Study finds CA teachers are mis-assigned

Check out the report findings. Good to see that the monitoring as a result of the Williams case is helping to expose these inequalities.

-Patricia

Friday, August 08, 2008
By Nannette Miranda

It's an eye-popping report that could partly explain why certain students don't do well in school.

The Commission on Teacher Credentialing found nearly six-and-a-half percent of all California teachers were assigned to a class they were not qualified to teach.

The civil rights law firm, Public Advocates, had to sue the state to force it to gather the numbers.

"The report found that over 22,000 teachers were mis-assigned, meaning they weren't credentialed to teach their subject or trained to teach English learners," stated Liz Guillen of Public Advocates.

The majority of the mis-assignments were in classrooms where English was a second language, affecting Latino students the most.

There were 1.6 million English language learner students in California last year.

"English learners are not getting the teachers they need to succeed in California schools or our state. That's a big problem!" said Liz Guillen.

The problem is evident in state standardized tests.

The High School Exit Exam, for example, shows of all California seniors who took the test in March, more than 93% passed it.

But when looking at just the English learners, only 77% passed.

"It's upsetting," said English learner student Gretel Quintero.

Gretel Quintero began school in California before she could speak English.

She feels many of her teachers didn't have the skills to deal with her.

Quintero stated, "They were nice and everything. But if they were more prepared, maybe my English would be better. My education would be better too. I believe in equal opportunity, and that's not given to us, you know?"