Gov. Brown targets teacher preparation (quotes Linda Darling-Hammond and Michael Kirst)

Taking on an issue that has received relatively short shrift in the raft of reforms being implemented in California schools, Gov. Jerry Brown ventured for the first time during his governorship into the challenge of preparing – and retaining – teachers.

While the $10 million he is proposing is tiny in the context of the state’s overall budget, the reforms he is calling for have far-reaching implications.

“It is significant,” said Linda-Darling Hammond, a professor in the Stanford Graduate School of Education and chairwoman of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. She said the measures Brown has proposed represent a first step, and that she expects the state to take more steps to “build a high-quality workforce of teachers and school leaders.”

The budget calls for improving the way the state accredits teacher preparation programs. “State oversight of the educator preparation system is currently not robust enough to verify that programs are meeting preparation standards and producing fully prepared teachers,” the budget summary states.

Among the reforms it calls for are:

• Providing funds to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to establish a panel to recommend how to “streamline preparation standards” and to develop surveys of students enrolled in teacher preparation programs, and of school districts who hire them, to assess the “quality and effectiveness” of those programs.
• Revising the Teaching Performance Assessment that all new teachers must take before they can begin teaching.
• Proposing for the first time to develop a similar assessment for school principals and other administrators.

As the budget summary notes, “there is no assessment to determine if a person is prepared to be a school principal.”

State Board of Education President Michael Kirst said the budget proposals “signal a more aggressive role for the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.” They also send a message that “we are concerned about the quality of new teachers,” he said.

The budget proposal also addresses another major challenge in strengthening the teacher pipeline in California –providing support for teachers in their first few years on the job. Teachers have been required to participate in what is called an “induction program” – primarily the state’s Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) program – in order to receive their full or “clear” credential. Support programs make it more likely that teachers stay in the profession, rather than dropping out in large numbers.

Read the full story in EdSource.

Linda Darling-Hammond is Charles E. Ducommun Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education and Faculty Director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education.

Michael Kirst is a professor emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and the president of the California State Board of Education.