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  • Commission decision could move thousands of new teachers into the workforce quicker

    Commission decision could move thousands of new teachers into the workforce quicker


    A teacher helps a student with a math problem.

    Credit: Sarah Tully /EdSource

    Thousands of teachers could be added to the state’s workforce next school year because of a California Commission on Teacher Credentialing decision to offer teacher candidates who almost pass their teaching performance assessment a chance to earn a preliminary credential without retaking the test.

    Beginning early next year, teacher candidates who come within -1.0 standard error of measurement — generally about two or three points — of passing either the California Teaching Performance Assessment or the edTPA, can earn their credential if their preparation program determines they are prepared, commissioners voted on Friday. This decision will not impact teacher candidates who take the Fresno Assessment of Student Teachers. 

    “To be clear, the recommendation is not proposing lowering the standard, rather it would expand the ways in which candidates could demonstrate their readiness to begin teaching,” said Amy Reising, chief deputy director of the commission on Friday.

    Performance assessments are required to earn a teaching credential in California. Candidates demonstrate their competence by submitting evidence of their instructional practice through video clips and written reflections on their practice. Student candidates who select the CalTPA must complete two assessments or cycles.

    “The secondary passing standard would be targeted toward candidates who fell just short of the current adopted passing standards set for these assessments, but may have demonstrated classroom readiness through other measures at the local level and within their programs,” Reising said. 

    Preparation programs can recommend eligible candidates for a preliminary credential by documenting that they have demonstrated proficiency in each of the seven domains in the state Teaching Performance Expectations, according to the commission.

    The decision came after commissioners reviewed a report at their October meeting that revealed that a majority of teacher candidates who failed performance assessments over the last five years were extremely close to passing. If the new standard had been used over the last two years, 2,000 of the 2,731 teacher candidates who failed cycle one of the CalTPA , 953 candidates of the 1,152 who didn’t pass cycle 2 of the CalTPA, and 360 of the 1,124 candidates who failed the edTPA would have passed the assessment and earned a credential, according to the commission.

    Teacher candidates whose score is too low on their performance assessment to take advantage of the secondary passing standard can work with their teacher preparation program to revise or resubmit their work, said Anita Fitzhugh, spokesperson for the commission. The assessment can be submitted at any time at no cost because the state waived the fees. It takes about three weeks to receive a score.

    Commission staff also plan to work with teacher preparation programs to develop a formal process to identify and support programs with low teacher performance assessment passing rates, according to staff reports.

    An enduring teacher shortage has put pressure on the state to remove hurdles to earning a teaching credential. In July 2021, legislation 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.  

    The commission’s new plan isn’t without controversy.  One concern from speakers at Friday’s meeting was that the decision would undermine Senate Bill 488, which requires the commission to replace the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment with a teaching performance assessment.

    Commission staff said that the secondary passing standard for the two performance assessments will not impact the literacy performance assessment that is under development and is expected to be piloted in the spring and field-tested the following school year.

    “A separate standard-setting study will be conducted in Spring 2025 to recommend passing standards for the literacy performance assessment,” Reising said in an email on Monday.

    According to commission staff, a work group made up of teachers, administrators, mentor teachers and university faculty will convene in July to study and make recommendations on how to improve all three of the state’s performance assessments. It will consider best practices, the challenges of implementation and how to ensure reliable scoring. 

    More than 50 people submitted comments to the commission on the state’s performance assessments. Most urged commissioners to either eliminate or revamp the performance assessments. 

    “TPAs are vastly subjective, depending on who is scoring the assessment; rubric-based explanations and feedback upon results are very vague,” said Aly Gerdes, a teacher at Evergreen Elementary School District in San Jose. “I truthfully do not see the inherent value in CalTPA and believe it needs to be abolished or replaced with something that is worthwhile and will do more than add an extra stressor to teacher-candidates’ lives.”

    Many speakers and letter writers said the high-stakes assessment is detrimental to teacher candidates.

    “On a personal level, the stress and pressure associated with the TPA can be overwhelming,” wrote teacher Cheena Molsen.

    “The weight of high-stakes evaluations can adversely affect the well-being and morale of educators, potentially diminishing their effectiveness in the classroom. The toll it takes on the personal lives of teachers should not be underestimated, as the pursuit of excellence in education should not come at the cost of educators’ mental and emotional well-being.”





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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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  • California can strengthen its teacher workforce; here’s how

    California can strengthen its teacher workforce; here’s how


    A teacher reviews students’ project notes on a computer.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for EDUimages

    California’s teacher workforce needs stronger stewardship.

    Our state has established high standards for English, math, science and history that lay out what students must know and be able to do. But, as I have argued before, California has failed to adequately ensure even a majority of local educators are trained on — and equipped to teach to the level expected by — these standards.

    There are many reasons for this failure, but the state can provide more coherent and effective leadership.

    Here’s the improvement I propose:

    Currently, the state has one entity responsible for preparing and licensing teachers, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC). But once teachers receive their credential, responsibility for professional development and educator support falls to the districts and county offices of education where they work. With nearly 1,000 local school districts and county offices of education, there is no oversight of whether experienced teachers are prepared to implement state standards.

    Some state entity needs to take charge, and overcome the current situation: no large-scale vision, too many small-scale, one-time initiatives, and fragmented programs and governance.

    We need legislation that would empower the current California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to provide the needed overall leadership. Currently, the commission, whose members are appointed by the governor, sets teacher preparation standards and approves postsecondary teacher preparation programs that meet the standards. Also, the commission provides teacher performance assessments that prospective teachers must pass to attain a credential.

    California is one of 10 states that has a state Department of Education and a separate agency — the Commission on Teacher Credentialing — overseeing teacher preparation and licenses. But we can take advantage of this division by increasing the CTC’s role. It makes no sense, given the conditions of education today, to force the commission to stop working with teachers and principals once they have their credential. Rather, it should also be responsible for a career continuum and a long-term educator learning system.

    Legislation should specify that the commission will encompass the entire career of a principal, teacher and early childhood permit holder. It might make sense to start with early career teachers and scale up from there, because this would be a continuation of what it does now. The legislation should empower the commission to support professional development across the spectrum, from candidates working toward a credential to experienced senior teachers, principals, instructional coaches, and other leaders.

    Of course, this needs to be done carefully and deliberately. The kinds of things we want to get right require the teacher commission to work closely with school districts and county offices of education.

    CTC should start with a strategic plan and road map reaching teachers statewide to signal that building educators’ skills is a major state role and responsibility. The road map would include the many moving parts that must be integrated into subject matter teaching. This includes key suppliers of products, curriculum developers, textbook publishers, universities, county offices and much more. The role of school districts must be rethought, including how to develop teaching capacity within districts and rely less on vendors that come and go.

    The plan would create micro-credentials or other forms of state recognition of teaching competence in current state subject matter frameworks, such as the new math framework. Some districts in California have already been experimenting with micro-credentials. Other states such as Mississippi and New York have used micro-credentials to enhance pupil outcomes. The plan should include integration of current fragmented state-funded capacity grants. The commission would lead a project to estimate the costs of implementing the proposed state and local capacity-building role, including analyses of cost-effectiveness, such as using digital professional development delivery.

    California has high academic standards and a talented teaching force. With effective statewide leadership and oversight, we can address persistent achievement gaps and help our students succeed. 

    •••

    Michael Kirst is a professor emeritus at Stanford University and served 12 years as president of the California State Board of Education.

    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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