September 8, 2017
Mike Kirst, President
California State Board of Education
1430 N Street, Suite 5111
Sacramento, CA 95814
Via email only (sbe@cde.ca.gov)
Re:

Comments re Approval of the California Every Student Succeeds Act Consolidated State Plan -September 2017 Board Meeting Item 4

Dear President Kirst:
Public Advocates, Californians for Justice (CFJ), and ACCE (Alliance of Californians for Community
Empowerment) are civil rights and community-based organizations seriously concerned about the revised
proposal before the State Board of Education to exclude intern teachers from ESSA’s “ineffective
teacher” definition. We believe adoption of the definition as proposed is inconsistent with state law and
the California Way, will hide critical data inequities during our severe teacher shortage, and will erode
our state’s commitment that all students be taught by fully prepared teachers.
We share the State Board’s goal that high-need students in California should have access to excellent
educators and have pushed for the state to report data critical to informing sound teacher quality policies.
As our state faces a daunting teacher shortage, Public Advocates has advocated to the Legislature and the
CTC to maintain high standards for teacher preparation and for the state to attract and retain teachers,
particularly to our highest-need schools. When the Legislature has taken up the issue of teacher
evaluation, we have advocated for robust, multiple measures evaluation systems that are developed with
parents, students and teachers. When California included intern teachers in the definition of “highly
qualified” to satisfy No Child Left Behind, we successfully challenged this interpretation in Renee v.
Duncan, and a federal court struck down the federal regulation under NCLB that permitted underprepared
intern teachers across the nation to be labeled “highly qualified,” which conflicted with Congress’
mandate that only fully-prepared and fully-certified teachers be accorded that status. Congress’ action to
temporarily suspend enforcement of the Renee decision galvanized the creation of the Coalition for
Teaching Quality, a 90-member coalition advocating for federal policies resulting in fully-prepared and
effective teachers for all students. Public Advocates and Californians for Justice are members of this
national coalition. In addition, CFJ’s Relationship Centered Schools campaign focuses on investing in
staff, particularly teachers, to bring down walls and bring people together so all students can reach their
full potential.
As you know, Public Advocates and Californians for Justice were strong supporters of Governor Brown’s
weighted student formula proposal and the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). We have been active
stakeholders and collaborators with the Board and the California Department of Education (CDE) in
implementing LCFF. We urge the Board to reject CDE’s proposal to remove the word “full” from
the definition of ineffective teachers – this will remove intern teachers who have not completed their
teacher preparation and have not demonstrated their effectiveness in a teacher performance
assessment as California requires. In addition, it will bring the definition of “ineffective” out of sync
with LCFF’s Priority 1.

 California’s ESSA state plan must describe:
“how low-income and minority children…are not served at disproportionate rates
by ineffective, out-of-field, or inexperienced teachers, and the measures the State
educational agency will use to evaluate and publicly report on the progress of the
State educational agency with respect to such description…” ESSA §
1111(g)(1)(B).
Public Advocates has participated in the stakeholder engagement sessions on ESSA and specifically
sessions on the state’s Educator Equity Plan. We supported CDE’s plan to collect data on 4 categories of
teachers as stated in the Board’s July agenda. We appreciate that the August Revision continues this plan
to collect data on these teachers. We urge the Board to direct that these data be reported on the
California School Dashboard. These data include teachers who:





Are holding either preliminary or clear credentials;
Have intern credentials;
Are misassigned; and
Have emergency permits, provisional permits or waivers.

In July, the CDE’s proposed definition of “ineffective teacher” reflected several sessions of broad
stakeholder input and the desire that the definition be consistent with LCFF Priority 1. It additionally
reflected the distinction in the data collection above between teachers holding either preliminary or clear
credentials and teachers with intern credentials, as these individuals obtain vastly different levels of
preparation before they serve as teachers of record in California classrooms, and the former are proven
preliminarily effective through a CTC approved teacher performance assessment. In July, “ineffective
teacher” was defined as any teacher who did not hold a full credential or who was not properly assigned.
We supported this definition.
Unfortunately, the September Board item suddenly takes a different direction, now removing the word
“full” from California’s definition. The September Board memo deletes the definition for “intern”
teachers as if they are considered fully credentialed because of recent input suggesting that LEAs will be
reluctant to hire intern teachers unless they are effective. We are surprised and disappointed by this lack
of transparency in not signaling this change in approach.
Removing “intern” teachers from the definition is not consistent with LCFF Priority 1 which requires
LCAPs to address how an LEA will provide teachers who are fully credentialed. This inconsistency is
also in contradiction to the Board’s principles in developing an ESSA State Plan, which clearly put LCFF
and the California Way in the lead and focus on our system’s “rigorous state standards, equity, local
control, performance, and continuous improvement.”
Labeling interns for what they are—less than fully trained and only partially prepared—and requiring
their equitable distribution will not result in the disappearance of interns any more than provisional intern
permits (PIPs) and short-term staff permits (STSPs) will go away. On the contrary, the state’s worsening
teacher shortage has resulted in an increase in the issuance of substandard credentials, permits and
waivers by more than half between 2013-14 and 2015-16 (from 6,077 to 10,200)1. California’s teacher
shortages will still exist and interns, with their subject matter preparation and initial training, will usually
prove a superior option to filling shortages as compared to other lesser-trained permit holders. The
Board should reject the CDE recommendation and maintain LCFF’s “full credential” standard to
ensure our highest need students have full and equitable access to such fully prepared teachers, not
a concentration of teachers-in-training masquerading as equivalent to fully trained teachers.
1

See Carver-Thomas, D. and Darling-Hammond, L. (2017). Addressing California’s Growing Teacher Shortage:
2017 Update, at 4. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.

2

 Sincerely,
Liz Guillen
Director of Legislative &
Community Affairs
Public Advocates Inc.
Cc:

Taryn J. Ishida
Executive Director
Californians for Justice

Christina Livingston
Executive Director
ACCE (Alliance of Californians
for Community Empowerment)

Members of the California State Board of Education
Karen Stapf Walters, Executive Director, California State Board of Education
Judy Cias, Chief Counsel, California State Board of Education
Dave Sapp, Deputy Policy Director and Assistant Legal Counsel, California State Board of
Education
Tom Torlakson, State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Barbara Murchison, State Lead, ESSA State Plan Office, California Department of Education
Glen Price, Chief Deputy Superintendents of Public Instruction, California Department of
Education
Debra Brown, Director, Governmental Affairs Division, California Department of Education
Joy Kessel, Consultant, Every Student Succeeds Act Office, California Department of Education

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