The Reading Instruction Competence Assessment is a legislative mandate dating back to 1996, when there was a statewide concern that teachers were not being adequately prepared to effectively teach reading to all students. RICA is not a preparation process but rather an independent assessment intended to determine a teaching candidate’s ability to teach reading and is a requirement for all multiple subject and special education credential holders. It has remained unchanged since 1996.  Since RICA was developed, programs have adjusted their preparation of new teachers to meet the continued changes to the Literacy Standards and the Teaching Performance Expectations, as these changes have occurred over the past 23 years. Ironically, RICA is not aligned with the current Literacy Standards or the Teaching Performance Expectations, therefore current teacher credential candidates must make special efforts to prepare for the RICA exclusive of their preparation and training with their education program.  CTC Commissioner Andrew Wall, dean of the School of Education at the University of Redlands, correctly framed RICA when he stated, “RICA is test prep rather than preparing candidates to be able to teach reading.”  This “gap” in the preparation process has led to disparate results in the pass/fail rate of RICA, and many stakeholder groups, including CTA, ACSA, Public Advocates, and the California County Superintendents Education Services Association, believe the RICA is outdated and should be removed as a required step for a teacher candidate to earn a teaching credential.   There are two divergent thoughts on how to address the gap between the RICA and the changes to the Standards and Teaching Performance Expectations: 1) Update the examination as needed in order to remain consistent with the most current state content standards and framework adopted after 1996, or 2) Remove RICA from statute because the mandate to pass the exam does not accurately reflect a candidate’s ability to teach reading.  Currently, ACSA, led by Governmental Relations Advocate Laura Preston, has been working very closely with stakeholder groups to move a bill through the Legislature that will eliminate RICA from the statutes. The bill was introduced last legislative session and will be moved forward in the new legislative calendar later in 2020. The Budget Act provided the CTC with a total appropriation of $29.6 million for the 2019-20 fiscal year. Of that amount, the act appropriates $23.3 million from the Teacher Credentials Fund and $5.9 million from the Test Development and Administration Account.  In addition, the act also provided $408,000 in reimbursements. Approximately 79 percent of the commission’s operating budget is supported by credential fees, which are the primary revenue source for the Teacher Credential Fund. Educator exam fees, which fund the Test Development Administration Account, support a little less than 20 percent of the CTC’s budget.  Current law requires the commission to maintain reserves in each fund to address unanticipated fiscal liabilities and to ensure cash flow in any month when revenues are insufficient to pay that month’s expenditures.  Currently, the Teacher Credential Fund has a projected reserve of $27.2 million and the Test Development Administration Account has a projected reserve of $5 million.    In 2016, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Theatre and Dance Act, Senate Bill 916, authorizing two new single subject credentials in Dance and in Theatre. Subsequently, the commission has prioritized developing subject matter requirements for these credentials in its annual goals and objectives. A plan and timeline have been developed and are currently being implemented. During this meeting, two key aspects of this work were presented to the commission for review, input and direction: the draft Subject Matter Requirements and the draft Teaching Performance Expectations.  The commission’s customary practice, consistent with statutory requirements, has been and continues to be using advisory panels of California content experts to advise the CTC in the development of subject matter examinations. The Content Expert Advisory Panels for the draft Dance and Theatre Subject Matter Requirements met in May and July in Sacramento to review and discuss each of the proposed requirements to determine their appropriateness as essential content knowledge for a newly credentialed teacher ready to begin practice.  Staff anticipates that the draft TPEs for Theatre and Dance would be sent to the field for review and input during fall 2019, and would be brought back to the commission for adoption along with the draft Subject Matter Requirements for Theatre and Dance in February or April 2020.  Title II requires institutions to submit annual reports to state agencies on the quality of their teacher preparation programs. States are required to collect the information contained in these institutional reports and submit an annual report to the U.S. Department of Education on the success of teacher preparation programs and efforts to improve teacher quality. Federal contractor Westat has developed a web-based data entry tool called the Institutional and Program Report Card, and states were given the option to either develop their own system or use Westat’s system. The commission elected to use Westat’s system because it is free to the state and enables data to be collected uniformly across many states.  The following are highlights from this annual report.

Program information - enrollment:

Institutional pass-rate traditional route:

• CBEST, the pass rate ranged from 97 percent to 100 percent.
• CSET ranged from 90 percent to 100 percent.
  
• RICA ranged from 55 percent to 100 percent.
  

Alternative IHE-based route:

• CBEST pass rate was 100 percent.
• CSET ranged from 95 percent to 100 percent.
• RICA pass rate ranged from 60 percent to 100 percent.

Alternative LEA-based route:

• CBEST pass rate ranged from 95 percent to 100 percent.
• CSET pass rate was 100 percent.
• RICA pass rate ranged from 71 percent to 100 percent.

Since the Ryan Act of 1970, the CTC has been responsible for oversight of programs that prepare future educators. The CTC Committee on Accreditation monitors the quality of educator preparation programs through its accreditation system. Accreditation is granted to those institutions that meet the commission’s standards of quality and effectiveness. Institutions that do not meet commission standards are precluded from offering educator preparation programs in California. For 2018-19, Sonoma County Office of Education has been designated as a “low performing institution.” The driving force behind the attention on literacy is based in large part on recent significant changes to the commission standards. These changes include the reframing of the most recent English Language Arts/English Language Development standards and frameworks adopted by the State Board of Education to reflect a more integrated approach to addressing five broad, overarching literacy themes that provide a comprehensive road map for helping students develop literacy across the curriculum. These standards are also intended to promote the responsibility of all teachers, not just multiple subject and/or single subject English teachers, for fostering the development of literacy as applicable to each teacher’s specific credential area.  This is a critical factor to keep in mind when considering the intent and focus of the draft Teaching Performance Expectations relating to expectations for the teaching of reading and developing literacy for all beginning teachers. Under the structure of the current preparation program standards, the Preliminary Multiple and Single Subject Program Standards define what the program must provide to all candidates and the TPEs define what each candidate must know and be able to do prior to earning the credential.  In early 2019, the staff worked with a Reading and Literacy expert group to consider the implications of the ELA/ELD student content standards for teacher preparation. They focused specifically on the development of Teaching Performance Expectations as part of an overall effort to update and align these systems. The group’s efforts resulted in draft Literacy TPEs intended to align with the current state student standards in this area and to augment the Commission’s current TPEs. Subsequent to this initial meeting, staff reviewed the English Language Arts/English Language Development Framework to ensure that important concepts in the framework were represented in the draft Teaching Performance Expectations. The Reading and Literacy Subject matter expert group met in August 2019 to review the updated draft and make final suggestions for consideration by the commission.  Despite all the work competed by the expert panels and efforts of commission staff to ensure congruence with the English Language Arts/English Language Development Framework and the request by multiple stakeholder groups to approve the Teaching Performance Expectations, the CTC did not take action but decided to conduct a study session on the topic of best practices for the teaching of literacy at a future meeting, possible as early as the next meeting in November.   In keeping with the CTC’s efforts to strengthen and streamline its standards and accreditation system, the commission acted to modify the single subject matter program standards and review process for prospective single subject matter programs. The adopted process eliminated redundancy and the submission of lengthy responses by an institution when proposing a single subject matter program. The streamlined process also eliminated additional requirements that were outside the scope of the content-specific Subject Matter Requirements and corresponding California Subject Matter Examinations for Teachers.  The minimum number of units required for a commission-approved single subject matter program range from 35-48 semester units with the exception of Foundational-Level General Science (32), Foundational-Level Mathematics (32), and World Languages (33). Many institutions have shared that it is challenging to fit a commission-approved Subject Matter Program into one of the college majors due to the considerable unit requirement. If the unit requirement were reduced, it is possible that the commission-approved program might align better with existing college majors. Staff analysis indicates that the depth of study requirements supplements the core requirements and exceeds the commission-adopted Subject Matter Requirements in some content areas. In many instances, the core requirements correspond to and address the domains of the Subject Matter Requirements, and the depth of study identifies additional coursework that does not explicitly address the Subject Matter Requirements. This means that a candidate using the program route to satisfy subject matter is required to complete coursework that exceeds the knowledge that a candidate using the CSET route is required to demonstrate. Staff is not suggesting that candidates should not complete university coursework that includes depth of study as part of earning a college degree. But, for equity, it seems that the commission’s requirements for a Single Subject Matter program should align with the adopted Subject Matter Requirements and allow the institution to set additional depth of study requirements as part of the degree-granting process. Staff believes that it is important to consult subject matter experts for each content area to conduct a thorough analysis of the core and depth of study that is currently required. The CTC requires that an institution seeking to offer new educator preparation program(s) must first be approved for initial accreditation as a new program sponsor and must do so by completing the commission’s Initial Institutional Approval process. Staff recommended and the commission approved the following requests: Los Angeles Pacific University - Los Angeles Pacific University is a nonprofit university in San Dimas, California. LAPU is part of the Azusa Pacific University system but was separately accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission in March 2018. LAPU seeks to offer a Preliminary Multiple Subject credential program.  Alameda County Office of Education - ACOE seeks Provisional Approval from the Commission at this time. ACOE’s application states that the institution intends to seek Committee on Assignment approval to offer a Designated Subjects: Career Technical Education program and an Administrative Services Clear Induction program (which ACOE has named the Clear Administrative Credential Program – CACP). ACOE has completed Stages I and II and was approved as an eligible institution by the Commission at its April 2019 meeting. This action allowed ACOE to move forward to Stage III: Review to Determine Alignment with Applicable Preconditions and the Common Standards. Since 2015, CTC staff have met with various CTE stakeholders, explored ideas to increase the supply of CTE teachers, and presented these ideas to the commission. Commissioners and interested stakeholders have not supported these potential options, identifying the need to ensure an acceptable level of required industry experience or K-12 classroom preparation for aspiring CTE teachers. Given the shared goal to improve CTE for all students in California, the commission and CDE staff is proposing that the agencies begin to follow up on two of the ideas presented by the work group: (1)  The commission and CDE would work together to create and promote clear and consistent statewide guidance industry work experience toward the current 3,000-hour requirement. (2)  The commission would collaborate with industry partners and veteran CTE educators to develop industry-informed competencies deemed necessary to effective teaching in a CTE context.  In 2016, California voters passed Proposition 58, which allows California public schools to teach English learners through multilingual programs (e.g. dual-language immersion, transitional bilingual). Given this change to how schools may offer bilingual education, advocates from the bilingual education community began to express the need to examine the Bilingual Authorization preparation standards so that the preparation better aligns with bilingual programs in California schools. Bilingual education advocates view an update to the BA program standards as a priority and identified a dedicated group, the Bilingual Standards Refresh Work Group, to complete some pre-work by analyzing the current standards. This work group is also developing a statewide district survey to better understand how LEAs are building and implementing their K-12 bilingual programs since the passage of Prop. 58. Plans are to send the survey to district and site level administrators in the early fall, with results anticipated by early 2020. Beginning in October 2019, staff will open an application process to form a Bilingual Content Expert Work Group. Bilingual K-12 teachers, administrators, university faculty, members of language groups, and bilingual experts will be encouraged to apply. The CTC executive director will appoint qualified individuals to serve on the expert work group, which will begin meeting in spring 2020. The Bilingual Content Expert Work Group will identify what knowledge, skills, and abilities should be included in the recommended Bilingual Authorization standards update and make recommendations to the CTC.