Schools Push to Train Wave of New Teachers

With thousands of new and inexperienced teachers recruited to lead smaller elementary school classes this fall, Cal State Northridge and other local schools of education are scrambling to teach the new hires basics of the profession.

In January, CSUN plans to begin an outreach training program, offering night classes and teacher preparation workshops at some of the schools where new teachers are working. The university plans to deliver other courses by video or over the Internet.

A similar program sponsored by Cal State Dominguez Hills began last week, with 90 new teachers enrolled. By February, as many as 400 teachers from a dozen south Los Angeles County school districts are expected to sign up for the Dominguez Hills program.

The push to train the rookies comes just in time, education experts say. Schools report that some frustrated newcomers are quitting just weeks into their inaugural school year.

Other local universities are also planning credential programs specifically tailored to the emergency-permit holders.

The more of this type of effort the better, educators say. If new teachers don’t receive the support and training they need, their students--and taxpayers--are unlikely to reap any benefits from the legislation creating smaller class sizes that triggered the current hiring frenzy.

In a recent report titled “A State of Emergency . . . In a State of Emergency Teachers,” the director of the California State University Institute for Education Reform, former state Sen. Gary K. Hart, said: “As long as emergency teachers occupy California classrooms, the rhetoric of strengthening academic standards will remain hollow and hypocritical.”

While emergency teachers--who are allowed to teach without state credentials or other traditional requirements--have been hired with increasing frequency in recent years, a massive influx began this summer.

In an effort to boost flagging academic performance in California’s public schools, the Legislature in July allocated $771 million, or $650 per pupil, for elementary schools to limit classes in kindergarten through third grade to 20 pupils.

After years of contending with shrinking budgets, thousands of schools were thrilled to take the state up on its offer. The new money also put pressure on local universities to step up their teaching efforts.

Carolyn Ellner, dean of CSUN’s school of education, said that by taking its classes on the road, the university will enable more of the newly hired teachers to earn state teaching credentials in 18 months instead of the three or more years it takes an average working student.

The large number of new teachers hired by districts, especially those in urban areas, has overwhelmed existing teacher credentialing programs at local universities. Los Angeles city schools, for example, have hired about 1,200 emergency teachers since July, officials said.

As a result, the CSUN teaching program is full, as is the one at Cal State Dominguez Hills. The Los Angeles Unified School District has its own credential program, and it is full too.

So the emergency teachers cannot be faulted for failing to enroll in teaching classes, said Michael Acosta, the LAUSD’s administrator of employee operations. “They can’t get courses at the universities, especially in this area, because we hired so many.”

CSUN administrators have sent out 1,000 questionnaires to new teachers in the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County. The responses will help school officials develop courses based on what the rookies need.

“We feel we can be much more user-friendly in designing new programs,” Ellner said.

Courses are planned to begin in January. Students will take two classes, one on organizing classrooms, the other on teaching students who speak little English, said Arlinda Eaton, who runs CSUN’s elementary education program.

Enrollees will continue to take courses on how to teach subjects such as reading. They will also receive tutoring, counseling and critiques of their in-class performance from both university and school district faculty members.

Under state law, emergency teachers must take at least six units in teacher preparation each year, or meet other requirements, to retain their permit. Those taking the minimum number of units sometimes spend years teaching without earning their state credential, officials said.

Students in the Dominguez Hills program will also be able to earn a basic teaching credential in about 18 months, officials said.

As individual campuses try to accommodate the emergency teachers, the six Cal State universities in the Los Angeles area are attempting to coordinate a program that would assign 6,000 new teacher interns to local schools by the year 2000.

With school enrollments expected to climb in coming years, California universities will need to likewise expand enrollment in their schools of education, experts say.

“The main thing is to get teachers trained,” said Gayle Heifetz of the Dominguez Hills program. “These people are in the trenches right now.”