When I first went to a free yoga class at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s recreation center in the winter of my sophomore year of college, I never realized how it would change my life.
I entered the space with a sense of discomfort; I hadn’t practiced yoga in several years and was hesitant to observe the stiffness of my limbs and unevenness of my breath. The other students around me seemed familiar with these classes and overall more comfortable in their skin.
At the time, I was facing mental health challenges, and a counselor recommended that I try the free yoga class at the recreation center. Willing to try anything, I decided to give it a shot.
The first class I took was led by a student. She invited us into a space with lit candles and gentle music. Even though my initial class was an adjustment, I still went back. And then, I went back again. In fact, it soon became clear to me I wanted to be an instructor myself.
I am a journalism major, and could never have imagined that college would allow me access to anything beyond a career in my area of study. But after completing my 200-hour yoga teaching certification over the summer, I was ready to apply to teach at the recreation center.
According to Eric Alexander, assistant coordinator of Cal Poly’s fitness programs, 16 out of the 46 fitness instructors at the recreation center are students. A huge benefit of hiring students as fitness instructors, he said, is the affinity with their peers as students.
“Students bring great energy to fitness programs, and they get the opportunity to positively impact and motivate their peers,” Alexander said. “That student experience is not only valuable to the instructors but to participants and the program as well.”
I saw this as soon as I entered the teaching space. My classes are sometimes filled with 40 or 50 students, many of them regulars who return weekly. I have found that my being a college student makes my students less hesitant to approach me after class to ask questions or simply to share what the class meant to them.
This accessibility to the physical and mental benefits of yoga helped me to recenter and grow as a person and as a student. Additionally, I came to realize I wanted to help others on their journey of healing. In this role as a fitness instructor, I have been able to expand access to yoga in my college community.
Yoga practice draws on a rich history of healing through mind-body connection which can help promote mindfulness and reduce tension. Especially for college students, this kind of physical practice can be incredibly beneficial.
According to research cited by the National Library of Medicine, “Yoga has positive effects on a psychophysiological level that leads to decreased levels of stress in college students.”
With the average yoga class in a commercial studio costing $15-$25 per session, yoga’s benefits are unaffordable to many young people. I’ve seen how free classes on campus solve that problem, and how they may be less daunting for some students to explore on their own.
Cal Poly and other public universities also offer other free group physical activity classes, such as cycling, dance, Pilates, high-intensity interval training and much more, allowing students to explore what activity is most beneficial for them.
I am grateful that pursuing my passion for yoga has been supported by my university, and while teaching me something that I love to share with other college students: Pursuing a passion or side interest while in school will serve to enrich your life, and in my case, the lives of others.
Consistently after my classes, students approach me to share how the space has helped them to recenter and find peace amid busy school days. I encourage them to not only continue practicing yoga but to consider teacher training if they are interested.
Using my platform as a student fitness instructor, I am able to share my passion for yoga to promote healing, growth and mindfulness in my college community. And I have gained experience for a career in teaching yoga, which I intend to maintain as a side job after college.
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
Top Takeaways
California leaders dismiss the criticism and methodology of the rankings.
And yet, graduate credentialing programs cram a lot in a year.
Many teachers may struggle with the demands of California’s new math framework.
In its “State of the States” report on math instruction published last week, the National Council on Teacher Quality sharply criticized California and many of its teacher certification programs for ineffectively preparing new elementary teachers to teach math and for failing to support and guide them once they reach the classroom.
“Far too many elementary teacher prep programs fail to dedicate enough instructional time to building aspiring teachers’ math knowledge — leaving teachers unprepared and students underserved,” the council said in its evaluation of California’s 87 programs that prepare elementary school teachers. “The analysis shows California programs perform among the lowest in the country.”
The report’s call for more teacher math training and ongoing support coincides with the state’s adoption this summer of materials and textbooks for a new math framework that math professionals universally agree will be a heavy lift for incoming and veteran teachers to master. It will challenge elementary teachers with a poor grasp of the underpinnings behind the math they’ll be teaching.
Kyndall Brown, executive director of the California Mathematics Project based at UCLA, agrees. “It’s not just about knowing the content, it’s about helping students learn the content, which are two completely different things,” he said.
And that raises a question: Does a one-year-plus-summer graduate program, which most prospective teachers take, cram too much in a short time to realistically meet the needs to teach elementary school math?
California joined two dozen states whose math preparation programs were rated as “weak.” Only one state got a “strong” rating.Source: National Council on Teacher Quality, 2025 State of the States report
Failing grades
The council graded every teacher prep program nationwide from A to F, based on how many instructional hours they required prospective teachers to take in major content areas of math and in instructional methods and strategies.
Three out of four California programs got an F, with some programs — California State University, Sacramento, and California State University, Monterey Bay — requiring no instructional hours for algebraic thinking, geometry, and probability, and many offering one-quarter of the 135 instructional hours needed for an A.
But there was a dichotomy: All the Fs were given to one-year graduate school programs offering a multi-subject credential to teach elementary school, historically the way most new teachers in California get their teaching credential.
On the other hand, many of the colleges and universities offering a teaching credential and a bachelor’s degree through an Integrated Undergraduate Teacher Credentialing Program got an A, because they included enough time to go into math instruction and content in more depth. For example, California State University, Long Beach’s 226 instructional hours, apportioned through all of the content areas and methods courses, earned an A-plus.
The California State University rejects the recent grading from the National Council on Teacher Quality about our high-quality teacher training programs
California State University
Most of the universities that offer both undergraduate and graduate programs — California State University, Bakersfield; San Jose State University; California State University, Chico; California State University, Northridge, to name a few — had the same split: A for their undergraduate programs, F for their graduate credentialing programs.
Most California teacher preparation programs have received bad grades in the dozen years that the council has issued evaluations. The state’s higher education institutions, in turn, have defended their programs and denounced the council for basing the quality of a program on analyses of program websites and syllabi.
California State University, whose campuses train the majority of teachers, and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which accredits and oversees teacher prep programs, issued similar denunciations last week.
“The California State University rejects the recent grading from the National Council on Teacher Quality about our high-quality teacher training programs,” the CSU wrote in a statement. The council “relies on a narrow and flawed methodology, heavily dependent on document reviews, rather than on dialogue with program faculty, students and employers or a systematic review of meaningful program outcomes.”
The credentialing commission, in a more diplomatic response, agreed. The report “reflects a methodology that differs from California’s approach to educator preparation,” it said. “While informative, it does not fully capture the structure of California’s clinically rich, performance-based system.”
Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality for the past three years, dismissed the criticism as “a really weak critique.”
“You can look at a syllabus and see what’s being taught in that class much in the same way that if you go to a restaurant and look at the menu to see what’s being served,” she said. “Our reviews are certainly a very solid starting place to know to what extent teacher preparation programs are well preparing future teachers to be effective in teaching.”
It’s not just a problem in California.
“When we compare the mathematics instructional hours between the undergrad and the graduate programs, often on the same campus, we saw on average that undergrads get 133 hours compared to just 52 hours at the graduate level. In both cases, it is not meeting the recommended and research-based 150 hours,” Peske said.
Part of the problem is that graduate programs usually don’t have enough time to instill future teachers with the content knowledge that they need.
Heather Peske
Whether or not examining website data is a good methodology, the disparities in hours devoted to math preparation between undergraduate and graduate programs raise an important issue.
True jacks of all trades, elementary teachers must become proficient in many content areas — social studies, English language arts, English language development for English learners, and science, as well as math. Add to that proficiency in emerging technologies, classroom management, skills for teaching students with disabilities, and student mental health: How can they adequately cover math, especially?
“Part of the problem is that graduate programs usually don’t have enough time to instill future teachers with the content knowledge that they need,” Peske said. “California programs have to reckon with this idea that they’re sending a bunch of teachers into classrooms who have not demonstrated that they are ready to teach kids math.”
Brown said, “There’s no way that in a one-year credential program that they’re going to get the math that they need to be able to teach the content that they’re responsible for teaching.”
That was Anthony Caston’s experience. Before starting his career as a sixth-grade teacher at Foulks Ranch Elementary School in Elk Grove three years ago, Caston took courses for his credential in graduate programs at Sacramento State and the University of the Pacific. There wasn’t enough time to learn all he needed to teach the subject, he said. A few classes were useful, but didn’t get much beyond the third- or fourth-grade curriculum, he said.
“I had to take myself back to school, reteach myself everything, and then come up with some teaching strategies,” Caston said.
Fortunately for him, veteran teachers at his school helped him learn more about Common Core math and how to teach it.
The math content Brown refers togoes beyond knowing how to invert fractions or calculate the area of a triangle; it involves a conceptual understanding of essential math topics, Peske said. Only a deeper conceptual grasp will enable teachers to diagnose and explain students’ errors and misunderstandings, Peske said, and to overcome the math phobia that surveys show many teachers have.
Ma Bernadette Salgarino, the president of the California Mathematics Council and a math trainer in the Santa Clara County Office of Education, acknowledges that many math teachers have not been taught the concepts behind the progression of the state’s math standards. “It is not clear to them,” she said. “They’re still teaching to a regurgitation of procedures, copy and paste. These are the steps, and this is what you will do.”
Although a longtime critic of the council, Linda Darling-Hammond, who chaired California’s credentialing commission before becoming the current president of the State Board of Education, acknowledges that the report raises a legitimate issue.
“Time is an important question,” she said. “It is true that having more time well spent — the ‘well spent’ matters — could make a difference for lots of people in learning lots of subjects, including math.”
Darling-Hammond faults the study, however, for not factoring in California’s broader approach to teacher preparation, including requiring that teaching candidates pass a performance assessment in math and underwriting teacher residency programs, in which teachers work side by side with an effective teacher for a full year while taking courses in a graduate program.
“You could end up becoming a pretty spectacular math teacher in a shorter amount of time than if you’re just studying things in an undergraduate program disconnected from student teaching,” she said.
Weak state policies
The report also grades every state’s policies on math instruction, from preparing teachers to coaching them after they’re in the classroom. California and two dozen states are rated “weak,” ahead of seven “unacceptable” states (Montana, Arizona, Nebraska, Missouri, Alaska, Vermont and Maine) while behind 17 “moderate” states, including Texas and Florida, and a sole “strong” state, Alabama.
The council bases the rating on the implementation of five policy “levers” to ensure “rigorous standards-aligned math instruction.” However, California’s actions are more nuanced than perhaps its “unacceptable” ratings on three and “strong” ratings on two would indicate.
For example, the council dinged the state for not requiring that all teachers in a prep program pass a math licensure test. California does require elementary credential candidates to pass the California Subject Examinations for Teachers, or CSET, a basic skills test, before they can teach students. But the math portion is combined with science, and students can avoid the test by supplying proof they have taken undergraduate math courses.
At the same time, many superintendents and math teachers may be doing a double-take for a “strong” rating for providing professional learning and ongoing support for teachers to sustain effective math instruction.
Going back to the adoption of the Common Core, the state has not funded statewide teacher training in math standards. In the past five years, the state has spent $500 million to train literacy coaches in the state’s poorest schools, but nothing of that magnitude for math coaches.
The Legislature approved $20 million for the California Mathematics Project for training in the new math framework, which was passed in 2023, and $50 million in 2022-23 for instruction in grades fourth to 12th in science, math and computer science training to train coaches and teacher leaders — amounts that would be impressive for smaller states, but not to fund training most math teachers in California. (You can find a listing of organizations offering training and resources on the math framework here.)
In keeping with local control, Gov. Gavin Newsom has appropriated more than $10 billion in education block grants, including the Student Support and Professional Development Discretionary Block Grant,and the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant, but those are discretionary; districts have wide latitude to spend money however they want on any subject.
Tucked into a section on Literacy Instruction in Newsom’s May budget revision (see Page 19) is the mention that a $545 million grant for materials instruction will include a new opportunity to support math coaches, too. The release of the final state budget for 2025-26 later this month will reveal whether that money survives.
Brown calls for hiring more math specialists for schools and for three-week summer intensive math leadership institutes like the one he attended in 1994. It hasn’t been held since the money ran dry in the early 2000s.
EdSource reporter Diana Lambert contributed to this article.
On Feb. 8, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing will be considering significant revisions to the California Standards for the Teaching Profession, the framework that helps define common expectations for what all teachers should know and be able to do. As veteran teachers with over 40 years of teaching between us, we know how important it will be for students and teachers that the state adopts these revisions and that it allocates funding to support their implementation.
Wendy was evaluated this year by her principal. When they reviewed the standards Wendy was expected to know during observations, she realized that she’s seen this document many times before in her career; the same standards have been in place since 2009. These antiquated standards don’t reflect the strategies Wendy uses, the needs of her students, or even the technology integration embedded in the instruction. However, this is the tool her principal must use to determine Wendy’s effectiveness, and to highlight any areas in need of support. It is long past time for the state to revise these important guides.
For Juan, who is a mentor and instructor for student teachers and new educators, these standards matter because they serve as a guide for the Teaching Performance Expectations, which are used by teacher preparation programs and the commission to train and credential all new teachers. New teacher induction programs center the support they provide for new teachers around the standards as well. Because of this, every developing educator Juan has worked with has had to align their instruction and most importantly, the reflective practice that drives their continuous improvement, around the content of the standards. New educators who come closest to mastering these standards have the highest probability of being hired, being retained and ultimately having long successful careers.
In 2020, the commission formed a committee of educators to rewrite the standards. Equity-minded education stakeholders across the state were hopeful, excited even, when the draft of new standards was completed in February 2021. These new standards have the power to change what teaching and learning looks like in California. They promise improved guidelines that support social-emotional learning and build school communities that emphasize cultural responsiveness. The standards expect teachers like us to create learning environments that are inclusive, respectful and supportive, while also using evidence-based best practices to guide rigorous instruction. They give us a “north star” we can use to effectively orient our ongoing practice and a lens through which we can reflect on it and grow as educators.
To ensure that the standards are implemented with the fidelity our students deserve, California is going to need to support their implementation with funding necessary for schools and districts to meet the unique needs of their respective educational communities. In addition, colleges of education and induction programs will need adequate funding to create and implement new coursework and professional development for not only new teachers, but teachers currently in the classrooms who have never used the new standards as a tool for growth and development. Without standards that are implemented consistently, students are the victims of a terrible educational lottery. Students whose teachers have been supported with meaningful professional development will have the opportunity to thrive, while the rest of the students will be deprived and potentially disadvantaged in their life in and beyond school.
President Joe Biden has said, “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” The new standards underscore that we value culturally responsive teaching, social-emotional learning, and asset-based pedagogy among other instructional approaches. However, if the state does not commit to providing financial support to local educational agencies to do this work well, then the standards are merely empty platitudes. If we are really serious about raising the academic achievement level of all our students, then there is no better investment than that of ensuring that our educators have the tools necessary to help students reach their full learning potential.
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Juan Resendez is a civics, world history and religions teacher at Portola High School in Irvine and an alumnus of the Teach Plus Policy Fellowship.
Wendy Threatt is a National Board Certified fourth grade teacher at Felicita Elementary in Escondido and a senior policy fellow with Teach Plus.
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.
California’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing approved long-awaited revised Standards for the Teaching Profession on Thursday that emphasize culturally responsive teaching, social-emotional learning and family engagement.
The standards, which guide teachers’ professional development and evaluation statewide, broadly describe the knowledge, skills and abilities expected of effective experienced teachers. State law requires that they are updated regularly.
During the meeting Thursday, the overwhelming sentiment — from commissioners members, speakers from the public, and the letters received — supported the new standards; however, some asked the commission to push back the 2025-26 rollout of the new standards to allow university teacher preparation programs, school districts and commission staff more time to implement changes.
“The revised CSTP aims to rehumanize our system by focusing on the whole student, their identities and what’s meaningful in this world to them, not us,” said Leigh Dela Victoria, an instructional coach in the Fontana Unified School District in San Bernardino County.
“They havethe potential to transform all of our classrooms into culturally and linguistically responsive and sustaining communities,” she said. “As a coach, I can tell you firsthand the impact this type of teaching has on students when their identities, assets and agency are valued.”
She told commission members that the current standards, approved in 2009, are out of touch with what needs to be taught in classrooms.
The six overarching domains of teaching in the new document are similar to the previous standards, and are parallel to other state standards, according to the commission. The elements within the domains include definitions and examples. The six domains are also used in the Teaching Performance Expectations, which outline what beginning teachers should know.
Going Deeper
Domain 1: Engaging and supporting all students in learning – Teachers apply knowledge about each student to activate an approach to learning that strengthens and reinforces each student’s participation, engagement, connection and sense of belonging.
Domain 2: Creating and maintaining effective environments for student learning – Teachers create and uphold a safe, caring and intellectually stimulating learning environment that affirms student agency, voice, identity and development, and promotes equity and inclusivity.
Domain 3: Understanding and organizing subject matter for student learning – Teachers integrate content, processes, materials and resources into a coherent, culturally relevant and equitable curriculum that engages and challenges learners to develop the academic and social–emotional knowledge and skills required to become competent and resourceful learners.
Domain 4: Planning instruction and designing learning experiences for all students – Teachers set a purposeful direction for instruction and learning activities, intentionally planning and enacting challenging and relevant learning experiences that foster each student’s academic and social–emotional development.
Domain 5: Assessing students for learning – Teachers employ equitable assessment practices to help identify students’ interests and abilities, to reveal what students know and can do and to determine what they need to learn. Teachers use that information to advance and monitor student progress as well as to guide teachers’ and students’ actions to improve learning experiences and outcomes.
Domain 6: Developing as a professional educator – Teachers develop as effective and caring professional educators by engaging in relevant and high-quality professional learning experiences that increase their teaching capacity, leadership development and personal well-being. Doing so enables teachers to support each student to learn and thrive.
“The revised CSTP features several key shifts from the 2009 version, chief among them a more holistic approach to teaching and learning,” said Sarah Lillis, executive director for Teach Plus California, in a letter. “For example, the move from goal setting to designing learning experiences shifts the focus from results to students’ learning. Another notable shift is recognizing that all teachers, regardless of subject-specific credential areas, are teachers of literacy skills.”
Family engagement is a key element of new standards
The new standards also focus on family and community engagement, requiring teachers to find effective strategies for communicating and creating relationships with families.
“These standards provide an invaluable road map that will undoubtedly strengthen how teachers, schools and communities partner with families,” said Bryan Becker, of the Parent Organization Network.
Also new to the standards are two sections, one asking teachers to examine their personal attitudes and biases, and how these impact student learning, and the other asking them to reflect on their personal code of ethics.
After speakers expressed concern about the few references to English learners and students with disabilities in the document, Chair Marquita Grenot-Scheyer made a motion to approve the standards with amendments that would “shine a brighter spotlight” on those students.
She also asked that the amendment include direction to ensure teachers attend individualized education plan meetings. School staff and parents attend these meetings to review the education plan of students with special needs.
Revision put on hold for two years
According to the commission, the revision was a long time in coming. Originally adopted in the 1990s, the standards were most recently updated in 2009. An expert group of educators, administrators, researchers and state education staff came together in 2020 to update the standards. The group met online five times between June 2020 and May 2021, but work was paused a few months later “as Covid and other critical world events demanded pause and reflection.”
Over the past two years, the commission has been focused on other state initiatives that would impact the new standards, including the new PK-3 Early Childhood Specialist Instruction Credential and the implementation of revised literacy standards and literacy-related teaching performance expectations mandated by legislation. Members of the expert group returned in 2023 to review and finalize the document.
Board denies pleas for delay
The commission voted for the newly revised standards to go into effect in the 2025-26 school year, despite numerous requests by speakers to extend the rollout to give teacher preparation and induction programs and the commission staff more time to prepare for them.
Grenot-Scheyer also directed commission staff to develop an implementation plan that will support school districts and teacher preparation programs during the transition.
Audry Wiens, induction coordinator for Fontana Unified, was among those who asked the commission to delay the implementation of the standards for a year. She said programs would need to come to a common understanding of the shifts that need to take place, revise relevant documents, train mentors in induction programs and update accreditation websites.
Some wanted the standards implemented as soon as possible.
“I am not an induction program provider, but it really causes me pause to extend any sort of timelines, because we have got things to do here,” said Commissioner Megan Gross. “… I want us to capitalize on this sense of urgency that we have to do better for our kids.”
In his epic battle to punish the nation’s most prestigious university, Trump claimed that Harvard is teaching remedial math. That was his way of saying that its standards of admission are very low because Harvard wants to recruit unqualified nonwhite students.
Trump has refused to release his own academic record but his public statements indicate that he is in no position to tell Harvard whom to admit or what to teach.
Only 3.6% of the students who applied to Harvard last year were admitted.
A star student at her small Alabama high school, Kyra Richardson graduated confident in her academic prowess in all but one subject: math.
By the time shearrived atHarvard in the fall of 2024, it had been more than 12 months since Richardson‘s lastmath class. Even though she passed a college-level AP calculus course as a high school junior, Richardson said it felt more like she was memorizing formulas than truly understanding the concepts behind calculus.
So when it came time for her to begin fulfilling the math requirement associated with Harvard’s pre-medical track, the university recommended (and Richardson agreed) she should take an intro-level calculus course called Math MA.
Even with her previous calculus experience, she said, the Harvard course was far from an easy A. “I’m glad that I took a class that pushed me,” Richardson said.
In recent months, amid the White House’s ongoing battle with Harvard, the Trump administration has used that class to questionthe university’s academic rigor.In what has become a familiar refrain, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Josh Gruenbaum, a top US General Services Administration official, and President Trump himself have all labeled a modified version of the calculus course Richardson completed — known as MA5 — “remedial math.”
“I want Harvard to be great again,” Trump said in the Oval Officelast month. “Harvard announced two weeks ago that they’re going to teach remedial mathematics. Remedial, meaning they’re going to teach low grade mathematics like two plus two is four. How did these people get into Harvard if they can’t do basic mathematics?”
Richardson said shelaughed when she heard the remedial math comment because “MA5 is the exact same class [as MA]. It just meets five times a week” as opposed to four.
According to an online course description of MA5, the extra day of instruction time “will target foundational skills in algebra, geometry, and quantitative reasoning that will help you unlock success in Math MA.” The homework, exams, and grading structure of MA5 are the same as MA, a courseHarvard has offered for decades. Even MA5’s format is not entirely new. Five days of instruction was previously required for all students taking Math MA in 2018.
“If you look at academic support and a college trying to help their students, and you think that’s unnecessary or it’s embarrassing that they have to provide that kind of support, then it’s coming from a place of ignorance,” said Richardson. “You have no understanding of how, not just college, but how learning works. You can’t learn without help.”
All Harvard freshmen take a placement exam in mathematics prior to their arrival on campus. Based on how they score, the university suggests which course they should be placed into. Math MA5, MA, and its companion course, MB, make up Harvard’s most basic introductory calculus courses known as the M series. MA5 was introduced last year by Harvard to combat pandemic learning losses, which saw students show up to campus with gaps in their math knowledge, especially in early high school courses like algebra, as a result of virtual learning.
“When this first came out about us teaching remedial math, I was like, ‘Well, this is news to me and I wouldn’t even know how to do it,’” said Harvard’s director of introductory math Brendan Kelly. “Thinking about how to explain addition to somebody is an expertise that your elementary school teachers and middle school teachers have. … We focus on much more advanced mathematics.”
Only 20 students took MA5 this past academic year according to Kelly. The course was taught across two sections, each with 10 students, Kelly said, all of whom have declared majors like economics or biology that necessitate a strong foundation in calculus…
Remedial math courses in higher educationare typically defined as “non credit bearing courses that cover middle school and high school content below that of college algebra,” said Chris Rasmussen, a professor of mathematics at San Diego State University. “So we’re talking fractions or some basic algebraic manipulation.” Rasmussen — who was part of a team of outside professors that recently conducted a full review of Harvard’s math department — said “in no way is MA5 a remedial math course. It’s a rigorous calculus course.”
The article includes a PDF with the course syllabus. How many members of Congress could pass it? Not many. Certainly not Trump or Secretary McMahon.
A kindergarten teacher helps a girl and boy with a class activity.
Photo by Allison Shelley for EDUimages
Learning the art and skill of effective instruction starts long before a teacher’s first job in the classroom. Aspiring educators begin honing their craft in preparation programs that tie clinical practice to coursework on best teaching methods, including how to teach students to read.
Since 2002, this process has been reinforced in California by an embedded teaching performance assessment (TPA) as a key measure of professional readiness. A TPA directs teacher preparation candidates to provide evidence of their teaching knowledge and skills. This is accomplished through classroom videos, lesson plans, student work, and analysis of teaching and learning for English learners, students with disabilities, and the full range of students they are teaching.
The tasks TPAs require are the core work of teaching. Studies over the last two decades show that TPAs are educative for candidates and predictive of future effectiveness. Furthermore, the feedback they provide focuses educator preparation programs on preparing teachers in ways that are formative and learner-centered.
Thus, it is deeply concerning to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) and many in the field that this rich measure of teacher preparation would be eliminated with the passage of Senate Bill 1263, which would repeal all requirements relating to teaching performance assessments, including that future teachers demonstrate their readiness to teach reading.
The TPA is California’s only remaining required measure of whether a prospective teacher is ready to teach prior to earning a credential. All other exam requirements for a teaching credential have been modified by the Legislature to allow multiple ways for future teachers to demonstrate basic skills and subject matter competence. These legislative actions have been supported in large part by the requirement that student teachers complete a TPA to earn a credential.
Elimination of the TPA would leave California with no consistent standard for ensuring that all teachers are ready to teach before entering our classrooms. We would join only a handful of states that have no capstone assessment for entry into teaching. Passage of SB 1263 would also result in the state losing a key indicator of how well educator preparation programs are preparing a diverse and effective teaching force.
In 2021, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 488, which revamped how teacher preparation programs will instruct candidates to teach reading. As a result, the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment (RICA) is slated to be replaced by a newly designed literacy performance assessment currently being piloted for incorporation into the TPA by July 1, 2025.
Participant feedback on the new literacy performance assessment (LPA) piloted this spring is optimistic. One teaching candidate shared that the LPA “was a vital learning experience when it comes to implementing foundational literacy instruction with young learners. I enjoyed that it’s a more hands-on experience for the students to be engaged and promotes full participation of the student and teacher.” A teacher said that the LPA “provided multiple opportunities for my candidate to reflect and observe exceptional moments as well as missed opportunities in the lesson. It encouraged conversations about how to implement direct, explicit instruction.” A university faculty member observed that the LPA pilot “has been a learning experience for the candidates and the program. … It shows what we are doing well and what other areas we need to create or enhance to support our candidates’ knowledge and skills in teaching literacy.”
If the TPA and RICA are eliminated, California will no longer have an assessment of new teachers’ capacity to teach reading, and we will have lost a valuable tool that can inform programs about how they can improve.
Recent Learning Policy Institute research demonstrates that TPA scores reflect the quality of teacher preparation candidates have received in terms of clinical support and preparation to teach reading and math (for elementary and special education candidates). Most programs support their candidates well. The study found that nearly two-thirds of teacher preparation programs had more than 90% of their candidates pass a TPA and showed no significant differences in passing rates by race and ethnicity.
As Aaron Davis, teacher induction director at William S. Hart Union High School District in Santa Clarita noted, “The TPA serves a very necessary purpose in creating a sound foundation for which a new teacher’s practice can grow with the mindset of having a positive impact on every student.” While the TPA requires time and effort to implement, it ensures that new teachers are prepared to start their career as an educator on day one, he said.
While the pandemic made it challenging to administer TPAs, most programs now ensure that more than 90% of candidates pass the TPA. The CTC is working with the small number of programs that struggle to adequately support their candidates.
The elimination of TPAs would unravel decades of progress to focus teacher education on clinical practice and ensure programs consistently meet standards for preparing teachers who are ready to teach.
Rather than eliminate the last common measure of an aspiring teacher’s preparedness, we recommend the Legislature uphold the future of a well-prepared teacher workforce by supporting the commission’s commitment to continuously review and update the TPA and to work to support program improvement. Doing so will maintain the quality and effectiveness of new teachers as they embark on their journey to provide the most effective and equitable learning experiences for all students.
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Marquita Grenot-Scheyer is chair of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing and professor emeritus in the College of Education at California State University, Long Beach.
Mary Vixie Sandy is executive director of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, an agency that awards over 250,000 credential documents per year and accredits more than 250 colleges, universities, and local education agencies offering educator preparation programs.
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.
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 bill wending its way through the California State Legislature could remove a valuable tool to evaluate teacher preparation programs, according to research conducted by the Learning Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization headed by State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond.
Senate Bill 1263, sponsored by the California Teachers Association, would do away with teaching performance assessments (TPA), which require teachers to demonstrate competence via video clips of classroom instruction, lesson plans, student work and written reflections on their practice before they can earn a preliminary teaching credential.
The legislation could also remove the last test that teachers are required to take to prove they are prepared to teach.
Supporters of the bill say the assessments are expensive and stressful for teacher candidates, duplicate other requirements they must fulfill to enter the profession, are ineffective at preparing teachers for the classroom and result in fewer people becoming teachers — especially people of color.
TPA data could help improve preparation
Recent research from the Learning Policy Institute offers another view. It found that candidates who passed the TPA were more likely to be in programs that offered better preparation and more support. Eliminating TPAs would make it difficult to know which programs need support from the state. Instead, the assessment data could be better used to strengthen preparation statewide, it concluded.
“This research was an attempt to understand what may explain that variation and found that certain types of preparation experiences are associated with better performance on a TPA,” said Susan Kemper Patrick, the author of the study.
“Overall, preservice candidates were more likely to be successful on a TPA compared to internship candidates. Candidates attending programs offering certain types of support and preparation experiences were also more likely to be successful on a TPA.”
The Learning Policy Institute study does not examine the relationship between passing rates on the TPA and teacher performance or student achievement. California doesn’t typically tie student achievement to teacher identifiers.
Teacher candidates are currently required to pass either the California Teaching Performance Assessment (CalTPA), the Educative Teaching Performance Assessment (edTPA) or the Fresno Assessment of Student Teachers (FAST).
The assessment is usually completed during student teaching, residencies or internships, allowing candidates and their preparation programs to identify strengths and weaknesses in instruction, according to the policy institute study.
“I feel like that (the report) sort of documents what we already suspected, which is that teacher credential programs vary in quality, and we know that there are some that are not doing a very good job of preparing teachers to teach.”
Brian Rivas, Education Trust-West
Learning Policy Institute researchers analyzed surveys taken by 18,455 candidates who had completed a teacher preparation program and had taken a teaching performance assessment between Sept. 1, 2021 and Aug. 31, 2023. They found that passing rates on the assessments varied across teacher preparation programs. During the two-year period, nearly two-thirds of the 263 programs analyzed had more than 90% of their tested candidates pass the assessment, and 23% had all candidates pass. Fourteen programs had passing rates under 67%.
Two-thirds of the people surveyed, who had completed teacher preparation programs to teach elementary and secondary school, reported feeling well- or very well-prepared for their TPA, 22% felt adequately prepared and 11% felt they were not prepared. The more prepared candidates felt, the higher their TPA passing rates.
Some have called the performance assessment a barrier to a diverse teacher workforce, but the policy institute research shows that disparities in passage rates by race and ethnicity are minimal. There were no significant differences in pass rates by race and ethnicity in programs with passing rates above 90%, according to the report.
“I feel like that (the report) sort of documents what we already suspected, which is that teacher credential programs vary in quality, and we know that there are some that are not doing a very good job of preparing teachers to teach,” said Brian Rivas, senior director of policy and government for the Education Trust-West, a social justice and advocacy organization.
Rivas expressed concern that, without a teacher performance assessment, educators who attended low-performing preparation programs will end up teaching the state’s most vulnerable students.
“We think because of the turnover in low-income communities and communities serving students of color, that they are going to be more likely to be taught by the teachers that are not really prepared fully to teach,” he said.
Currently, TPA passage rates are tracked by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which offers staff support to programs with low passing rates through the accreditation process. Instead of eliminating the assessment, the report calls for more resources and opportunities for improvement for teachers and programs.
Bill to end TPA to be heard by Assembly
SBill 1263 has passed the state Senate and will next be heard in the Assembly committees on education and higher education. The legislation, as amended, also eliminates the requirement that teachers pass an exam proving reading instruction proficiency.
It is the latest in a long line of legislation to reduce the number of assessments teachers have to take to earn a credential. In July 2021, legislators gave teacher candidates the option to take approved coursework instead of the California Basic Education Skills Test, or CBEST, or the California Subject Examinations for Teachers, or CSET.
Last summer, legislators passed SB 488, which replaced the unpopular Reading Instruction Competence Assessment, also known as RICA, with a literacy performance assessment. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing has developed the assessment over the last year with the help of a work group of literacy experts.
In January’s tentative budget, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed eliminating the CBEST and allowing the completion of a bachelor’s degree to satisfy the state’s basic skills requirement. If it is passed in the budget, and SB 1263 becomes law, candidates will no longer have to take a licensure test to become a credentialed teacher.
“A survey of more than 1,000 educators showed strong consensus that the TPAs do not help in preparing educators for the classroom,” said Leslie Littman, California Teachers Association vice president.
“What does help to prepare educators is collaborating in classrooms with mentor teachers, working with clinical support supervisors, and quality teacher preparation programs. In fact, elements from this latest study from LPI underscore the value of teacher preparation programs including clinical support and content-specific preparation.”
A teacher reviews students’ project notes on a computer.
Credit: Allison Shelley for EDUimages
TOp takeaways
California issued 17,328 new teaching credentials during the 2023-24 school year, an 18% increase.
At the beginning of this school year, district officials estimated they needed about 25,000 new teachers to fill their classrooms.
Enrollment in teacher candidate programs dropped by more than 3,000 teacher candidates between 2019-20 and last school year.
California issued 18% more teaching credentials last school year, compared with the previous year, but education experts remain only cautiously optimistic. The uptick comes after two years of declines, a drop in enrollment in teacher preparation programs and apprehension about federal and state funding.
During the 2023-24 school year, 17,328 teachers earned a preliminary or clear credential — 2,666 more than the previous year. This was the first increase in new credentialed teachers since 2020-21, when the pandemic shuttered schools, according to the recently released “Teacher Supply in California” report to the Legislature.
The increase offers a glimmer of hope amid an enduring teacher shortage. However, the new teachers may not be enough to fill the classrooms vacated by retiring teachers and to replace teachers with emergency permits and waivers. New threats to teacher preparation funding could also hurt program enrollment, erasing last year’s gains.
“At a time when schools across the nation are facing teacher shortages, the growth in California’s newly credentialed teachers indicates that state investments in teacher recruitment are beginning to pay off,” said Mary Vixie Sandy, executive director of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. “While these findings are a bright spot for California’s education system, we recognize the significant shortage of qualified teachers that still exists and encourage those interested in positively impacting our state’s youth to consider teaching as a profession.”
California has spent $1 billion since 2018 to recruit and retain teachers to end the state’s teacher shortage. State leaders directed the funding to financial support for teacher candidates, to grants for residency programs, and to make it easier for school support staff to earn a degree and a teaching credential.
Some teachers aren’t properly credentialed
Without enough fully credentialed teachers to fill all the classrooms, school districts have had to hire teachers on intern credentials and emergency-style permits and waivers. Last school year, 5% of the state’s teachers were not qualified to teach the classes they taught, according to state data.
California’s teacher supply has been in a constant state of flux since the Great Recession, which began in 2007, caused large-scale teacher layoffs. The number of new California teaching credentials was 14,810 in 2013, before beginning a seven-year climb to 19,673 in 2020-21. The Covid pandemic interrupted that ascent, resulting in two years of decreases that ended last school year.
Although the numbers have increased, there still aren’t enough fully credentialed teachers to fill all of California’s classrooms. Before the beginning of this school year, district officials estimated they would have to collectively hire nearly 25,000 new teachers — 169 more than in the 2023-24 school year, according to the California Department of Education data.
Declining enrollment in teacher preparation programs could further impact the number of fully credentialed teachers in the classroom. Enrollment dropped from 41,978 in 2019-20 to 38,596 last school year. While new enrollment increased by 1,166 students between 2022-23 and last school year, there were 3,309 fewer continuing students.
The California Center on Teaching Careers had a full cohort of teacher candidates in its program at the beginning of the school year, but that number has dwindled in the last several months as federal funding became questionable, Lopez said. He suspects the students left when the financial incentives dried up, or after finding other, more affordable pathways.
“Grant programs are designed to make high-quality preparation more affordable,” said Dana Grayson, teacher workforce director at WestEd. “If there are disruptions in access to that funding, I think we might expect that could impact the number of teachers that are able to get those credentials and complete their certification.
“I think similarly, the programs themselves, if they have uncertainty in their funding landscape, it could lead to hesitancy, or an inability to be able to scale or sustain programming,” she said.
Schools still in need of teachers
The increased number of credentials will bring some relief to school districts that have struggled to fill teaching jobs in subjects like math, science and special education.
The number of math credentials has increased over the last four years, with 1,247 new credentials issued last school year — a 15% increase over the prior year. The number of science credentials rose 7%, or 74 credentials, last school year — but only after four consecutive years of declines.
Nearly 3,500 teachers earned education specialist credentials last school year, compared with 3,051 the year before. Even with the increase, however, fewer new special education credentials were issued last school year than in any of the previous four years, except 2022-23.
Most emergency-style permits still going up
But this year’s report on teaching credentials is not all good. Despite a decrease in some emergency-style waivers and permits, there have been increases in others, as well as in intern credentials, between 2022-23 and last school year:
“I do think these (credential) numbers represent a promising uptick in getting more fully credentialed teachers in the state,” Grayson said. “But, I think sustainability planning is going to be really important to make sure we can support preparation programs, maintaining that affordability and access toward getting those full credentials.”
In 2016, 21 special education teachers from the Philippines were hired at a school district in the Bay Area. I was among the Filipino newcomers. The orientation took place in an oversize room, where echoes of Visayan and Tagalog dialects filled the space. As the session neared its end, the administrator asked, “Are there any questions?” The room fell silent, suggesting a collective no. Once he left, we eagerly exchanged queries and sought clarification from one another — in our native language.
What just happened?
There’s much to consider in that scenario. While no single explanation suffices, cultural norms likely played a significant role. Filipinos, often indirect communicators, favor subtlety over directness. In the Philippines, questioning authority can be seen as disrespectful. This potentially explains our reluctance to respond to the administrator. Additionally, the fear of speaking, driven by concerns about grammatical errors, mispronunciations and accents, can inhibit us from speaking up.
While communication is integral to our roles as educators, navigating the nuances of language and cultural expectations has presented unforeseen challenges. For instance, during one of my initial meetings with the principal, I described my class as “an amalgam of different abilities.” He asked me to repeat myself, highlighting the cultural gap in our communication styles.
After I administered a spelling test to a student who was about to exit special education, the student remarked, “Oh, I got a low score because you were saying each word differently,” referring to my accent. I explained that each word was used in a sentence, so understanding the context was key. Feeling self-conscious, I consulted the school speech-language pathologist about my accent potentially affecting the student’s test score. She responded, “I don’t think so, Jenine. You don’t have a strong accent. What you have, though, is pronoun confusion.” I laughed since I knew exactly what she was talking about. The English use of “he,” “she” and “him,” “her,” in place of the catchall “siya” in Filipino, often confuses me.
In another class, a student laughed at me when I put the stress on the first syllable instead of the second — the word was “adult.”
Clearly, there is a language barrier, and Filipinos are well aware of it. Despite English being a medium of instruction in the Philippines, we rarely use it in daily conversations. Vocabulary training encompassed terms like “amalgam” without addressing conversational nuances. Pronunciation differences, such as using the British /a.dult/ instead of the American /uh.dult/, went unclarified. Moreover, mastering gender pronouns demands continuous effort, contrasting with our natural usage in Filipino.
The following year, the recruitment agency that hired Filipino teachers in another district required English language classes for new hires. While teaching grammar rules enhances understanding of the language according to studies, applying these rules during spontaneous speech is much more challenging. It has less to do with understanding grammar and more to do with the process of language acquisition. For many years, recruiting teachers from the Philippines has been an answer to the worsening teacher shortage in California, resulting in a more diverse teaching workforce.
Reflecting on my journey, I realize that the benefits of speaking up outweigh my culturally rooted fears. As an educator in an underserved community in California, I needed my voice to advocate for my students. I realized that my colleagues didn’t mind my accent or minor grammar mistakes. It was encouraging. Although it took time, I eventually discovered a newfound confidence in expressing myself authentically. I learned that as long as I could get my point across, the specifics didn’t matter.
Does this imply that we are not holding Filipino teachers to the same standard as our students? Absolutely not. However, it’s crucial to remember that language proficiency does not correlate with overall cognitive abilities and intelligence. This understanding applies equally to our students.
Filipinos, as English learners themselves, can empathize deeply with minority students facing similar challenges. Drawing from these shared cultural experiences, they can offer invaluable contributions to culturally responsive classrooms. When students ask why I speak a certain way, I take the chance to share insights about my culture and heritage. It’s important to recognize our perceived weaknesses while harnessing our strengths to our students’ advantage. Rooted in our collective experiences of hardships, our heightened cultural sensitivity cultivates inclusivity and mutual understanding within the classroom. We understand firsthand the challenges, whether in language or culture, and use this empathy to create a culturally responsive learning environment.
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Jenine Catudio is a special education teacher and autism advocate from the Philippines who taught students with mild to moderate disabilities in West Contra Costa Unified 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.
In education circles, early literacy — such as ensuring all children are reading by third grade — gets a lot of attention, and rightfully so. Early reading skills have been shown to have a profound impact on kids, increasing their likelihood of graduating from high school, earning a higher salary and living a healthy life throughout adulthood. And especially in California, where we rank among the bottom of states in grade-level reading, we have a lot of work to do.
However, another subject has proven to be an even greater predictor of later academic and life success than reading, yet gets far less attention: early math. And California is even further behind other states when it comes to grade-level math than it is with reading.
To turn those results around, we must also put a stronger and more dedicated focus on improving early math skills.
California ranks an unacceptable 50th in the country in eighth grade math achievement gaps. Only around 33% of our eighth graders meet or exceed state math standards, and California is consistently one of the lowest performing states in eighth grade math on national assessments. That failure in our classrooms then leads to struggles in adulthood. When looking at the ability of adults to use mathematics in their daily lives, California ranks near the bottom of all states.
Alarmingly, this achievement gap in math skills is already evident by the time children enter kindergarten, with children from lower-income families and children of color showing significantly lower basic math skills than their peers. This disparity is then exacerbated by a lack of support in schools that serve low-income communities, where teachers often lack the preparation, professional development and materials needed to provide effective math instruction.
A lack of early math skills has been shown to have a substantial effect in shaping a child’s future educational trajectory. Research has found that early math proficiency is a strong predictor of later academic success, particularly in the elementary grades (even more than early reading skills). Early math abilities also correlate with broader cognitive skills, as kids with stronger math skills in preschool tend to show better performance in reading, attention control and executive function. These results then hold across a wide array of students, underscoring that early math knowledge is not simply about numbers and calculations, but also about developing problem-solving skills, spatial awareness, and logical reasoning — all of which form the backbone of lifelong learning and personal development.
Prioritizing early math education, particularly with a focus on skills such as the ability to work with numbers, problem-solving and reasoning, would also help mitigate some of the persistent inequalities in education. Kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who were provided early math instruction showed significant gains in their later academic performance, particularly in math and reading.
Exposure to math early on also helps foster positive attitudes towards the subject, which can counteract the negative stereotypes and anxiety many children — especially girls and children of color — experience when they encounter math in later years. Early math can, therefore, not only improve academic performance, but also combat the social and psychological barriers that disproportionately affect marginalized groups.
In 2023, the California State Board of Education approved a revised math framework, the statewide guidelines on teaching math, but as with past frameworks, there was neither sufficient nor sustained state funding for implementation. That could improve this year with Gov. Gavin Newsom proposing additional funding for teacher professional development and math coaches. But these would be one-time dollars and are not yet guaranteed. If we are serious about changing the trajectory of student proficiency in math, then we need to act like that. We need investments that match the task and are sustained over time until we see lasting improvements.
We must focus on providing high-quality, evidence-based early math programs and ensuring every child, regardless of socioeconomic status, has access to these opportunities. We must prioritize professional development and coaching for early childhood educators, equipping them with the knowledge and tools necessary to teach early math effectively. We need high-quality instructional materials and assessments to successfully support and tailor early math learning experiences to meet each student’s needs. And this added attention must not come at the expense of supporting literacy programs — both are critical to kids’ development.
Addressing the math gap is not merely a question of academic improvement. It is a moral imperative to ensure that all students, regardless of background, have an equal opportunity to succeed so we progress to a more equitable and just society. That increased success in the classroom then translates to increased success in the workforce as kids transition to adulthood, creating a stronger economic future for not just our kids, but collectively.
No longer can we afford to not pay attention to our state’s failure in math achievement gaps and the critical need for early math programs. The equation is simple: The time to focus on math is now.
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Vince Stewart serves as the vice president of policy and programs at Children Now, a California-based children’s policy research and advocacy organization that works to improve children’s education, health and overall well-being.
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.
