The final meeting of the year for the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) debuted a new set of educator workforce dashboards and covered a wide range of teacher-centric, data-rich reports.
The commission bid goodbye to former Natomas Unified School District trustee and CSBA Past President Susan Heredia, following her retirement from her school board in November. “Susan was appointed to the commission as a school board member representative in March 2021,” said CTC Chair Marquita Grenot-Scheyer. “Her experience and knowledge made her a very valued colleague. On behalf of the commission, I would like to thank Susan for her service and wish her well in her future endeavors.”
Dashboards
CTC staff premiered new and enhanced assignment monitoring and educator workforce data dashboards to the commission prior to their public release. While previous dashboards focused solely on monitoring outcomes (e.g. number of misassignments, vacancies and local assignment options), the data presents the credentialing compliance of local educational agencies and is a critical component to ensure the rate of educator misassignments remains low.
The previous dashboards, however, did not provide insight into the conditions of the educator workforce. California is currently experiencing a teacher shortage and, in this environment, misassignments and vacancies occur more frequently due to external staffing pressures on LEAs. To help provide the state with insight into the health of the teacher workforce, Senate Bill 114 added provisions to Education Code Section 44258.9(i)(2) that expand the commission’s authority to report out on educator workforce data to include annual certificated educator assignment data that reflects the level of preparation and licensure of educators serving California pupils.
“These dashboards are focused on educator assignments and not educators. And this is really important because one educator can have several assignments,” said Erin Skubal, director of certification. “Think of a high school teacher who might have several periods throughout the day. And further than that, that educator might be prepared in some of those assignments and underprepared in other assignments.”
The three new dashboards are: Educator Assignment Preparation, Statewide and Regional Trends, and Assignment Preparation by Service Area. The Educator Assignment Preparation Dashboard showed that there were 1,547,032 assignments for 372,350 teachers in 2022–23, the most recent year in which data is available. Of those educators, the dashboard showed that 69.4 percent were fully prepared, with 17.9 percent fulfilling an out-of-field assignment, 1.4 percent having an intern credential and 6.6 percent unknown or unmonitored.
The new dashboards will be posted publicly in early 2025.
Literacy assessments
The commission approved teacher preparation programs that have been deemed by external reviewers to meet all certification requirements in compliance with Education Code Section 44259 for literacy certification in line with SB 488 to be presented in the future through the consent calendar.
Commissioners also approved field testing for the edTPA Multiple Subject, Literacy with Mathematics and edTPA Education Specialist, Literacy: Mild/Moderate Support Needs/Extensive Support Needs (MMSN/ESN) Performance Assessments, in line with SB 488. The commission also approved waiver requests for educator preparation programs approved to participate in the field tests to waive the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment requirement for their candidates who successfully complete the edTPA Multiple Subject, Literacy with Mathematics or the edTPA Education Specialist, Literacy: MMSN/ESN assessments. Finally, the approved minimum passing standards for each test with a -2 standard error of measurement.
Annual reports
Two end-of year annual reports were presented to commissioners, along with a preview of a February item that raised much discussion among public commenters and commissioners.
Accreditation
The Annual Report of the Committee on Accreditation 2023–24 describes the major accomplishments of the committee’s 2023–24 work plan, which is organized around the identified purposes of accreditation as defined in the Accreditation Framework. It also presents a summary of the accreditation actions taken in 2023–24 and provides a 2024–25 work plan.
There are currently 252 commission-approved program sponsors offering 933 different and active educator preparation programs, with many of those offered through various pathways. The Commission on Accreditation’s is responsible for ensuring that educator preparation programs meet CTC-adopted standards.
Twenty-three institutions, or 72 percent, received a status of accreditation; five institutions (16 percent) received accreditation with stipulations; three (9 percent) received accreditation with major stipulations; and one received accreditation with probationary stipulations. Progress was monitored and stipulations removed for seven institutions reviewed in previous years.
LEAs that received accreditation are Bellflower USD, Chaffey Joint Union High School District, Corona-Norco USD, Elk Grove USD, Escondido Union SD, Fresno USD, Fullerton ESD, Glendale USD, Kern HSD, Long Beach USD, Mt. Diablo USD, Oak Grove SD, Orange County Department of Education, Palmdale SD, Pasadena USD, San Francisco USD, San Jose USD, San Mateo COE, Tehama COE, Torrance USD and Vallejo USD.
LEAs granted accreditation with stipulations are Chino Valley USD, Encinitas Union SD, Grossmont Union HSD and Santa Clara COE. All institutions with stipulations are expected to address them within one year. The Commission on Accreditation may allow additional time if it believes the institution has made sufficient progress and additional time is warranted.
Teaching Performance Assessments
The Annual Report on the Commission Approved Teaching and Administrator Performance Assessments provides information and candidate pass rate data assigned for each of the commission-approved performance assessments from 2018 to 2024, including the California Teaching Performance Assessment (CalTPA), edTPA (single subject test), Fresno Assessment of Student Teachers (FAST) and the California Administrator Performance Assessment (CalAPA). Information about condition codes assigned and secondary passing standard data are provided for the CalTPA and edTPA. Updates on performance assessment development include how each approved assessment is being revised to measure literacy instruction (SB 488) and the new teaching performance expectations for the Early Childhood Education PK-3 Education Specialist credential. Look for a future CSBA blog post that digs into this data.
In other meeting items:
- An update was presented on the first year of the Statewide Residency Technical Assistance Center (SRTAC). During the 2023–24 academic year, SRTAC partners built capacity while hosting 22 grant overview sessions, 68 one-on-one LEA coaching sessions, 59 region-specific events, 12 presentations to education partners, five presentations at professional learning conferences, four statewide virtual candidate recruitment events and creating over 45 online resources for use by LEAs within their residency programs.
- Commissioners engaged in a lengthy discussion on an item previewing the work of the Workgroup to Review the Design and Implementation of Teaching Performance Assessments. The workgroup’s objective is to ensure that the assessments are valid, authentic, formative in nature, embedded in preparation, and contribute to program improvement through the accreditation system. Commissioners continue to be concerned about poor passing rates for African American students and students that struggle to pass on their first attempt. The workgroup’s recommendations will be presented at the February 2025 commission meeting.
The CTC will next meet Feb. 6-7, 2025.
