Advisory panel would narrow teacher training to focus on age groups
California would abandon its long-time practice of issuing credentials that allow teachers to oversee instruction in the widest of grade spans – from pre-kindergarten to adult education – under a proposal pending before the Commission on Teacher Credentialing.
Currently, multiple subject credential holders are authorized to teach in self-contained settings and single subject credential holders are authorized to teach their subject matter in departmentalized settings of students as young as pre-school and as old as 18 years.
The CTC considered the proposal at a hearing Thursday, one of a long list of recommendations that have been developed the past 15 months by an advisory panel charged with evaluating the state’s teacher preparation and licensing program to ensure that it still meets the ever-changing needs of the state’s public schools.
Under the plan, the CTC would seek legislation to narrow that scope by putting transitional kindergarten through eighth grade into one authorization, and higher grades into another.
Supporters considered the move critical as California schools begin to implement the common core curriculum, according to a staff report to the commission.
“Creating a more targeted purview for licensure categories will help to ensure that in preparation and through licensure, pre-service teachers have opportunities to focus and deepen their subject matter knowledge base and concentrate on