The April 10-11 meeting of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) saw the presentation of a yearly teacher supply report, rich discussions regarding additional authorizations to the Childhood Development Permit and recommendations from the workgroup tasked with reviewing the Teacher Performance Assessments, and business related to two new assessments.
Teacher supply
Each year the commission is required to report to the Governor and the Legislature on the number of teachers who received credentials, certificates, permits and waivers to teach in California public schools. In addition to the written report, the educator supply dashboards have been updated with the most recent data. The commission approved the transmittal of the report.
Some highlights from the 2023–24 report:
- 468,221 individuals held an active preliminary and/or clear teaching credential as of April 1, 2025. These educators hold 504,688 teaching credentials, representing the following:
- 7 percent hold Multiple Subject Teaching Credentials
- 8 percent hold Single Subject Teaching Credentials
- 4 percent hold Education Specialist Instruction Specialist Credentials
- <0.1 percent hold PK-3 Early Childhood Education (ECE) Specialist Instruction Credentials
- The CTC issued 17,328 new teaching credentials.
- 2 percent earned Multiple Subject Teaching Credentials
- 7 percent earned Single Subject Teaching Credentials
- 2 percent Education Specialist Teaching Credentials
- Newly issued out of state/country credentials totaled 3,414.
- 5 percent earned Multiple Subject Teaching Credentials
- 6 percent earned Single Subject Teaching Credentials
- 8 percent earned Education Specialist Teaching Credentials
- Career technical education (CTE) candidates are issued a three-year preliminary CTE teaching credential if they meet the requirement of at least 3,000 hours of industry experience or a combination of industry and teaching experience, providing time for the educator to complete a clear credential. The CTC issued 2,400 preliminary CTE credentials. Top areas included:
- Arts, Media and Entertainment (23.8 percent)
- Education, Child Development, Family Services (13.9 percent)
- Health Science and Medical Technology (11.6 percent)
- Business and Finance (10.2 percent)
- Marketing, Sales, and Service (7 percent)
- 596 teachers earned the English Learner Authorization; however, 1,850 Emergency Cross-cultural, Language and Academic Development permits and 214 Emergency Bilingual Authorizations were issued.
- There was an increase of Short-Term Staff Permits (STSPs) and Provisional Intern Permits (PIPs) issued between 2022–23 and 2023–24 (16.7 percent and 13.6 percent, respectively). When both STSPs and PIPs were combined, there was a 15.7 percent increase.
- There was a decrease of Limited Assignment Teaching Permits by 11.2 percent between 2022–23 and 2023–24. The decrease was in all three credential areas.
- The Emergency Transitional Kindergarten Permit saw an increase of 853.8 percent between 2022–23 and 2023–24.
- Areas of most concern for teacher shortages are in math, science and special education.
- Demographics were provided for current teachers and students in the state.
- 6 percent of teachers identify as white, compared to 20.3 percent of students
- 26 percent of teachers identify as Latino, compared to 54.6 percent of students
- 3 percent of teachers identify as Asian/Filipino/Pacific Islander, compared to 12.5 percent of students
- 8 percent of teachers identify as African American, compared to 4.9 percent of students
Childhood Development Permit
The Childhood Development Permit (CDP) Workgroup has been aligning CDP requirements with the goals of California’s Master Plan for Early Learning and Care. Added authorizations allow an educator to provide additional services to students authorized by the educator’s base credential or permit.
Expanded Learning Authorization: California operates the largest publicly funded after-school system in the nation, serving over 900,000 students daily. The Expanded Learning Opportunities Program (ELO-P) includes before school, after school, summer and intersession programs that address students’ academic, social, emotional and physical development through engaging, hands-on experiences. To meet the growing demand for qualified educators as transitional kindergarten and after-school participation expand in California, the CDP Workgroup has recommended establishing an Expanded Learning Authorization that could be added to a CDP.
Commissioners expressed concern about ELO-P funding positions when it is not a stable source, along with other concerns regarding how the permit holder and ELO-P requirements would interact.
Infant and Toddler (I/T) Authorization: California faces a growing demand for I/T early childhood programs, driven by the increasing need for child care, and a shortage of qualified educators. Research shows California’s youngest learners undergo the most critical stages of brain development between birth and age 3, emphasizing the importance of specialized I/T education programs. Establishing focused ECE I/T preparation would formalize within the permit framework a structured pathway for early childhood educators to develop essential skills for high-quality I/T instruction in both subsidized and non-subsidized programs.
Much of the public comment centered around the need for a bilingual authorization and an authorization for children with disabilities. The CDP Workgroup is evaluating the need for these authorizations in light of the current bilingual authorization and ECE specialist credential that are already available.
The CTC asked for more information from the field, especially around the ELO-P authorization, to decide the best path to meet the current laws and regulations, and how to meet those expectations without creating bottlenecks.
Teacher Performance Assessment recommendations
In August 2024, the commission adopted a charge for a workgroup to review the design and implementation of Teaching Performance Assessments (TPAs). Following the refinement of workgroup recommendations during the March 2025 meeting, the following recommendations were presented:
- Focus Area 1: Conduct an analysis of any modifications needed to current assessments to ensure they are valid and authentic to the work of teaching, reasonable to implement in the wide range of classroom settings across the state, and appropriate for beginning teachers. Methods include streamlining the structure of the assessment, use of multiple modalities for submission, lessons centered around culturally responsive/sustaining and equity-focused pedagogy and a focus on assessor training.
- Focus Area 2: Recommendations for how programs might embed the assessments into coursework and clinical work to avoid duplicative work for candidates. Recommendations include that programs provide candidates individualized and timely feedback on both formative and final TPA work throughout the process prior to submission, TPA assessors provide rubric-specific feedback that highlights the exact criteria met and not met, and CTC or model sponsors collect exemplary practices for embedding the TPA from preparation programs and regularly provide these practices to programs.
- Focus Area 3: Strengthen the accreditation system to ensure programs embed the assessment in coursework and clinical work, offer sufficient clinical and pedagogical support and support candidates to pass the assessment. Recommendations include emphasizing the ways that programs use qualitative and quantitative data for continuous improvement as part of the accreditation process and for the CTC develop and support a system of shared accountability between preparation programs, CTC and TPA model sponsors to address disproportionate TPA success rates.
- Focus Area 4: Recommendations for how programs can engage in local scoring of the assessment to inform program improvement. The workgroup recommends there be some flexibility in what local scoring looks like as long as it meets criteria for that includes collaboration in training and scoring, scoring common sets of work and meeting inter-rater reliability standards set by the CTC. Local scoring includes rigorous calibration and a central auditing process to ensure reliability in scoring across programs.
- Focus Area 5: Suggested questions for program completer surveys to understand candidate experience of programmatic support for assessment completion.
In their next steps, the workgroup will focus on making recommendations focused, streamlined and actionable, and incorporate final feedback from commissioners including elevating specific recommendations and keeping costs in mind. The final recommendations will be presented at the June meeting.
Also at the meeting:
- The commission approved the CalTPA PK-3 ECE and Education Specialist-ECSE and VI Math Cycle Test for an expanded field test and operational administration beginning in the 2025–26 academic year.
- A passing score with a standard error of measurement of -2 was adopted for the minimum passing score standard for the Foundations of Reading Examination. Current teacher candidates are eligible to take this assessment while the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment is phased out for the Literacy TPA.
Find more information on all items in the agenda. The next Commission on Teacher Credentialing meeting will take place on June 26-27.
