Report: SJ County makes progress in teacher preparedness; Merced struggles

By MERRILL BALASSONE
mbalassone@modbee.com

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San Joaquin County reduced its number of underprepared teachers by nearly half during the last school year, according to a report released Monday on the status of California's teaching work force.

Merced County also improved, but again ranked as having the third- highest percentage of underprepared teachers among the state's 58 counties, according to the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning. Stanislaus County, which benefits from a strong teacher-preparation program at California State University, Stanislaus, was not among counties with high numbers or percentages of underprepared teachers.

"We see continued progress being made in addressing the teacher shortage," said Margaret Gaston, the center's executive director. "We want to see every child have a great teacher."

Underprepared Teachers

The Santa Cruz-based nonprofit group documents the state's work force of teachers each year and its distribution among public schools serving California's 6.3 million students. Since 2000, the number of underprepared teachers statewide has dropped from 42,000 to 15,000.

The center defines an underprepared teacher as one who has not met the state's credential requirements, including interns or teachers working on an emergency permit. That's a departure from the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, under which an intern can be considered highly qualified.

Among this year's findings in "The Status of the Teaching Profession" report:

The number of teachers in San Joaquin County deemed underprepared by the center shrank from 693 during the 2005-06 school year to 378 in 2006-07.

Merced County had the third- highest percentage of underprepared teachers in the state last school year, at 7.5 percent of its teaching force. In 2005-06, 9.5 percent of county teachers were classified as underprepared.

Although classified as "underprepared," San Joaquin County interns may have led to the drop in underprepared teachers last year, officials there said. Project IMPACT, a two-year intern program, is the county's largest teacher preparation program, said Catherine Kearney, director of teacher development for the county Office of Education.

That program targets older students and attracts more bilingual and minority candidates, who tend to stay in their jobs at much higher rates than new teachers nationwide, Kearney said. After five years, 93 percent of former interns still are teaching in the districts where they were trained.

"They're not just coming here for the short term," Kearney said. "They're homegrown, they want to stay in the Central Valley and contribute to the community that raised them."

Gaston applauded San Joaquin County's success and added that the label of "underprepared" should not come across as pejorative. She wants to make sure interns get the preparation and mentoring they need.

More than half of the state's teaching interns are clustered in the lowest-performing schools, where they face more challenges and have fewer veteran teachers from whom to learn.

"These individuals are willing to take some of the most challenging assignments in the state's lowest-performing schools," Gaston said. "These are really people we want to keep in the profession by giving them the support they need."

There still are pockets of need in California, Gaston said. According to the center's report, Merced County is one.

Denise Hernandez, who oversees hiring for the Merced City School District, said the biggest challenge is finding math teachers. Hernandez believes school districts will need to put more money into attracting math teachers to the area. A middle school math teacher in the Merced district makes $45,500 a year to start, Hernandez said.