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Just when California’s teacher shortage seemed to be easing, it got worse. A seven-year increase in the number of new teacher credentials issued by the state ended last year with a 16% decline, exacerbating the state’s ongoing teacher shortage.
There were 16,491 new teaching credentials issued in California in 2021-22, the most recent fiscal year data available. The previous year, the state bestowed 19,659 such credentials, according to “Teacher Supply in California“, an annual report to the state Legislature compiled by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.
Three thousand fewer teachers could have a significant impact on California school districts already struggling to fill teaching positions. Without enough credentialed teachers, schools have had to hire teachers on emergency-style permits that don’t require them to complete teacher training.
Elementary schools, which primarily employ teachers with multiple-subject teaching credentials, may feel the shortage the most. There were 25% fewer new multiple-subject credentials issued in 2021-22 than in the previous year. New special education credentials declined by 12%, and new single-subject credentials, mostly issued to secondary school teachers, went down 7%.
“The past few years have been really tumultuous for students and teachers, and many factors have impacted that,” said Jana Luft, interim associate director of educator engagement at The Education Trust-West, a nonprofit education advocacy organization. “It may be a while to see if there are declines this year, whether they will stick or be an aberration.”
Although the United States has had teacher shortages for decades, the pandemic worsened them, according to the Learning Policy Institute, a nonprofit education research organization. Many teachers, tired of online teaching or disillusioned with disruptive student behavior, which escalated after schools reopened, quit or retired early.
A Rand Corp. study last year found that nearly all school districts had to combine or cancel classes, or asked teachers to take on additional duties in one or more of their schools because of the teacher shortage.
Konocti Unified Assistant Superintendent Chris Schoeneman isn’t surprised by the report. He traveled to 14 job fairs in California, Nevada and Montana this year to search for teachers and only managed to hire one. He still needs 36 teachers next school year, almost double the number of previous years.
“The system doesn’t have enough people in it,” he said. “This year we had to pay teachers to take on two classes and give them para(educator) support. They were teaching 50 or 60 at a time, instead of 20 or 30. Subs are hard to find, and we burn through the subs.”
Job fairs that once drew more than 100 candidates now are drawing just 20 or 30, he said. Schoeneman found the single candidate in Montana.
He attributes the lack of interest in teaching to change in student discipline policies and an increasingly difficult work environment for teachers.
“You hear that the kids are out of control. They aren’t, but we have fewer and fewer tools to deal with bad behavior,” Schoeneman said. “It’s a challenge.”
Recruiting teachers to Konocti Unified, a district serving 6,700 students in rural Lake County, more than an hour north of Santa Rosa, is already difficult. So, Konocti is recruiting new college graduates to work as interns at the district. Interns earn a full-time teacher’s salary while completing coursework and other training to become credentialed.
Nearly half the 184 teachers at Konocti Unified have less than five years of experience and 27% are working on intern or emergency-style permits without a preliminary or clear teaching credential, according to Schoeneman.
The number of emergency-style permits issued in California went up in 2021-22, as the number of teacher credentials went down, signaling an increase of underprepared teachers entering the workforce.
California issued 4,065 provisional intern permits and short-term staff permits — 28% more in 2021-22 than the previous year, according to the report by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. School districts can ask the state to issue these permits to individuals who have not completed, or, in some cases, even started, teacher training, to fill an immediate staffing or anticipated staffing need. California also issued 5,812 new intern credentials that year — slightly more than the year before.
“We know that students of color, especially those who experience poverty, are disproportionately likely to have underprepared teachers and, in some cases, a string of substitutes if they don’t have fully prepared teachers to staff classrooms,” Luft said. “It has a significant impact on the outcomes of these students.”
Only the number of people issued a teaching waiver, which allows teachers to teach courses outside their credential when districts can’t find teachers with the appropriate credential, declined in 2021-22, compared with the previous year.
Districts have struggled to find teachers for hard-to-fill jobs like special education, science, math and bilingual education for years. The lack of new candidates is making those shortages worse.
Finding bilingual teachers with bilingual authorizations — a specialized credential required to teach English language learners — has become increasingly difficult.
“Districts that want to expand bilingual programs, including dual-immersion programs, are limited because of the lack of staff,” said Manuel Buenrostro, associate director of policy for California Together. “Despite a demand for these programs, we won’t be able to meet the demand unless we meet bilingual teachers’ needs.”
California has been one of the few states gaining enrollment in teacher preparation programs, said Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the State Board of Education in a March interview.
The state’s preparation programs added nearly 4,000 students between 2016 and 2021. It’s unclear whether enrollment gains continued in the 2021-22 school year as that data has yet to be released.
According to the commission report, teaching credentials issued to candidates prepared by California institutions of higher education in 2021-22 declined by 25% over the previous year.
Enrollment in California State University teacher preparation programs, which educate a majority of the state’s teachers, continues to be substantially below the 19,235 students enrolled 20 years ago.
The decline in the number of applications for teaching credentials may be tied to the expiration of state Covid flexibilities like waivers for both the California Basic Skills Test and the subject-matter competency requirement before teaching, said Cheryl Cotton, a deputy superintendent at the California Department of Education.
“We are back to pre-pandemic levels, back to issuing about 12,000 credentials each year,” Cotton said.
California has spent $1.2 billion since 2016 on programs meant to address teacher shortages. Among the largest expenditures is $515 million for the Golden State Teacher Grant program, $401 million for the Teacher Residency Grant program, and $170 million for the California Classified School Employee Teacher Credentialing program, all of which offer teacher candidates financial support, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
The proposed revised state budget for the upcoming fiscal year includes additional funding and flexibilities to help recruit and train teachers, including making it easier for members of the military and their spouses to transfer their teaching credential from another state, offering teachers other avenues to completing some tests if they were impacted by the Covid pandemic, increasing grants for teacher residents and funding a program to prepare bilingual teachers.
Cotton is hopeful the number of new teaching credentials will increase, especially with the state’s ongoing recruitment and retention efforts.
“It takes a while to turn things around,” Cotton said. “We’re hoping to see increases.”
Schoeneman would like the state to allow teachers to earn their bachelor’s degree and complete teacher preparation in four years instead of five, reduce the number of tests required to earn a credential, and offer teachers more autonomy once they are in the classroom.
To attract a diverse teacher workforce, the state should increase educator pay; encourage the building of affordable housing; facilitate partnerships to support teacher preparation and training; provide stipends to promising high school and college students who commit to working in the district; and help districts cultivate inclusive, culturally affirming and anti-racist school communities, according to the recently released “California Educator Diversity Roadmap,” a project of Californians for Justice, The Education Trust-West, and Public Advocates.
One of the recommendations made by focus groups that participated in the study was to pay teacher candidates who are completing their required student teaching hours.
“We also heard a bold call for something like a GI bill for teachers,” Luft said. “You shouldn’t have to pay for your education to become a teacher. The Golden State teacher Grant is a good start, but it isn’t enough.”
The Golden State Teacher Grant awards up to $20,000 to students enrolled in state-approved teacher preparation programs.
Konocti isn’t waiting for the state to sweeten the pot for teachers. The district is offering a $5,000 signing bonus for all newly hired teachers with a preliminary or clear credential and has opened a day care center that is subsidized for employees.
“We are trying to think of things to support young families and younger teachers,” he said. “Cutting day care costs in half is huge.”
The prolonged teacher shortage has the state and school district leaders looking to their high schools for future teachers.
In 2022, state legislators passed the California Golden State Pathways Program Grant Act to provide funds to school districts to promote careers in high-growth occupations like teaching. The program helps students “to move seamlessly from high school to college and career,” according to the California Department of Education website.
In Konocti, school staff promote the teaching profession in their high schools, hire graduates as paraeducators and in other district jobs, and encourage their former students to sign up as teaching interns.
“We talk about it all the time,” Schoeneman said. “If you see someone that has some talent, we are all over them on this. ‘You need to do this. You are really good at this. Here’s your pathway. You have to do it.’”
Legislation that would remove one of the last tests teachers are required to take to earn a credential in California passed the Senate Education Committee.
Part-time instructors, many who work for decades off the tenure track and at a lower pay rate, have been called “apprentices to nowhere.”
A bill to mandate use of the method will not advance in the Legislature this year in the face of teachers union opposition.
Nearly a third of the 930 districts statewide that reported data had a higher rate of chronic absenteeism in 2022-23 than the year before.
Comments (7)
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Nicole 8 months ago8 months ago
I'm did a teaching program out of state, but after completing it, I decided not to get my credential at the time, despite completing all the program requirements. I moved to California to be a writer, but I thought I'd go back to teaching in the mean time to help some kids. There's no pathway for me that doesn't involve being stuck in a 5 year agreement or with a whole new batch of student … Read More
I’m did a teaching program out of state, but after completing it, I decided not to get my credential at the time, despite completing all the program requirements. I moved to California to be a writer, but I thought I’d go back to teaching in the mean time to help some kids. There’s no pathway for me that doesn’t involve being stuck in a 5 year agreement or with a whole new batch of student debt. I had a short term staff permit, but I wasn’t an under prepared teacher. I would still be in the classroom if I could do so without agreeing to stay 5 years or going into yet more debt to do it. I keep hearing how much we need teachers and I’m here just waiting for a way back in. 🙁
William Frederick Hyres 10 months ago10 months ago
Good luck. This trend is not going to change. People are fed up with low pay, massive responsibility, and the expectation that you will work far more than the hours they pay for. It’s inanity. They expect more and more, yet don’t want to pay for it. You get what you pay for.
Eric 10 months ago10 months ago
I got my start as an educator at Konocti in the early 90's teaching at Oak Hill Middle School. The students were mostly fine, but there was a percent or two that simply chose disruption as a way to get attention or to get out of work. Fortunately for me, back then we could send those students to the vice-principal. My parents were mostly absent although some were absolutely wonderful, and my … Read More
I got my start as an educator at Konocti in the early 90’s teaching at Oak Hill Middle School. The students were mostly fine, but there was a percent or two that simply chose disruption as a way to get attention or to get out of work. Fortunately for me, back then we could send those students to the vice-principal. My parents were mostly absent although some were absolutely wonderful, and my administrators were supportive. I look back on those days with fondness.
That said, I’ll never go back (I teach community college now) and I don’t encourage people to become teachers. I currently have a position where I interact with a number of K-12 teachers on a regular basis and they tell me that the work being done to keep students in the classroom and to avoid detention and suspension has significantly added stress to those in the profession. While it’s possible to keep disruptive students in a classroom, it’s not much fun, particularly if you’re trying to actually teach something.
Working with those willing to learn is a joy. Enduring verbal abuse by those trying to show their peers how tough they are isn’t. When Schoeneman notes that it’s a challenge to address bad behavior with a reduced tool set, I think he’s describing the main reason for the teacher shortage.
Paul 11 months ago11 months ago
Returning from my evening walk, I ran into my neighbor, a young teacher. He heard today that he had passed the edTPA. Even he sees through it and realizes it was contrived. Our conversation brought back memories of my own teaching journey. As a mid-career software engineer I earn more than double what I would have earned in my final year of teaching, if I'd been hired by a fancy district like Pleasanton or Palo Alto … Read More
Returning from my evening walk, I ran into my neighbor, a young teacher. He heard today that he had passed the edTPA. Even he sees through it and realizes it was contrived. Our conversation brought back memories of my own teaching journey.
As a mid-career software engineer I earn more than double what I would have earned in my final year of teaching, if I’d been hired by a fancy district like Pleasanton or Palo Alto or Pacific Grove and if I’d survived 27 years in-place. There’s no STRS pension, but I earn enough to save for retirement. I get a laughable three weeks of vacation, but when I get tired I quit, travel and rest for a year, then take a job with a new company. Most of all, no one yells, and I usually stop thinking about work at 5 PM. N.B.: The people yelling in the schools were not children — who were by-and-large a pleasure to work with — but administrators and some parents.
Young people, don’t fall for stupid incentives! The Golden State Teacher Grant is a repackaging of APLE, the state’s old, intermittently-funded program to forgive student loans in exchange for four years of continuous full-time teaching service at a school in crisis. It’s tantamount to indentured servitude.
If teachers were paid like other professionals with 2 years of post-baccalaureate education plus a formal certification, and if their working conditions were pleasant, there would be no need for grants with strings, for paltry signing bonuses, etc. That these gimmicks exist tells you that you are being set up.
For fun I revisited the website of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing and checked this month’s meeting agenda. The staff, sequestered in their Sacramento office building, far away from teachers, parents, or (gasp!) students, are still busy writing reports. They want you to take tests, lots of tests. They are beside themselves because the Legislature is gradually forcing open the doors to the profession. Just imagine, a CSU or UC bachelor’s degree now qualifies as evidence that you can read, write and do math well enough to become…a substitute teacher for $150 a day, with no benefits and no guarantee of stable weekly income!
My poor neighbor didn’t realize that his certification journey had only just begun. For the next two years, after he finishes his daytime teaching job, two nights a week he will have to drive 45 minutes to the County Office of Education, where he will be “inducted” into the profession. He will pay fees out if his own pocket for the privilege. He will fill whole binders with more contrived exercises. He will sit through mind-numbing lectures by people who once were teachers — which makes them better than CCTC staff — but who have not taught students in years.
Faye gets it right: Get rid of tests and the TPA. I’d nix BTSA induction, too. Since 1983, California public school teachers have been employed at will for their first two years in each new school district. Today, the same districts that whine about shortages flout the Education Code and keep new teachers in temporary status (subject to dismissal without cause at any moment) rather than probationary status (subject to dismissal without cause at the end of the year) for years on end. Yes, districts have plenty of opportunities to weed out teachers.
Kate’s complaint against diversity and inclusion is misplaced, especially in a state where there remains a vast demographic gulf between the people teaching and the people being taught. Once most California teachers look like the students they’re teaching, then we can ease up on diversity.
Faye 11 months ago11 months ago
Three suggestions based on 45 years' experience: 1. Get rid of the subject matter tests. The only purpose they serve is to dissuade good candidates while making millions for the testing companies. 2. Get rid of the TPAs. They are not performance assessments; most of them are now probably written by AI; and they are making millions for the testing company while preventing good candidates from entering the profession. Districts have a two-year probation period … Read More
Three suggestions based on 45 years’ experience: 1. Get rid of the subject matter tests. The only purpose they serve is to dissuade good candidates while making millions for the testing companies.
2. Get rid of the TPAs. They are not performance assessments; most of them are now probably written by AI; and they are making millions for the testing company while preventing good candidates from entering the profession. Districts have a two-year probation period that serves as true performance assessment. We absolutely do not need the TPAs.
3. Immediately go into the community colleges and root out the idiot “professors” who have turned themselves into gatekeepers whose goal is to make sure students of color do not complete their BA degree. Every community college has at least one of these people who brag about a failure rate of over 60%!!!! And no one is stopping them from doing this. They have had multiple complaints filed against them and nothing is done to stop them. They are in the English Department, Math, or what the CSU’s call “philosophy.” This is so common it is,in my opinion based on years of observation and experience, worthy of loss of accreditation for a community college.
Victoria Canote 11 months ago11 months ago
The state needs to invest in the teachers it already has, rather than trying to recruit people. We need more pay, more days off, less required trainings, more autonomy in the classroom, and four day work weeks, for starters.
Kate 11 months ago11 months ago
As a former teacher, highly involved parent & professor of teacher education….one of the top reasons why teachers are leaving the profession or at least leaving public education to teach at private schools & student teachers are dropping out of programs or deciding not to teach, is because of DEI programs & an over-emphasis on mental health. Colleges are shoving DEI down student teachers throats. Districts are requiring more training & work with students on … Read More
As a former teacher, highly involved parent & professor of teacher education….one of the top reasons why teachers are leaving the profession or at least leaving public education to teach at private schools & student teachers are dropping out of programs or deciding not to teach, is because of DEI programs & an over-emphasis on mental health.
Colleges are shoving DEI down student teachers throats. Districts are requiring more training & work with students on matters that have nothing to do with teaching core competency. Student achievement scores are dropping across the state & nobody is focused on targeted strategies to close the achievement gap. CA is focused on all the wrong things. It’s time to refocus!