Battle for California: TFA Civil War, ELLs, and Teacher Quality

Dear TFA Alumni,

Right now you stand in a unique and powerful place to speak out for California’s English learners. For years, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) has been automatically giving intern teachers (including TFA corps members) an EL authorization with their intern credential, even though interns have not completed the requisite training to meet ELs’ special needs and in spite of uncontroverted research indicating that EL students do better with teachers who have completed such specialized training.

At its meeting next Thursday March 7th, the CTC is reconsidering this policy, and its staff has made sound recommendations that 1) the CTC stop awarding the EL authorization without requiring interns to complete the EL coursework and fieldwork; 2) multiple pathways be created for interns to receive their EL authorization as soon as possible; and 3) that districts may publicly seek an EL waiver so the interns they need to hire during teacher shortages may legally teach ELs while they are completing their training. The full agenda item can be found at http://www.ctc.ca.gov/commission/agendas/2013-03/2013-03-3A.pdf

Teach For America, Students First (Michelle Rhee’s organization), DFER, numerous charter schools, LAUSD Superintendent Deasy, and others sent the Commission a letter yesterday opposing the proposed policy change.  We are organizing a letter of support on the other side.  In addition, two prominent EL researchers, Kenji Hakuta at Stanford and Patricia Gandara at UCLA, submitted testimony in support in January. 

Unfortunately, Teach for America is voicing strong opposition to the CTC’s reconsideration of this important issue. Even though the CTC staff’s recommendations do not threaten interns’ presence (or hierarchical preference) in California’s classrooms, and TFA has suggested that its summer institute program satisfies the state’s requirements for EL coursework and fieldwork, TFA is saying that enforcing the rights of ELs hampers districts’ and charters’ flexibility to hire intern teachers.  They also argue “there is no strong research base to support the general assertion currently on the table that students taught by “fully-prepared” novice teachers outperform students who are taught by interns…”

This is a simple issue that has been made complex: ELs require and are legally entitled to teachers specially trained to meet their needs, and parents deserve to know when ELs do not have fully prepared teachers. Interns without the EL authorization should be incentivized to obtain their EL authorization as soon as possible so they can address their EL students’ linguistic and academic challenges.

As TFA alums who have taught ELs as intern teachers, your voice in this debate is crucial. Please read and consider signing onto a letter to the CTC from TFA alums available here. The signatories page here. If you’d like to sign on, please do so soon, by NOON Tuesday, March 5^th.