April 29, 2019
CTC
Continued from page 1
the option of either complying with the
intern program or applying for a residency
program, or apply as an “experimental pro-
gram.” Summit Prep elected to regroup and
apply as an “experimental program” thereby
allowing the cohort of teacher candidates
to continue in their present program while
Summit Prep seeks accreditation as an
experimental program.
This action by the commission is very
unusual and may open the door for other
charter programs to bypass the commis-
sion’s established accreditation processes by
seeking accreditation as an “experimental
program.”
RICA updates needed
Standards and Performance Expecta-
tions for preparing teachers for the teach-
ing of literacy have changed significantly
since the Reading Instruction Competence
Assessment was first mandated by legis-
lation requiring every prospective teacher
to take and pass the exam before receiving
their teaching credential. The Commission
on Teacher Credentialing, in an effort to
advance the teaching skills of new teachers,
revised and updated teaching and perfor-
mance expectations for literacy over the
past several years. While these changes
were occurring, the RICA, based upon
former outdated teacher and performance
expectations, remained unchanged. Each
year the gap between newly revised teach-
ing and performance expectations grew
wider and the alignment of the RICA to
teaching performance expectations became
more obsolete.
Virtually every knowledgeable educa-
tor understands that assessments must be
aligned with teaching and performance
expectations, and updated as changes occur.
The RICA has never been revised to align
with current teaching and performance
expectations.
During the recent CTC meeting, staff
asked the commission to seek a legisla-
tive vehicle to address one or more of the
following:
1. Removing the reference to the 1996
Reading Program Advisory from
the Education Code.
2. Requiring that the assessment be
aligned to the current standards and
frameworks adopted by the State
Board of Education.
3. Allowing the assessment to focus
on the broader aspects of literacy
instead of focusing narrowly on
the foundational skills of teaching
reading.
4. Allowing a coursework option for
the assessment that candidates
could use instead of requiring all
candidates to pass the standardized
assessment.
ACSA has requested the commission to
postpone taking action on the four recom-
mendations and further requested that the
commission fully examine the RICA as a
viable vehicle for assessing teacher literacy
competency as soon as the next meeting
in June. The commission chose not to take
action on any of the four staff recommen-
dations and asked staff to bring this back at
a future, unspecified date.
New CTC chair elected
Following the appointment of Linda
Darling Hammond to head the State
Board of Education, her fellow commis-
sioners elected Tine Sloan as chairwoman
of the Commission on Teacher Creden-
tialing. Sloan has served as an associate
teaching professor at the University of
California, Santa Barbara, Gevirtz Gradu-
ate School of Education since 2012 and as
a faculty member since 2000, where she was
director of the teacher education program
from 2005 to 2017. Sloan was a lecturer
at the National Institute of Education in
Singapore from 1996 to 1997 and a teacher
at Lewis Avenue Elementary School in
1988. She is a member of the American
Educational Research Association, the Cal-
ifornia Council on Teacher Education and
the World Education Research Association.
Sloan earned her Master of Art and Doctor
of Philosophy degrees in education from
the University of California, Los Angeles.
State-funded grant programs
The governor and the Legislature have
provided funding through the state budget
to enhance the preparation, development,
recruitment, retention and support of Cali-
fornia teachers. The commission, therefore,
has been tasked to administer this funding
through conducting competitive grant
competitions for eli-
gible Local Education
Agencies.
Look for part
Three of the five
two of cov-
state-grant funded
erage of the
programs current-
CTC’s April
ly administered by
meeting in
the Commission are
next week’s
focused primarily on
EdCal.
teacher preparation and
development while the
other two programs
focus on teacher recruitment, retention and
support.
Local Solutions to the Shortage of
Special Education Teachers: LEAs were
encouraged to use this grant opportunity
to increase the supply of special education
teachers by prioritizing strategies for iden-
tifying, recruiting, preparing, employing
and supporting newly credentialed special
education teachers and for assisting teach-
ers who may be credentialed in another
field who want to become credentialed
special education teachers. Local Solu-
tions funding provides up to $20,000 per
participating teacher to implement locally
identified solutions to address the shortage
of special education teachers.
Teacher Residency Programs: The
2018-19 state budget included funding to
support the development and implementa-
tion of teacher residency programs. A total
of $75 million was provided for competitive
grants for LEAs to work in partnership
with IHEs with commission-approved
programs to offer a teacher residency path-
way to earn a teaching credential in special
education, STEM or bilingual education.
Of the $75 million, $50 million has been
allocated for the preparation of special
education residents and $25 million is allo-
cated for the preparation of STEM and/or
bilingual residents.
Next week
Teacher Residency Capacity Grant
(Rounds one and two): For the Teacher
Residency Capacity Grant, a total of $1.5
million was available to provide grant
awards of up to a maximum of $50,000 per
grant to eligible LEAs to support a collab-
orative partnership between the LEA and
an IHE that offers a commission-approved
teacher preparation program for special ed-
ucation, STEM and/or bilingual residents.
Teacher Residency Expansion Grants:
This grant provides awards of up to
$20,000 per resident participating in the
Teacher Residency Expansion Grant Pro-
gram for the purpose of expanding existing
LEA-IHE partnerships that are currently
operating a commission-approved program.
Expansion grant funding may be used to
expand existing teacher residency pathways
in special education, STEM and/or bilin-
gual education in the applicant LEA(s).
Legislation requires grant recipients to
provide a 100 percent match of grant fund-
ing to support, complement, or enhance the
residency program, and the match may be
one dollar for every dollar of grant funding
and/or an in-kind match.
Institutional approval
Alameda County Office of Education
was granted preliminary institutional
approval to offer a Clear Administrative
Services credential program and a Career
Technical Education credential program.
ACOE provided an organization outline
for the institution as well as the division of
Learning and Accountability, which will
house the College of Education and the
credentialing programs.
Chief of Learning and Accountability
Ingrid Roberson will have oversight of the
teacher education program and will report
to the superintendent. Program Director
Christine Boynton will coordinate the
Career Technical Education program and
Daisy Morales will be the program direc-
tor for the Clear Administrative Services
credential program.
Both directors will handle the day-to-
day operations of the programs and will
report directly to the chief of learning and
accountability.
ACSA's Resource Hub offers a plethora of useful information for school leaders on
such issues as student safety, credentialing, increasing community engagement,
deepening student learning, dealing with crises and much more.
Access resources on these and other topics at http://content.acsa.org.
SAVE THE DATE!
2020
ASSOCIATION OF CALIFORNIA SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS IN
PARTNERSHIP WITH SACRAMENTO COUNTY OFFICE OF EDUCATION
EDCAL 5
superintendents’
symposium
Jan. 29 - 31, 2020 | Hyatt Regency, Indian Wells