A new report released by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing announces an 88 percent increase in underqualified teachers providing instruction to English learners in California.
The report, “Assignment Monitoring in California of Certificated Employees by County Offices of Education, 2003-2007,” was adopted by the CTC at its August 7-8 meeting in San Diego.
As a result of the settlement in Williams vs. the State of California, the CTC is required to report in-depth on teacher assignments for Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English and English Language Development, the primary authorizations for teaching English learners.
According to the CTC, in the previous Assignment Monitoring Report covering 1999-2003, a total of 1,458 public school educators provided services to EL students outside of their credential authorization or other legal assignment options. In the just released report, this number jumped to 11,807, an increase of 88 percent.
The 2003-07 SDAIE and ELD misassignments accounted for almost 53 percent of the 22,352 total reported during this period.
Williams created a new focus in the review of EL assignments, resulting in better identification of teachers that lacked the authorization to provide EL instruction, the CTC reports.
Williams also required additional monitoring as well as additional data collection for classrooms with 20 percent or more EL students, which led to an overall increase in teachers identified as underqualified to teach English learners.
The significant rise in numbers for this report cycle is a result of a more rigorous monitoring conducted by county offices of education, according to the CTC.
The misassignment report also includes out-of-field teaching data for academic subjects such as mathematics and English, for elective subjects such as music and art, and for services such as counseling and administration.
Each year, county superintendents of schools are required by law to submit a report to the CTC summarizing the results of all assignment monitoring conducted in that year. One quarter of the school districts within each county are annually reviewed.
School districts are required to take action to correct unauthorized out-of-field assignments or risk sanctions.
As a result of the Williams settlement, starting in school year 2005-06, county superintendents are required to annually collect data on teacher qualifications of all certificated employees in decile 1, 2 and 3 schools. This data is included separately in the CTC’s report.
Initial data related to the Williams requirements show a concentration of out-of-field assignments in the lower decile schools. Response appears to have been swift, resulting in a substantial decrease in misassignments in the subsequent reporting year.
The complete report can be found online at www.ctc.ca.gov/commission/agendas/2008-08/2008-08-4B.pdf