CTC hears update from permit workgroup

www.acsa.org

Child Development Permit being re-examined

April 29, 2024

The April meeting of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing was attended by ACSA CTC Liaison Doug Gephart, who filed the following report.

The Child Development Permit matrix serves as a foundational reference for Early Childhood Education teacher licensing requirements. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing is determined to relook at the Child Development Permit in view of the Master Plan for Early Learning and Care with the development of the PK-3 ECE Specialist Instruction Credential.

The executive director appointed 26 individuals from county offices of education, education agencies, higher education, and public and private child development centers to serve on the workgroup. The California Formative Teaching Performance Assessment work is being reviewed as foundational information, along with the Early Childhood Education Teaching Performance Expectations approved by the commission in 2019, to assist in the workgroup’s discussion.

The workgroup is focusing on three essential questions:

How should the current permit structure be revised, updated, and/or modified to ensure that the early childhood educators are adequately prepared for their jobs?
How can the state best monitor and ensure quality in preparation of the ECE workforce within the resources available?
How should the Teacher Performance Expectations be reorganized to align with the proposed new structure for the Child Development Permit?

Early discussions have included renaming the permit levels to diverge from the current descriptions based upon workgroup feedback. In an endeavor to elevate the professionalism of the early childhood education field, the workgroup is currently deliberating the possibility of implementing an associate degree as the minimum requirement for the teacher level of the permit. The current permit structure in early childhood education supports obtaining a higher education and educators are informed about the steps they need to take to advance their career paths.

The workgroup will convene for two more meetings with a recommendation of their findings presented to the commission at the August meeting.

Early Childhood Education FTPA

The commission has been working for several years on building the infrastructure and program supports needed to transition preparation for the Child Development Permit from a system that has been based largely on seat time and units to a competency-based system based on early childhood education student progress towards mastering the teaching performance expectations. To this end, the following work has already been accomplished:

The commission adopted Teaching and Administrator Performance Expectations for all six levels of the Child Development Permit.
The commission adopted program standards for programs at regionally accredited institutions of higher education that prepare ECE students to earn a Child Development Permit.
The California Community Colleges “Curriculum Alignment Project” coursework and practicum experience has been revised and updated to incorporate the adopted TPEs and CAPEs, also in accordance with the state’s Master Plan.

As ECE teachers seeking a teacher-level Child Development Permit are starting to experience the new approaches and updated curriculum and practicum experiences, it would not be realistic, effective or valid for the new Child Development Permit teacher level performance assessment to be used to make licensure decisions about ECE students preparing to earn a teacher-level permit.

Therefore, commission staff are developing and validating the CalFTPA as an assessment that programs preparing ECE students for a Child Development Teacher level permit may choose to use.

To date, student teacher assessment guides, faculty guides and ECE student training modules have all been developed through support from grants and are being refined as these materials become more widely tried out by interested preparation programs across the state. The materials all address the background and purpose of the CalFTPA, the Learning Cycles and other helpful information along with a list of extensive resources for the intended audiences.

The next steps in the CalFTPA implementation process are to provide professional development sessions, refine teacher training and support materials, and provide technical assistance and support to the field as they try out the CalFTPA within coursework and practicum experiences for ECE student teachers.

Program approval complaint

Three groups (Decoding Dyslexia, California Reading Coalition and Families in Schools) jointly signed a letter of complaint asserting that the commission-approved program at Mills College at Northeastern University does not comply with the current literacy instruction precondition 3 and also fails to meet the domain 7 literacy teaching standards required as a result of Senate Bill 488. The documentation submitted also refers to outdated requirement language and does not meet the criteria defined in the evidence guidance aligned with current requirements.

The commission’s process for approval of new programs is guided by both the Accreditation Framework and the Accreditation Handbook. Proposals are received by the commission staff from institutions seeking to offer a new credential program or authorization. These proposals include responses to all relevant preconditions, a response to the common standards designed specifically for new programs, and finally, the institution’s response to the program standards.

Initial program review involves, among other steps, the initial identification and selection of qualified reviewers to determine program qualifications prior to recommendation for program approval. Upon initial application, review teams meet virtually with commission staff to review required documentation to determine the validity of evidence to support program approval. The review team must reach consensus for any recommendation which is then submitted to the Committee on Accreditation. Northeastern University was previously required to apply and seek approval through the commission accreditation process before the application for Mills College at Northeastern University submitted a proposal for a multiple subject credential program.

The Committee on Credentials is the appropriate body to review, analyze and recommend findings to the commission for final action. Following a recommendation from ACSA Liaison Doug Gephart, the commission referred the complaint to the Committee on Accreditation as the appropriate body to review and make recommendations regarding the complaint filed against Mills College at Northeastern University. The commission will take formal action upon referral from the Committee on Accreditation following their review.

Teacher Supply in California: A Report to the Legislature

Annually, the commission submits a teacher supply report to the Legislature for review, comment and action. In recent years, the teacher supply in California is experiencing rather alarming decline in newly credentialed teachers in virtually every category (see graph).

While the number of credentialed candidates is on the decline, more than 14,000 teaching intern, permit and waiver documents were requested by 57 out of the 58 California counties in 2022-23. More than three-fifths (65 percent) of documents issued were permits. About one-third (31 percent) were made up of intern credentials, with the remaining 4 percent were waiver issuances.

Los Angeles County alone requested more than one-fifth (23 percent) of the documents. Another two-fifths (47 percent) were requested by 10 counties (Kern, San Bernardino, Santa Clara, San Diego, San Joaquin, Fresno, Riverside, Alameda, Contra Costa and Sacramento) that requested between 500 and 1,010 documents each. Additionally, about one-eighth (14 percent) were requested by another seven counties. Therefore, at the state level, about four-fifths (83 percent) of total documents (interns, permits and waivers) were requested by only 18 counties.

Division of Professional Practices workload report

The commission’s dashboards report on six key measurements showing the workload at the Division of Professional Practices. Figures are current as of the end of February. Both current year numbers as well as prior year numbers are included for comparison purposes.

Total open cases: 3,347 (compared to 2,942 in 2022-23).

Cases opened: 674 cases (compared to 370 in the prior year). This includes all sources, such as criminal arrest notices, district reports, affidavits and educators who self-report misconduct. Initial review: 90 cases (compared to 94 cases last February).

Closed cases: 461 cases, (within the normal monthly range of 400-500).

AG cases: 180 cases (compared to 140 in the prior year) in which an educator requests an administrative hearing to challenge a decision.