BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Gloria Romero, Chair
2009-2010 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 956
AUTHOR: Romero
AMENDED: April 7, 2010
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: April 14, 2010
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Beth Graybill
SUBJECT : Workforce Development: teacher training.
SUMMARY
This bill requires $5 million dollars appropriated from federal
Workforce Investment Act funds to be made available to local
education agencies to train teachers who have been laid off or
who are teaching out of field to become qualified to teach
science, math, or industrial and technology education.
BACKGROUND
Existing federal law, the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of
1998, requires all states to form state workforce investment
boards, and for Governors to designate local workforce
investment areas and oversee local workforce investment boards.
The WIA requires that 85% of the federal funds supplied for
the Act go to local workforce investment boards, with the
remainder allocated for state discretionary purposes. (Public
Law 105-220)
Existing state law establishes the California Workforce
Investment Board (CWIB) and requires the CWIB to assist the
Governor with promoting the development, oversight, and
continuous development of a well-educated and highly skilled
workforce, and also assist in the development of the State
Workforce Investment Plan. (Unemployment Insurance Code
14010 and 14200)
Existing law establishes the Commission on Teacher
Credentialing (CTC), which among other things, adopts standards
and examinations for determining the subject matter
competencies of teachers and issues single subject teaching
credentials in 13 subject areas including the sciences,
mathematics, and industrial and technology education.
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(Education Code 44200 and 44257)
Existing law establishes several requirements for individuals
who want to earn a multiple or single subject teaching
credential, including the requirement to demonstrate subject
matter competency and the completion of a credential
preparation program. Candidates are required to demonstrate
"subject matter competency" in each subject they teach by
either completion of an approved undergraduate subject matter
program or by passing all portions of the appropriate
Commission-approved subject matter examination. Currently, the
only Commission-approved subject-matter examinations used to
verify subject matter competence is the California Subject
Examination for Teachers (CSET). (EC 44259)
Existing law governing the reduction in the number of employees
requires, governing boards to make assignments and
reassignments in such a manner that employees shall be retained
to render any service which their seniority and qualifications
entitle them to render. Prior to assigning or reassigning any
certificated employee to teach a subject which he or she has
not previously taught and for which he or she does not have a
teaching credential, the governing board shall require the
employee to pass a subject matter competency test in the
appropriate subject. (EC 44955)
ANALYSIS
This bill :
1) Requires the CWIB to allocate $5 million dollars of the
Workforce Investment Act state reserve to local workforce
investment boards to allocate to school districts, county
offices of education, or charter schools to provide
intensive test preparation courses for the purpose of
retraining laid off and out-of-field teachers to meet
subject matter competency requirements for teaching
science, mathematics, or industrial and technology
education.
2) Specifies preferences for examination courses to be based
on the following priorities:
a) First priority shall be for retraining laid off
teachers in order to prepare them for obtaining
subject matter credentials in science or mathematics.
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b) Second priority shall be for retraining teachers
who have been displaced and are currently teaching
out of their field of expertise or competency area.
3) Requires school districts, county offices of education,
and charter schools that receive funding from a local
workforce investment board to reimburse teachers who
successfully pass a subject matter competency assessment
in the specified areas for fees paid to take the
examinations.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill : High quality mathematics and science
education for all pupils is essential to help them develop
the skills, knowledge, and abilities needed for college
and careers after they leave high school. Increasingly,
key sectors of California's economy, including health
care, energy, and infrastructure require workers who have
science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills.
Yet many of the state's high schools have a shortage of
teachers who are qualified to teach these subjects.
According to the author, the chronic shortage of math and
science teachers is correlated with lower scores on the
California Standards Tests and difficulty passing the
California High School Exit Examination. The shortage of
fully credentialed teachers not only prevents many pupils
from achieving proficiency in these critical content
areas, but impedes the ability of students to acquire
skills that prepare them college and careers after high
school.
While the state's budget crisis has led to an oversupply of
teachers in some subject and geographical areas, the state
continues to face a maldistribution of teachers in many of
the state's high schools, particularly those in the lowest
Academic Performance Index (API) quartile and those that
serve low-income and minority communities. In its 2009
report on the Status of the Teaching Profession, the
Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning (CFTL)
reports that on average, low-performing high schools have
twice the percentage of underprepared teachers as the
state's highest performing high schools.
The purpose of SB 956 is to help even out this maldistribution
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of teachers who are qualified to provide STEM education by
providing a pathway for teachers who already have a
credential and have been affected by a reduction in force
to become authorized to teach mathematics, science, or
industrial technology.
2) Teacher shortage . For several years, California has had a
chronic shortage of qualified teachers in certain subjects
including mathematics and science. When schools are
unable to recruit fully credentialed teachers to teach
these subjects, they often assign teachers with a
credential in another area to fill in until the position
can be filled by a credentialed teacher. The current
fiscal climate could easily exacerbate this shortage as
districts lay off teachers with less seniority and find
themselves in the position of reassigning teachers to
teach subjects they may not have previously taught and for
which they do not have a teaching credential. SB 956 will
enable local education agencies to access federal
workforce investment act funds to retool out of field and
laid off teachers to become qualified to teach any of the
following subject areas:
Mathematics.
Biology/Life Science.
Industrial & Technology Education.
Chemistry.
Earth/Planetary Science.
Physics.
1) Test preparation and CSET . Many single subject credential
holders verify subject matter competence by passing all
subtests of the CSET in the subject area they want to
teach. There are different CSETs for each of the subject
areas in which the CTC issues a credential. The domains
of these exams are aligned to the state's academic content
standards for students and are the same domains covered in
a Commission-approved undergraduate subject matter
program.
Candidates who are successful in passing these exams often
have previous experience in a related content area or have
had a fair amount of academic coursework in the subject
matter. Test preparation courses help candidates refresh
and build on their existing knowledge and skills base so
they can achieve the 220 passing score on these exams. On
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average, pass rates for Math CSET exams are about 51
percent, while pass rates for science CSET exams are
higher ranging from 73.2% to 87.9% depending on the
science area.
The Credential Counselors and Analysts of California
indicate that a number of universities and local education
agencies offer test preparation programs to enable
underprepared or out-of-field teachers meet state
requirements for content knowledge of the subjects they
teach. These test preparation courses can cost candidates
$300 or more, depending on how the programs are
structured. In addition, candidates typically pay $70 for
each CSET subtest, with most CSET exams having 2-3
subtests.
To the extent that this bill would enable local education
agencies to provide this training at no cost to teachers
and provides a mechanism for teachers who successfully
pass these examinations to be reimbursed for their test
fees, this bill could make it easier for teachers who have
been affected by a reduction in force to become authorized
to teach specified subjects which could enhance their
qualifications for future employment.
As currently written, the bill could create confusion by
implying teachers need to pass only one examination to be
reimbursed for their test fees. Since the intent of the
bill is to create more teachers who are fully authorized
to teach STEM subjects, it may be more clear, and
appropriate, to reimburse a teacher once he or she has
passed all the subtests associated with the CSET and has
earned the subsequent authorization or credential. Should
the candidate also receive reimbursement for the $55 CTC
fee associated with adding the authorization?
Recommended amendments: Amend paragraph (2) of subsection
(b) to specify that the local education agency shall
reimburse each teacher who successfully passes the
appropriate CSET examinations and adds the authorization
for the cost of the examinations and for the fee charged
by the Commission to issue the new authorization or
credential to the teacher.
2) Prior and related legislation .
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SB 751 (Romero, Chapter 202, Statutes of 2009)
established requirements for local education agencies
that provide test preparation courses for
credentialed teachers seeking to add a subject area
authorization to their credential. This bill was
passed by this Committee on a 7-0 vote.
SB 858 (Scott, 2007) would have established a
grant program for the purpose of encouraging
experienced teachers to become qualified to teach
math or science. This bill was passed by this
Committee on a 9-0 vote and was held by the Senate
Appropriations Committee.
SUPPORT
None received.
OPPOSITION
None received.