Study Ranks State Teachers Near Bottom

California ranks near the bottom of states in the quality of its public school teaching force, having some of the highest proportions of uncertified or undertrained teachers, particularly in math and science, according to a national panel on teaching.

The new state-by-state report card on teacher quality from the National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future comes one year after the group issued a scorching indictment of America’s teaching force, a quarter of which was found to lack adequate training or full state credentials.

The report released in Washington on Thursday found greater student achievement in a few states--notably North Carolina and Connecticut--that have invested heavily in improving teachers’ salaries, training and professional support.

But many states, including California, still allow too many teachers with minimal qualifications into classrooms, the commission reported.

The problem in California is that although the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing has adopted higher standards for new teachers, those standards are too seldom enforced, said Linda Darling-Hammond, an education professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, who directed the national study.

“So there are these gaping loopholes for people to come into teaching in California with very little training,” Darling-Hammond said.

What’s more, the state’s 2-year-old drive to shrink class sizes in the primary grades is exacerbating the problem, she noted, because for each two classes reduced from 30 to 20 pupils, one new class is created--requiring a new teacher.

For that and other reasons, California education officials predict that as many as 300,000 new teachers will be needed over the next decade.

But in California, 46% of high school math teachers lack even a minor in math. On that score, only Alaska, at 55.7%, and Washington, at 50.8%, were worse off. The national average is 28%.

Math achievement has been a particular worry in California since fourth-graders here were ranked 41st out of 43 states in a recent federal assessment.

The study released Thursday found that California is better off than many states in the areas of physical science and history, although the situation here is still serious: 52% of the state’s high school physical science teachers and 46.9% of its history teachers did not even minor in those subjects.

Defining “well-qualified” teachers as those with full certification and a major in their assigned field, the commission found that only 65% of California’s more than 200,000 public school teachers meet that standard, better than only Alaska, Hawaii and Louisiana.

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Nationally, 72% of teachers are fully certified and majored in their field.

Carolyn Ellner, head of the state’s teacher credentialing commission, said California has begun taking steps to redesign teachers’ training and credentialing. Among the changes being proposed is one that would enable students interested in teaching to begin their training as undergraduates. Other changes would increase practical training, perhaps in the form of yearlong internships.

But Ellner said that California’s poor showing in the commission’s report should not come as a surprise to anyone, considering the teacher supply crisis gripping the state.

Burgeoning enrollments, increasing retirements and the class-size reduction program have put California “between Scylla and Charybdis, between a rock and a hard place,” she said.

“We have to have a reality check. We have a crisis now with class-size reduction and doubling of the teachers needed. We have to put people in the classroom even if they are not prepared. Yes, we have standards, but we have to be practical.”

The national commission, headed by North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt Jr., found that school reform efforts in most states have focused on improving curriculum and creating tests to gauge students’ achievement. In California, reform drives over the last 15 years have concentrated on devising new frameworks for teaching history, math, science and other core academic subjects.

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But most states, the commission said, neglected to give teacher quality the same attention. And student achievement, it said, has not significantly improved despite more than a decade of intensive school reform.

As evidence of the primacy of teacher quality, the commission reported that student performance rose most sharply in states that devoted major resources to improving its classroom instructors.

North Carolina and Connecticut reported among the largest student achievement gains in mathematics and reading in recent federal assessments. North Carolina had been among the lowest achieving states in the early 1990s but now ranks well above the national average in both subjects, while Connecticut saw large increases in its population of students with special learning needs.

The report attributes the progress in both states to changes such as boosting minimum teaching salaries, offers of tuition subsidies for top students who want to become teachers, and incentives for teachers to pursue certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. North Carolina has 208 teachers who have met the rigorous national certification requirements. California has only 69, and attempts here to pass legislation to provide financial and other incentives to national board candidates have so far failed to pass.

Myra LeBendig, the only national board-certified teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, said state support of national certification--a process that costs candidates about $2,000--would go a long way toward strengthening the state’s teaching corps.

“Putting myself through those paces is one of the best experiences that ever happened to me,” said the English teacher from Foshay Learning Center near USC. “It really makes a teacher look at what he or she is doing in the classroom . . . what is resulting from the lesson and where you want that lesson to go.”

State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin said California’s low standing in the national report is not surprising considering the low priority the state has given to teacher training. “We have 21,000 teachers on emergency credentials. I’m sure that contributes to our low status,” she said.

The Cal State University system, which produces nearly two-thirds of the state’s teacher supply, announced efforts last week to overhaul its teacher training programs. Eastin said drastic changes are necessary if the state is to catch up with the demand. “We’re not getting the quality of work out of all the CSU campuses that we should be. . . . Anybody who is honest will tell you that is true,” she said.

Nationally, the commission found continuing growth in the number of teachers entering the classroom without adequate training. From 1991 to 1994, the percentage of new entrants to public school teaching who had not fulfilled requirements for a license in their main assignment field rose slightly, from 25% to 27%.

These teachers, the commission noted, continued to be disproportionately assigned to the most disadvantaged students--those in low-income and high-minority schools.

The commission could not provide state breakdowns. But nationally it found that one-third of teachers in high-poverty schools lacked a minor in their field, compared to only 8% in more affluent schools.

Darling-Hammond said California is among the states that tended to send its least well-prepared teachers into poor, minority schools. However, it singled out for praise the New Haven school district in Northern California, a poor, heavily minority district that has managed to attract and keep a highly qualified teaching force through higher salaries, innovative partnerships with local colleges and its embrace of a statewide program that supplies new teachers with mentors and other support.

One step California could make to quickly improve the overall quality of its teachers is to make it easier for out-of-state teachers to become credentialed, Darling-Hammond said. California requires even highly qualified teachers from other states to jump through several hoops, including repeating expensive course work and exams.

Many states, including Kansas, Iowa, Montana and Nebraska, have surpluses. “My own view is that California has done much less than it could to access these surpluses of highly qualified teachers from other states,” she said.

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Teacher Training Gap

Nearly half the state’s public high school math teachers did not minor or major in the field they teach.

Percentage of teachers with less than a minor in the field they teach

Math

California: 46%

National Average: 28%

Science

California: 23%

National Average: 18%

English

California: 25%

National Average: 22%

Social Studies

California: 13%

National Average: 18%

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The Pay Issue

Salaries have leveled off and remain below similarly educated workers

Sources: National Center for Education Statistics

The Pay Issue, Los Angeles Times