.9% of Black, and 22.9% of economically disadvantaged students meeting standards.





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  • How strong teacher residency programs can help us retain teachers in California

    How strong teacher residency programs can help us retain teachers in California


    Courtesy: Aspire Public Schools

    Plenty of conversations in California have focused on recruiting teachers into the profession as a way to grapple with the state’s teacher shortage. This is important, and as a transitional kindergarten teacher, I am acutely aware of how quality teachers can impact our students and communities.  

    I pursued teaching largely because I want to be the representation I didn’t see growing up. I participated in a teacher residency program that built my confidence in the classroom and taught me to connect with my students by highlighting my own identity. It’s not only the way I was recruited to the profession, it’s also played a role in my retention.  

    To continue to tackle the teacher shortage, I believe California needs more strong teacher residency programs. Nearly 37% of U.S. public schools experienced at least one teacher vacancy, contributing to nearly half of public school students entering the 2023-24 school year behind grade level in at least one subject. Amid these shortages, California is still reeling from the repercussions of surpassing 10,000 vacancies during the 2021-22 school year. The effects are felt even more so in under-resourced, Latino or Black communities. 

     At Aspire Richmond Technology Academy, where I teach, I can see how we must prepare educators and then provide the tools for teachers to sustain themselves. It’s how we can prevent shortages and retain teachers down the road. 

    It was a winding road for me to realize that teaching was my calling. I never envisioned myself becoming an educator, largely because I rarely saw teachers who looked like me or who connected with me on a cultural level. While studies point to the importance of a demographic match between teachers and students, I experienced a real lack of Asian representation in education.  

    This changed when I went to college. With more exposure to Asian professors, I finally felt seen and represented. I felt empowered that education was a field I could pursue. And I put the puzzle pieces together — that all of my volunteer work and extracurricular activities centered around helping students. By the time I switched majors, I had some catching up to do. 

    When I learned about teacher residency programs in California, I jumped at the opportunity. I received a master’s degree and a California teaching credential in a single year. Even in my first year of teaching, I felt more prepared than other teacher friends.  

    While we can’t solve the teacher shortage overnight, here’s how we can ensure we’re training more young people to become highly effective educators and stay in the profession. 

    First, we need an intensive teacher residency program that builds confidence. Through Aspire’s teacher residency program at Alder Graduate School of Education, I apprenticed four days a week and had a personal mentor in the classroom with me who provided me with critical one-on-one support. Toward the end of my time as an apprentice, one of the students in our classroom asked my mentor, “So, what’s your job?” This gave me the confidence to teach the following year on my own. I learn best through a hands-on approach, so four days a week in the classroom with one day for intensive seminars and subject-matter courses helped me gain more real life experience. 

    Second, this wouldn’t be possible without strategic financial supports. We know that systemic inequities, including the high cost of college, hold too many back from pursuing a career in education. Ensuring teacher residents receive a stipend while earning their degree and credential(s) can help. Through a partnership, the program I participated in is helping to support staff members in earning and paying for an undergraduate degree with teaching credentials. Given the importance of representation in the classroom, the partnership prioritizes aspiring teachers of color and those from the local communities. 

    Finally, we should expand teacher residency programs that are accessible for individuals of all backgrounds. While California has made big investments in teacher residency programs, we also need to focus on effective teacher training initiatives that reflect our school’s communities. When I participated, my teacher residency program focused on “head, heart and hands.” This meant that we integrated theory and research (head), with a culturally responsive equity lens (heart), and our coursework mirrored our field work (hands). Highlighting representation, multiculturalism and identity continues to be stressed throughout the program — and it’s something I hold dear to my heart.  

    Last week, I proudly watched a kindergarten promotion, which included many of my previous TK students from my student teaching year. Seeing their growth academically, and how much confidence they have gained in themselves and their identities, is another reason why I continue to pursue education. In many ways, their growth reflects my own. And knowing that I contributed a small part to my former and current scholars’ successes, as they flourish in their own ways, brings me a surge of pride. 

    The programs at Aspire are happening at scale, with more than 36 schools serving more than 15,400 students across California. Not only did my residency program get me into the classroom, it’s played a role in keeping me there. We need more effective residency programs, and this can serve as a model for retaining teachers in California. 

    •••

    Annika Emmanuelle Mendoza teaches transitional kindergarten at Aspire Richmond Technology Academy in Richmond.

    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.





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  • West Contra Costa sued over poor building conditions, teacher vacancies

    West Contra Costa sued over poor building conditions, teacher vacancies


    A hallway in Stege Elementary School.

    Credit: Andrew Reed/EdSource

    A group of educators, staff and parents are suing the West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD) for failing to address poor building conditions, teacher vacancies and violating the rights of students, particularly Black, low-income and multilingual learners. 

    The lawsuit, filed late Friday by civil rights law firm Public Advocates and pro bono counsel Munger, Tolles & Olson, comes months after 48 Williams complaints were submitted to the district. It’s the first time a school district has been sued under the landmark Williams v. California settlement in 2004, which established the complaint process, the right to textbooks, clean, safe schools, and qualified teachers for all California public school students, said Karissa Provenza, Public Advocates attorney. 

    “The petitioners in the case are seeking a court order to compel WCCUSD to immediately remedy these violations, respond to complainants, and finally provide students with the safe and healthy school environment to which they are entitled,” a statement from Public Advocates said.

    In June 2023, 45 complaints were submitted to address facility issues at Stege Elementary School, including moldy walls, broken floor tiles and inoperable windows, according to the statement. Six months later, three complaints were filed to address teacher vacancies at Stege Elementary, Helms Middle and Kennedy High School.

    Under the Williams complaint process, school districts have 30 days to remedy the issues and 45 days to respond in court. West Contra Costa officials have not resolved the problems within the legally allowed time, according to Public Advocates.

    Instead of trying to fill open teaching positions legally, Provenza said, the district has relied on substitutes who aren’t authorized for long periods, which is illegal.

    District officials could not immediately be reached for comment. But in response to the teacher vacancy complaints, West Contra Costa officials acknowledged their practice of relying on substitutes isn’t lawful.

    District officials said vacancies weren’t filled because of teacher transfers and late notices from teachers who left the district in the 2022-23 school year. The district also blames statewide systemic issues for contributing to the problem. Beginning in 2021, California schools had significant increases in teacher vacancies and declines in the number of new teachers, the response said, as the pandemic caused many educators to leave the profession. 

    When substitutes aren’t available, other teachers in the buildings have to take on more work and sacrifice prep times to cover classes, Provenza said.

    West Contra Costa’s failure to address poor conditions at schools and teacher vacancies “creates a vicious cycle,” said co-counsel Dane Shikman from Munger, Tolles, & Olson.

    “Teachers leave or don’t apply for a position, in part, because of poor facilities at the school,” Shikman said in a statement. “And resulting teacher vacancies drive down student performance and attendance, causing stakeholders — including District administrators — to lose confidence and reduce investment in the school and its facilities. This suit is intended to break that cycle, so that WCCUSD students have a fighting chance to succeed in school.”

    A parent at Stege Elementary, Darrell Washington, who is not a complainant, said his son hasn’t been set up for success. 

    “Last year he had two or three different teachers,” Washington said in a statement. “It felt like a chaotic game of musical chairs. This system is not supportive for my child or any child at Stege. As a community activist, I want to raise awareness about what is happening at the school, not just for my son, but because it is a disservice to all of our children.”

    Students without a permanent teacher become less engaged and curious about learning, said Raka Ray, a biology teacher at Kennedy High. Ray has also observed that students are more likely to skip class, get in fights and be “addicted to their phones.” 

    Teacher vacancies are also disproportionately affecting students of color. Stege Elementary has about 38% Black or African American students and 34% Hispanic or Latino students in the 2022-23 school year, according to data from the state Department of Education. 

    Nearly 83% of students at Helms Middle are Hispanic or Latino and about 7% are Black or African American, data show. About 73% of students at Kennedy High are Hispanic or Latino and nearly 18% are Black or African American. 

    “For marginalized students who come from high-trauma backgrounds, having a sense of stability is extremely important for their academic success,” Ray said in a statement. “What I’ve seen with the vacancies is that my students have lost hope in the educational system to provide them with a better future.”

    Addressing teacher vacancies

    Superintendent Chris Hurst addressed teacher vacancies at Wednesday’s board meeting, saying the human resources team is “working hard” to fill positions before school resumes. 

    As of this week, Hurst said,  there are 76 open elementary teacher positions, 23 vacancies for secondary teachers, and 13 openings for special education teachers. There are also 247 open classified positions in the district, most being paraprofessionals. 

    Elementary schools with three or more vacancies include Stege, Bayview, Coronado, Harding, Verde, and West County Mandarin. Secondary schools with three or more vacancies are Korematsu, Pinole Valley, Richmond, and Kennedy.

    The district has been to 37 job fairs in the last year and relies on partnerships to hire and recruit teachers, Hurst said. West Contra Costa has partnerships with 35 universities, Teach for America, teacher residency programs, and retired teachers. The district also utilizes various job boards and has three upcoming job fairs this summer. 

    The district has already hired 10 teachers in the last two weeks, Camille Johnson, associate superintendent of human resources, said at the meeting. However, if not every teacher vacancy is filled this summer, Johnson said the district will fall back on substitutes. There are day-to-day, 30-day and 60-day substitutes, she added.

    This story was updated to correct that Raka Ray teaches biology, not English.





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  • Can high school teacher academies address the shortage? Programs point to yes

    Can high school teacher academies address the shortage? Programs point to yes


    Bullard High School senior Isabell Coronado works with Gibson Elementary first grader Mayson Lydon on March 15, 2024, as part of Fresno Unified’s Teacher Academy Program.

    Credit: Lasherica Thornton / EdSource

    In mid-March, Bullard High School students Merrick Crowley and Craig Coleman taught an interactive science lesson for a fifth-grade class at Gibson Elementary in Fresno. 

    At the front of the classroom, Coleman held an egg above one of three containers filled with liquids, such as saltwater. He and Crowley asked students to predict what would happen to each egg: Will it sink or float? The fifth graders, wide-eyed and smiling, raised their hands to share their predictions. 

    “You said if we took a field trip (to the Red Sea), we would float,” said one fifth grader to explain why she thought the egg would float in the saltwater.

    Once Coleman dropped the egg in the water, the students expressed joy or disappointment, depending on whether their predictions were accurate or not. “Can anyone tell me why it’s floating?” Crowley asked as Coleman hinted that the answer was related to density.  

    The high schoolers were in Fresno Unified’s Career Technical Education (CTE) Pathway course, one of the district’s three Teacher Academy programs that has the potential to increase the number of educators entering the K-12 system.

    According to educators and leaders in the school district and across the state, introducing and preparing students for the teaching field, starting at the high-school level, will be key to addressing the teacher shortage — a problem affecting schools across the nation. 

    Teachers are retiring in greater numbers than in years past, and many, burned out or stressed by student behavior, have quit. Fewer teacher candidates are enrolling in preparation programs, worsening the shortage.

    Since 2016, California has invested $1.2 billion to address the state’s enduring teacher shortage.

    Despite the efforts, school districts continue to struggle to recruit teachers, especially for hard-to-fill jobs in special education, science, math and bilingual education.

    As a result, districts and county education offices have been creating and expanding high school educator pathway programs under “grow-our-own” models intended to strengthen and diversify the teacher pipeline and workforce. High school educator programs expose students to the career early on by “tapping into (students’)  love of helping others” and “keeping them engaged,” creating a more diverse teacher workforce and putting well-trained teachers in the classroom, said Girlie Hale, president of the Teachers College of San Joaquin, which partners with a grade 9-12 educator pathway program. 

    “The high school educator pipeline is one of the long-term solutions that we can incorporate,” Hale said. “Through the early exposure and interest of these (high school) educator pathways, it’s going to have a positive effect on increasing enrollment into teaching preparation programs.”

    Growing their own

    Fueled by the expansion of programs, increased participation and positive outcomes, “education-based CTE programs over the past decade have increased in high schools,” said James F. Lane, a former assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Education and CEO of PDK International, a professional nonprofit that supports aspiring educators through programs such as Educators Rising. 

    Educators Rising, a community-based organization with chapters in high schools in each state, teaches students the skills needed to become educators. Lane said the organization has seen 20% growth in the last two years, including the creation of a California chapter. 

    “District leaders are seeing the benefits of supporting future teachers in their own community due to the fact that 60% of teachers end up teaching within 20 miles of where they went to high school,” he said. 

    That isn’t the only benefit districts see. 

    Fresno Unified, the state’s third-largest school district, enrolls higher percentages of Hispanic, African American, Asian, Pacific Islander and American Indian students than other districts across Fresno County and California, according to California Department of Education data from 2022-23. The district’s current high schoolers resemble the demographics of the elementary students and the next generation of learners.

    Fresno Unified’s Teacher Academy Program can feed those high schoolers into one of the district’s teacher pipeline programs and back into schools, said Maiv Thao, manager of the district’s teacher development department.

    “We know how important that is, to have someone that understands them, someone that looks like them and is able to be that model of, ‘If they can do it, then I can do it as well,’” Thao said. “We know that teachers of color make a huge impact on our students; they’re the ones who can make that connection with our students.”

    In San Joaquin County, there are at least a dozen teacher preparation academies across five school districts, including a program launched in 2021 through a partnership with the county education office, a charter school, higher education institutions and nonprofit grant funding. 

    Students interested in pursuing a career in education can enter Teacher Education and Early College High (TEACH), an educator pathway program offered at the charter school Venture Academy to support students from freshman year of high school to the classroom as a teacher. 

    Through the early college high school model, students simultaneously take their high school classes and college courses and will graduate with both a high school diploma and an associate degree in elementary education from San Joaquin Delta College. Further, a relationship with Humphreys University allows students, who’d be entering as college juniors, to graduate debt free with their bachelor’s degrees. Then, students can complete the teacher credential program at the Teachers College of San Joaquin. 

    “The idea was to grow students within our community to become teachers and, then, have them return and serve as teachers in the communities that grew them,” said Joni Hellstrom, division director of Venture Academy. 

    But first, schools must get students enthusiastic about teaching. 

    Split model of learning: Time in the class as students 

    Students in TEACH in Stockton and the Teacher Academy in Fresno experience a cohort learning model and fieldwork opportunities. The teacher preparation is done over four years of high school in TEACH. 

    Because the entire program is meant to prepare them to be classroom teachers, core subject areas are taught so that students can evaluate the effectiveness of teaching styles on their own learning, Hellstrom said. For example, as students learn math, the teacher points out the strategies he or she is using in the lessons, preparing those students to “become teachers of math, not just learners of math,” she said. 

    Students also take classes each year to learn different teaching approaches, and they’re encouraged to incorporate the methods into class projects and lessons they’ll develop for elementary classes. 

    As freshmen, students visit elementary classes as a group to be reading buddies to the kids. Sophomores partner with the elementary teachers to design activities, such as a science experiment. 

    Three Teacher Academy options in Fresno Unified

    Fresno Unified has expanded its program to offer various opportunities at its high schools, including the Teacher Academy Saturday Program, Summer Program and CTE course. 

    The Saturday program, requiring a commitment of four Saturdays in a semester, is a paid opportunity for high school sophomores, juniors and seniors to develop and teach STEM lessons. 

    The Summer Program, a paid internship also for grades 10-12, allows participants to work with students in summer school.

    As juniors, students do field work in a class or subject area they’re interested in. For example, a student who enjoyed sports worked with a PE teacher this past year and taught lessons she designed, then reflected on what she learned from the experience and how the elementary school kids responded. 

    “It’s a really powerful learning opportunity for them,” Hellstrom said. 

    This upcoming school year, the first cohort of students, now seniors, will participate in internships in school districts across the county. 

    Under the umbrella of Fresno Unified’s Teacher Academy Program, students learn, then apply skills at an elementary school through embedded workplace learning.

    The CTE course is designed for juniors and seniors to develop their communication, professionalism and leadership skills as well as learn teaching styles, lesson planning, class instruction, cultural proficiency and engagement techniques while gaining hands-on experience in elementary classes. 

    In Marisol Sevel’s mid-March CTE class, Edison High students answered “How would you define classroom management to a friend?” as Sevel went one-by-one to each high schooler, performing a handshake and patting them on their backs — modeling for them how to engage students. 

    Key components of the lesson were: building relationships and trust; providing positive reinforcement; exhibiting fair, consistent discipline; and other strategies to create a welcoming classroom environment.  

    “These are things that should not be new to you,” Sevel said about concepts the students have seen in the classroom and experienced, “but what is going to be new to you is how do you handle it as a teacher?”

    Time as teachers

    Fresno Unified’s literacy team trained high school students in the district’s Teacher Academy Program on the science of reading teaching method, which the high schoolers use to help elementary students during small group or individual sessions. Pictured is Bullard High School student Alondra Pineda Martinez with Gibson Elementary first graders Sara Her and Rowan Bettencourt.
    Credit: Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource

    With schools within walking distance, Fresno high schoolers walk to the neighboring elementary school, where they apply the lessons they’ve learned in class. 

    At Gibson Elementary, first-grade teacher Hayley Caeton helped a group of her students with an assignment as others worked independently. In one corner of the room, two first graders created a small circle around Bullard High student Alondra Pineda Martinez while another first grader sat next to Bullard High student Marianna Fernandez. “What sound does it make?” the high schoolers asked as they pointed to ABC graphics.

    Each week, Pineda Martinez and Fernandez covered specific concepts with the first graders in their groups based on the lesson plans that Caeton prepared. 

    The first graders, guided by the high schooler in front or beside them, moved from one activity to the next — from identifying words with oo vowel sounds to reading a book with many of those words.

    “Good job,” Fernandez told first grader Tabias Abell.

    More of Caeton’s students get academic support, as do other Gibson Elementary students across campus, because the high school students can pull them into small groups or individual sessions. 

    For instance, in Renae Pendola’s second-grade classroom, high schoolers provided math support as the teacher went around the class answering questions about an assignment. 

    Isabell Coronado and a second grader used fake coins to explore different ways to come up with 80 cents while Rebecca Lima helped three students with an imaginary transaction. 

    “Wouldn’t you make it just $1.24?” a student asked Lima, who reminded the group that they only had one dollar to spare at the ice cream shop, per the assignment. 

    Learning the reality of teaching

    From the professional development to the hands-on involvement with elementary students, high schoolers in Fresno are experiencing the “daily struggle” and “joyous moments” of being a teacher, students attending Bullard, Edison and Hoover high schools told EdSource. 

    “It’s preparing you for what’s coming,” Edison High student Alyssa Ortiz Ramirez said. “We’re not romanticizing teachers in here; we’re being real.”

    A Gibson Elementary first grader drew a picture of Bullard High School student Marianna Fernandez.
    Photo courtesy of Marianna Fernandez

    The high school students spoke about how difficult it is to engage and educate a class full of diverse learners. 

    “I was confused,” Edison’s Issac Garcia Diaz said about the first time he saw different learning styles among King Elementary students. “I thought everyone learned the same.” 

    The high schoolers aren’t the only ones learning from the experience; elementary students are more often engaged and supported. 

     “It’s not just academics. They’re connecting,” Gibson Elementary’s first-grade teacher Caeton said about the teacher academy. “With an older kid, (the elementary students) just come out of their shell a little bit more.” 

    Hoover High junior Saraih Reyes Baltazar was able to help the diverse learners at Wolters Elementary. Baltazar, who spoke only Spanish when she emigrated from Mexico, explained science concepts to Spanish-speaking students. She narrated parts in English and parts in Spanish, hoping to make the students more comfortable to open up and use more English. 

    Hoover High graduating seniors Vanessa Melendrez and Johnathon Jones also provided individualized support for Wolters Elementary first graders. Melendrez usually slowed down a lesson to help kids struggling to read at grade level, and  Jones most often helped students with comprehending the material. 

    “There’s only one teacher in the room, and there’s over 20 students,” Melendrez said. “A teacher can’t answer every question while they’re up, teaching.” 

    Gaining skills

    Crowley, the graduating senior who worked in the Gibson Elementary fifth-grade class, said leading whole-class presentations and small-group lessons taught him public speaking and effective communication skills.  

    “It got me ready for the real world,” he said.  

    Teachers and students said the Teacher Academy Program in Fresno develops and builds skills that can be used in the teaching profession or any career, including life skills of communication, soft skills such as punctuality and personal skills of confidence. 

    “It’s broken me out of my shy shell,” said Bullard High’s Fernandez. “It’s taught me how to connect with people — classmates, teachers, students, everyone. It’s made me communicate in ways that I haven’t been comfortable with.”

    Fernandez, a graduating senior, was able to talk with substitute teachers about what students were struggling with. 

    Her mom is a day care provider, and she has always enjoyed working with kids. She joined the Teacher Academy Program to test whether she’d consider majoring in education once in college. 

    She decided to pursue teaching as a backup plan, she said. 

    Hoover High School junior Kyrie Green wants to be a math teacher for high school freshmen.  

    Green, who is shy, viewed stepping out of her comfort zone and leading a classroom as her greatest challenge in becoming an educator. 

    But her time in the program has helped her speak up, she said. Now she’s looking forward to the next steps in becoming a teacher: graduating and earning a teaching certification. 

    Making an impact

    There isn’t yet a system to track the students who go from a high school pathway into a teacher credentialing program after college, then into the education career, partly because of the number of years between high school graduation and teacher certification. 

    Students who’ve participated in high school educator pathway programs, such as those in Fresno, have gone on to become teachers, including Thao, the department manager. She worked at an elementary school while in high school, obtained a teaching credential and started teaching at the same elementary school.  

    “I did what these kids did; I know it works,” she said. “Little by little … we are making an impact.” 

    Still, only 18% of Americans would encourage young people to become a K-12 teacher, according to a 2022 survey by NORC, previously the National Opinion Research Center, at the University of Chicago.

    With the programs in Fresno and San Joaquin County, “We have a whole group of students that are excited to go into a profession that is waning right now,” Hellstrom, Venture Academy’s division director, said. 

    Whether reaffirming a plan to pursue education or weighing it as an option, students told EdSource that the program has changed their perspective about teaching and has empowered them even more to become educators or to make an impact in another way. 

    “If I can be a teacher who gives students what they need, like attention, love or anything,” Ortiz Ramirez said, “then that’s why I want to be a teacher.”





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  • How a wonky policy tool may be the secret to building a robust, diverse teacher workforce

    How a wonky policy tool may be the secret to building a robust, diverse teacher workforce


    A teacher helps a student with a math problem.

    Credit: Sarah Tully /EdSource

    I am still making peace with a difficult truth. I am not sure I did enough for my students during my short tenure as a teacher. 

    After two years as an intern, I held a preliminary credential and felt ready for my sixth grade class. Then I was quickly thrown into a new eighth grade class due to dropping enrollment at Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Just like my students, I felt awkward and uneasy — brand new again. I studied hard and quickly. I had amazing students who learned with me. But, I still think about Luis, a smart young man who struggled with reading, yet could understand complex concepts.

    Luis and I both worked hard but needed more support than we were getting. I woke up at 3 a.m. daily as we approached eighth grade promotion, trying to think of how to reach him while there was still time. Unfortunately, by the end of that school year, our city, state and nation began to feel the effects of a recession.

    Pink slips had been issued. I had other options and left teaching.

    Now I am an advocate focused on how to improve student learning and teacher working conditions and outcomes. Nearly two decades later, we have a lot of the same problems — economic volatility, dropping enrollment and revolving teacher shortages. We can add the pandemic and its aftermath. It has been a downward spiral for teachers, with many leaving the profession and districts raising alarm bells about cuts. 

    There is one key difference, though.

    We now have access to a powerful data tool, Teaching Assignment Monitoring Outcomes (TAMO), a data set that reflects student access to teachers who are appropriately assigned and fully credentialed in the subject area and for the students they are teaching. This data is available statewide and can be traced to the school level. It ultimately reveals where we need greater focus and investment on teacher recruitment and retention.

    A third year of data was just released on DataQuest. Eighty-three percent of the state’s teachers are fully prepared. That is a good average, but it still leaves nearly 1 in 7 classes taught by teachers who are not fully credentialed and properly assigned. We also must analyze the data across and within districts to assess the equitable access to qualified teachers for low-income students, students of color, English learners and other student subgroups in our diverse student population.

    Educators, parents, policymakers, advocates, and community leaders can conduct that equity analysis and engage in transparent, local conversations to examine unique areas of need such as disparities between schools with high and low proportions of English learners at the same district, or shortages in specific areas such as math or career technical education.

    Public access to this data allowed our colleagues at The Education Trust–West (Ed Trust-West) to develop the TAMO Data Dashboard. They found, within districts, that schools with the highest percentages of students of color and low-income students have less access to fully prepared and properly assigned teachers. The tool also shows where higher proportions of high-need students are associated with more access to qualified teachers. By exploring this data we could identify places that have successful policies and practices to effectively and equitably recruit and retain fully prepared teachers.

    While a wide variety exists, districts also have their own systems to closely track hiring, retention and vacancies. Actionable and publicly accessible teacher data systems are critical in our long-term quest to effectively and equitably staff schools. Oakland Unified, where 61% of teachers are fully prepared, has developed a public dashboard to track teacher retention data disaggregated by race and ethnicity. Oakland also employs a teacher satisfaction survey to help potentially identify systemic issues with teacher working conditions much sooner. It is possible to address teacher stress and provide more support to newer teachers at specific schools, for example, before they become overwhelmed and take steps toward leaving their jobs. 

    District, county and state leaders who use data to precisely define their teacher workforce challenges may have more capacity to envision solutions, such as those in the California Educator Diversity Roadmap, published by Californians for Justice, Public Advocates and Ed Trust-West.

    Teachers have enormous impact on individual life trajectories, school communities, and, in the aggregate, whole societies. We must prioritize and invest in the potential of teachers as we recruit, train and retain them to help students also reach their full potential.

    Luis and I didn’t get what we needed back in 2008, but we had assets. I built on mine when I moved on from El Sereno Middle School, and I hope he did too. We have much better access to data today. We must match that data with action.   

    •••

    Angelica Salazar is senior policy advocate on the education equity team of Public Advocates, a nonprofit law firm and advocacy organization that challenges the systemic causes of poverty and racial discrimination.

    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.





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  • How California can stop losing great teacher candidates before they start

    How California can stop losing great teacher candidates before they start


    Tylyn Fields, with some of her fifth-grade students, is now a beloved teacher. But she almost never made it to the classroom.

    Courtesy: Tylyn Fields

    During California’s most recent teacher shortage, Tylyn Fields, a trained social worker, saw teaching as a calling and a promising career. Smart and motivated to make a difference, she was an excellent candidate for the high-need schools in the community where she lived and worked. Sadly, her research into teacher education revealed an impossible choice. A quality preservice program would require quitting her job for a year of unpaid coursework and student teaching. Taking out more loans was a nonstarter: she already owed thousands for previous student loans.

    We desperately need more well-trained teachers across the state. And while there are countless aspiring teachers eager to make a difference in their communities, the financial barriers to entering the profession are pushing promising candidates toward emergency credentials or away from teaching altogether. Teaching is a public service profession. For too many, their future earnings as public school teachers are not enough to pay back the upfront costs of preparation, causing them to enter the profession as an Intern with little or no training so they can earn a salary, or simply give up on the idea of becoming a teacher.

    California has made impressive progress in recent years to begin addressing this issue. In 2019, the state began investing in the Golden State Teacher Grant (GSTG) program to offer $20,000 tuition grants for teacher candidates who commit to teaching in high-need schools. And over the past 5 years the program has evolved to prioritize candidates who need the funding most and who seek meaningful teacher preparation before becoming teachers.

    The GSTG program has made an extraordinary difference for thousands of teachers, including Tylyn. At the Alder Graduate School of Education, we focus on community-based recruitment of aspiring teachers and saw a significant jump in applications thanks to GSTG. Without the financial support from the state, Tylyn said she would have waited until she could pay off her student loans – about 10 years, she estimated.

    To extend allocated funding for longer, GSTG awards were cut in half – to $10,000 – and the funding has run out. The Governor’s revised May budget for 2025-26 includes $64.2 million for the program, which is barely enough to extend GSTG for one more year.  By the time the funding could be signed into law, teacher candidates will already be enrolled in programs, having less of a potential impact on recruitment.

    We propose three big ideas to better support California’s teacher preparation pipeline. 

    1. Establish consistent financial aid for aspiring teachers so that districts and preparation programs can share reliable recruitment offers with candidates. Multi-year funding for the GSTG program is one way to do this and would allow for more reliable messaging to candidates. Another could be a teacher candidate loan program that could draw from Proposition 98 funds that are somewhat more shielded from the volatility of California’s General Fund.
    1. Create a layered system of needs-based financial support, with baseline financial support for those meeting need criteria, and layered support for candidates who commit to a high-need subject, school, or region. This would broaden access for lower-income individuals while giving the state tools for influencing candidates’ choices.
    1. Restructure aid such that pre-service preparation can compete with the financial appeal of emergency pathways. Ideally, candidates could earn pay and benefits while they learn to teach and have their training costs paid for. We wisely do this for Army and police cadets because it’s unthinkable that we’d send them directly to the field without training or have them pay for their own training. Similarly, teacher candidates should be paid for their pursuit of this public service profession.

    In these tight budget times, the most helpful short-term action is to increase the proposed GSTG reinvestment to cover at least two or three years of awards, so that it is useful for teacher recruitment.

    Ending with some great news: after enrolling in Alder’s pre-service residency program, Tylyn graduated a year later with a teaching credential and master’s degree in Education, and took a job as a elementary school teacher in her local school district. She is about to enter her second year of teaching and she is thriving – her students, principal and colleagues are grateful she was able to become a teacher. As a state, let’s continue to push forward with the good reforms we started six years ago, so that many more candidates like Tylyn can find their way to the classroom.

    •••

    Heather Kirkpatrick is CEO and president of Alder Graduate School of Education, a nonprofit, community-based, professional workforce development pathway that partners with public TK-12 school systems across California.

    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.





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  • Pressure from education advocates ends effort to eliminate teacher assessment

    Pressure from education advocates ends effort to eliminate teacher assessment


    Senate Bill 1263 will be heard by the full Assembly if it makes it through the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

    Credit: AP Photo/Terry Chea

    A controversial bill that would have eliminated teaching performance assessments — the last licensure test California teacher candidates are required to take — has been dramatically revised under pressure from education advocacy groups.

    Senate Bill 1263, sponsored by the California Teachers Association (CTA), would have ended the requirement that teacher candidates take video clips of classroom instruction, submit lesson plans, student work and written reflections on their practice to prove they are prepared to become teachers.

    In mid-June, the bill was amended to retain the teaching performance assessments, with a provision that the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing convene a working group of teachers, college education faculty and performance assessment experts to review the assessments and recommend changes. 

    The revised bill, if passed, would require the commission to approve recommendations from the work group by July 1, 2025, and to implement them within three years from that date. The commission also would be required to make annual reports to the Legislature. 

    Leslie Littman, CTA vice president, said that the amendments retaining the test were “disappointing” but that the creation of the work group is a positive step toward addressing the concerns that union members have had with the assessment.

    “I think that the way it was going to go, possibly the bill might not have made it out of the Legislature,” Littman said.

    Many teachers say the test is a waste of time

    Senate Bill 1263 was originally introduced by Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, chair of the Senate Education Committee, who said in April that eliminating the assessment would encourage more people to enter the teaching profession. He also said that it duplicates other requirements teachers must fulfill to earn a credential.

    K-12 teachers who commented on EdSource stories about the legislation were overwhelmingly critical of the assessment, stating that it is too time-consuming, caused anxiety and does not help prepare teachers for the classroom.

    California teacher candidates must pass either the California Teaching Performance Assessment (CalTPA), the Educative Teaching Performance Assessment (edTPA) or the Fresno Assessment of Student Teachers (FAST) before they can earn a preliminary teaching credential. The tests cost $300 total, or $150 per cycle, according to Littman.

    Education advocates call the test a valuable tool

    Proponents of the teacher performance assessments, however, say that eliminating them would have removed a valuable tool for evaluating teacher preparation programs and new teachers.  

    “We know when parents drop kids off at school, the most important thing in front of those kids is that teacher, and they want to make sure … that teacher is prepared to teach effectively, and that’s what the TPAs help do,” said Marshall Tuck, CEO of EdVoice, an education advocacy organization.

    Criticism of the bill to eliminate the assessment grew when its authors amended it in late spring to remove the requirement that candidates for a preliminary, multiple-subject or education specialist credential pass a test that evaluates their ability to teach reading. 

    The move came less than three years after legislators passed Senate Bill 488, which next July will replace the unpopular written Reading Instruction Competence Assessment (RICA) with a literacy teaching performance assessment. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing spent more than a year developing the assessment with the help of a working group of literacy experts. 

    Resistance against legislation built

    “Unsurprisingly, we got a little pushback from the Commission on Teaching Credentialing and some other folks who are stakeholders in this, including EdTrust-West and, not unimportantly, PTA groups,” Newman told EdSource on Wednesday. 

    After the legislation moved to the Assembly in late May, Education Committee Chair Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, began meeting with stakeholders, including the California Teachers Association, to discuss possible changes to the legislation. Representatives from the Commission on Teacher Credentialing also made their case for retaining the assessment to legislators.

    Education advocates showed up at a public hearing and also reached out to legislators and their staff, Tuck said. In early June, 13 education advocacy organizations, including EdVoice, signed a letter in opposition to the legislation.

    By June 17, the legislation had changed considerably.

    Legislation charges commission with more oversight 

    Along with retaining the teaching performance assessments, the proposed legislation would require the commission to report the number of teaching preparation programs with low passing rates on the assessment. The commission would be charged with helping these programs learn how to better prepare teacher candidates. 

    The commission also would be required to maintain a secondary passing standard for the assessment that takes into consideration other evidence of a teacher candidate’s performance.

    “ETW is hopeful that SB 1263 will now help to streamline and improve the administration and scoring of TPAs to ensure they are an additive, constructive experience for candidates, and that they do not have a disparate impact for candidates of color,” said Brian Rivas, senior director of policy and government relations for EdTrust-West (ETW), an education advocacy organization, in a letter to Assembly Appropriations Committee Chair Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland. “Doing so is critical for both addressing the state’s shortage of teachers of color and providing all students with teachers who are fully prepared to teach. For these reasons, we are pleased to support SB 1263.”

    The legislation has an annual price tag of $598,000, with $145,000 in start-up costs, according to a state analysis. It is currently being considered by the Assembly Appropriations Committee.  

    Revised bill a good compromise

    Tuck says the revised bill is an example of policy creation working correctly.

    “I think that strong pushback from advocacy organizations, as well as from the CTC (Commission on Teacher Credentialing), really helped to shift the direction of the bill,” he said. 

    Rivas said Newman likely “read the tea leaves” and realized he might have a fight on his hands if he got the bill to the governor’s desk. 

    Newman sees the compromise as a good outcome.

    “Legislation, sort of by definition, is a negotiation,” Newman said. “It was a commitment by the CTC to take a good, hard look and to reassess … the teacher performance assessment, so that it is not only less onerous but that it takes into account the existing demands on teaching candidates and also made sure that the assessment was fully relevant to the kind of skills and requirements that we are seeking from them.”

    The amendments are enough for the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, EdTrust-West and other advocacy groups, to change course and support it.

    “The commission welcomes the opportunity to engage with educators, teacher education faculty and the larger communities of interest to review and strengthen this important part of California’s teacher preparation system,” said Marquita Grenot-Scheyer, chair, and Mary Vixie Sandy, executive director of the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, in a joint letter to Muratsuchi in late June. “As amended, SB 1263 (Newman) aligns with the commission’s commitment to the process of continuous improvement, and the commission enthusiastically supports its passage.”

    But this doesn’t mean the issue won’t return.

    “It doesn’t preclude us from watching and seeing what happens in this work group,” CTA’s Littman said. “Then it doesn’t stop us down the road from bringing legislation back.” 





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  • California mustn’t lose its chance to address its teacher shortage and diversity problem

    California mustn’t lose its chance to address its teacher shortage and diversity problem


    Credit: Allison Shelley for EDUimages

    For years, California has been faced with a shortage of teachers that predated the pandemic but which the pandemic certainly did not help. A key factor that exacerbates this shortage are the high-stakes teaching performance assessments (TPAs) used in the state, such as the California Teaching Performance Assessment (CalTPA), the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA), and the Reading Instruction Competency Assessment (RICA).

    These act as overly restrictive barriers preventing us from solving not just the teacher shortage but also our significant teacher diversity problem. This is why the introduction of Senate Bill 1263 last year was a sign of hope and a step in the right direction.

    The original version of SB 1263, in essence, sought to dismantle the use of TPAs in the state of California and was strongly supported by those of us at the California Alliance of Researchers for Equity in Education (CARE-ED), and the California Teachers Association (CTA).

    But since its introduction, the bill has been modified to keep TPAs intact and instead implement a review panel to oversee the TPA and make recommendations about it to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC), the agency tasked with overseeing the TPA.

    We in CARE-ED and the CTA found this development to be deeply disappointing. While there are naturally differing viewpoints about the TPAs, with voices calling for keeping the assessments intact, it is education researchers and actual teachers on the front line who grapple with the realities of classroom pedagogy on a daily basis and are best positioned to know if TPAs are serving their stated purpose of ensuring qualified teachers or are actually undermining this very goal.

    In theory, TPAs are designed to measure and assess the educational knowledge, skills and readiness of teachers and predict their effectiveness in the classroom. In addition to being a measurement tool, they are also framed as being a learning experience in themselves by providing student teachers with feedback regarding their performance. 

    In practice, however, TPAs are a severe source of stress and strain on student teachers, many of whom come from disadvantaged or underrepresented backgrounds and are already overburdened in various ways.

    In 2022, I was part of a team of researchers at CARE-ED that examined the pass rates of the edTPA, CalTPA, and RICA according to different demographic groups. What we found were consistent racial disparities across all three assessments. In effect, the TPAs are functioning as racialized gatekeepers systematically impeding candidates of color — especially Black, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander, and Southeast Asian candidates — from attaining certification. This exacerbates the teacher shortage and the diversity gap, and undermines efforts to mitigate them.

    Then there are the expenses involved with the TPA process which, while temporarily waived during the pandemic, have been resumed. The TPA consists of two cycles, each one costing $150. This is in addition to the California Subject Examinations for Teachers (CSET), which also costs anywhere from a minimum of $63 up to a few hundred dollars. Furthermore, there is the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment (RICA), which costs over $200.

    These fees are all in addition to the expenses student teachers are already paying while completing their coursework, such as tuition, books, supplies and living expenses. And it’s helpful to remember that many student teachers are trying to make ends meet — while raising families, in many cases — with juggling the full responsibilities of leading classrooms of 30-plus students and completing coursework requirements and, at the same time, having to fulfill the stringent requirements of the TPA within the one year they are allotted upon registration.

    Yet, despite the steep costs and stress of the TPAs that student teachers face on top of juggling so many other challenges, there is often also a lack of support from the teacher preparation programs they are enrolled in, as well as insufficient support from state and local government.

    This is why providing concrete support, both financially and educationally, for student teachers is one of my priorities as interim dean for the school of education at Notre Dame de Namur University. If we can’t relieve student teachers of the burden of TPAs, then we can at least alleviate the burden of some of their expenses and provide as much educational support as possible while they navigate the TPA process.

    Based on our research at CARE-ED and the CTA and our many collective years of working with student teachers, we believe the best-case-scenario would be to pass SB 1263 as it was originally written. But since the bill has been modified, I would urge that at the very least the review panel that has been proposed in lieu of removing the TPAs have fair representation.

    This means that representation from the CTC, the aforementioned agency tasked with overseeing the TPA, should be minimal, and there must be a just representation of teacher educators and, most importantly, teachers themselves, because they are the ones who best understand the realities of teaching and what they need to do their jobs. This is critically important. Otherwise we run the risk of losing this precious opportunity to address California’s teacher shortage and lack of teacher diversity in a way that could make a real difference.

    •••

    Tseh-sien Kelly Vaughn, Ph.D., is the interim dean of the school of education at Notre Dame de Namur University.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • My anxiety as a teacher rises with every school shooting

    My anxiety as a teacher rises with every school shooting


    Students at Clairemont High School in San Diego participate in a national school walkout in 2018 to demand gun control — almost two decades after Columbine.

    David Washburn / EdSource

    “Four dead in shooting at Georgia high school, 14-year-old suspect in custody.” The ABC News headline blasts across my Apple Watch.

    I am in the middle of teaching ninth graders how to draw inferences to support an interpretation of Roald Dahl’s “Lamb to the Slaughter.” They’re captivated by housewife Mary Maloney’s stoic demeanor as she covers up her violent retaliation against her husband. I pause midstory to read the headline to myself, and without reacting, go back to modeling annotations as we uncover how Mary gets away with murder. The students are engaged, but I struggle to keep my own mind focused on the lesson, knowing classes are now canceled in another school, this time in Georgia.

    Afterward, I sit at my desk surveying my classroom. I mentally map out safety spots, rehearsing scenarios for a lockdown. I wonder, “What will I do if we are at lunch? Or if there is a shooting between passing periods?” My thoughts teeter between precautionary mental plans and prayers of relief: t wasn’t us. I imagine many teachers, administrators and parents around the country are breathing that same sigh; thank goodness it wasn’t my classroom, my colleagues, my students, my child. 

    The cry for gun control and stricter safety measures seems to fade in the quiet period after a shooting, with little to no change after the national mourning. My anxiety as a teacher takes a hit every time we revisit this repetitive headline. It is personal and desperately frustrating to grapple with school shootings time and again. Amid the helplessness I feel in the aftermath, I start to think of ways to help my students and colleagues navigate through this repeated collective trauma. What can we do, within our community power, to process these tragedies?

    Upon hearing that the shooter is 14 years old, my initial reaction is that school districts need to prioritize regular emotional check-ins for both students and staff. The research on the importance of social and emotional learning is clear: student perceptions of school safety and inclusion significantly improve with this support.

    The age of the Georgia shooter underscores the urgency of this idea; an intentional emphasis on mental health in schools as a proactive measure can be instrumental in identifying those who may be struggling with psychological challenges. What violence markers were observed beforehand? How could this have been prevented? This is a challenging balance to navigate: ensuring that schools do not overstep in identifying potentially violent individuals while also teaching emotional intelligence as a preventive measure for students to handle stress. While fostering social and emotional learning within school curriculums cannot entirely eliminate the risk, mandating this is a proactive, researched step toward school safety. 

    School personnel also need proper professional development on how to handle trauma. When we see signs of stress, what do we do? We know students now, more than previous generations, buckle more frequently under emotional loads that impact their ability to learn, and teachers often feel ill-equipped to respond. We need structured systems of correspondence when we notice signs that someone — student or colleague — is struggling. Just as school safety plans are mandatory, there is a need for trauma-response systems and appropriate annual training. 

    One issue that has repeatedly surfaced in my classroom is the significant impact cyberbullying and social media have on today’s teenagers. How has technology hindered our efforts to keep students focused and, more importantly, to keep them safe? How has living in a virtual world affected students’ ability to navigate real-life interactions? While I recognize that school violence existed long before every teenager had a cellphone or access to social media, I can’t help but suspect a link between the rise in school-related violence and the fact that much of children’s social interaction now takes place in an impersonal, virtual environment.

    As we respond emotionally to the shooting, the uncomfortably large elephant in the classroom is the urgent need for systemic change. Apalachee, Georgia, has been added to the list of communities grappling with the pain of government inaction. In the aftermath, schools across the nation are managing trauma response and reviewing their safety procedures, hoping to withstand a potential repeat event on their own campuses.

    Wanting students and faculty to come home safely from school should not be a political issue; it is a basic expectation. The overwhelming responsibility for student safety falls on me and my colleagues to find creative ways to ensure our own safety. Instead, this pressure should fall squarely on our elected officials. While we wait for legislative action, we map our modes of escape, pay heed to the emotional toll these events have on our school communities, and pray fervently that we don’t ever experience our own versions of “Lamb to the Slaughter.” The shooting in Georgia is a reminder to check our own locks and security measures in case we become the unlucky next.

    •••

    Emily Garrison is an English teacher in Northwest Arkansas. She is a Teach Plus Senior Writing Fellow.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. We welcome guest commentaries with diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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