Diverse & Prepared Educators
Students need teachers who are highly qualified and fully prepared to support them as they learn and develop social-emotionally. Research consistently shows that teachers represent the most important in-school factor that influences student learning. Teachers are the adults that students often spend the most time with at school and have great influence over how the school year progresses.
However, many students—especially students of color and low-income students—have less access to highly qualified and well-prepared teachers due to chronic teacher shortages and systemic resource inequities that persist in our public schools. The more adequately prepared and supported teachers are, the more they can help all their students learn and the more likely they are to stay and grow in the profession. The most recent figures show upwards of 10,000 teacher vacancies across California.
Research also shows that access to teachers of color benefits all students’ academic and social-emotional development, with particularly strong benefits when Black students have Black teachers. Yet California also has a shortage of teachers of color and the teaching profession is nowhere near reflecting the diversity of our student population.
Racial/ethnic proportions of CA students and teachers, 2021-2022:
African American: 5.1% students, 3.0% teachers
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.5% students, 0.5% teachers
Asian/Filipino: 11.9% students, 7.8% teachers
Hispanic or Latino: 55.9% students, 23.5% teachers
Not reported: 1.0% students, 5.2% teachers
Pacific Islander: 0.4% students, 0.3% teachers
Two or more races: 4.3% students, 1.1% teachers
White: 21.1% students, 57.7% teachers
That’s why Public Advocates works for:
Access to transparent and meaningful data
Our advocacy for access to annual data on teacher preparation dates back to our Williams lawsuit in 2000. We finally achieved access to detailed teacher preparation data for every classroom, every year, when our advocacy led to the creation of the Teaching Assignment Monitoring Outcomes (TAMO) data set in 2022. TAMO provides school, district, county, and state level data on the percentage of courses taught by fully prepared and properly assigned teachers (those credentialed to teach the subject area and authorized to teach the student subgroup of the classes they are assigned). We continue to analyze and disseminate these data to identify the scope and impact of teacher vacancies and mis-assignments. We continue to advocate for further improvements such as disaggregation of this data to measure access to prepared teachers for low-income students, students of color, and English learners. We also advocate for annual access to data on teacher race/ethnicity and multilingual learner status to assess how representative our teacher workforce is of our student population.
Look up your teacher’s credential, certificate, and/or permit.
Resource: How to navigate the Teaching Assignment Monitoring Outcomes (TAMO) data.
School and district accountability for fully prepared and properly assigned teachers
Starting in 2023 the California Department of Education (CDE) integrated TAMO data into the local indicator on Basics: Teachers, Instructional Materials, Facilities in the school district pages of the CA School Dashboard. We advocated for CDE to use a district’s percentage of “Clear” teaching assignments (courses taught by fully prepared and properly assigned teachers) as the objective criteria by which schools and districts should be measured on the Dashboard. The State Board of Education adopted the Clear standard and we continue to work toward the improvement of this indicator with the addition of an equity component to reflect the distribution of access to Clear teachers within a school, district, county and across the state for high need students. We also advocate for this teacher data to be visible on the school pages of the Dashboard so that stakeholders can review data on teacher preparation while also looking at other student and school indicators to inform local conversations about how to support teachers and students.
A strong pipeline of prepared and diverse educators
Teachers of color contribute immensely to student achievement and well-being, but they often face structural barriers to enter and stay in the profession. Public Advocates, Californians For Justice, and The Education Trust–West consulted with students, families, educators, and other stakeholders to develop the California Educator Diversity Road Map–a set of community-informed policy proposals to help California establish a clear vision and comprehensive action plan to recruit, prepare, and sustain an educator workforce whose diversity reflects that of California’s students. We are collaborating with both our advocacy and community partners to implement these recommendations on growing career pathways, financial incentives, and supportive ecosystems for teachers at both the state and local levels and at all points in the teacher pipeline.
Enforcement of students’ rights to permanent teachers
Thanks to protections we won in our Williams settlement, students have the right to a permanent teacher by the end of the fourth week of the school year. Public Advocates’ legal team identifies communities where we have close partnerships and a high number of vacant teacher positions that are illegally filled by short and long-term subs or addressed using other inappropriate methods that don’t promote stable learning. We file Williams complaints and work with community partners and districts to find solutions that result in greater access to fully prepared and properly assigned teachers.
Learn More
- Learning Policy Institute, How Positive Outlier Districts Create a Strong and Stable Teaching Force
- UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools and California Teachers Association, Voices From the Classroom
- Learning Policy Institute, State of the Teacher Workforce
- CA Commission on Teacher Credentialing, California Statewide Assignment Accountability System
- California Department of Education, School Accountability Report Cards
Key coalitions
The California Coalition for Educator Diversity
is a coalition of researchers, practitioners, and advocates working to diversify the California educator workforce by amplifying and elevating evidence-based and equity-centered policy, practice, and research.
The California Educator Diversity Action Network (CEDAN)
is a network of coalitions and organizations dedicated to fostering statewide collaboration and coordination to ensure California has a diverse, well-prepared, and sustainable educator workforce.
The California Partnership for the Future of Learning (CA PFL)
is a statewide alliance of community organizing and advocacy groups advancing a shared vision of racially just relationship-centered community schools. CA PFL also works to grow the pipeline of diverse, prepared, and supported educators. Their Teaching Profession Playbook offers a comprehensive set of strategies to recruit, prepare, and retain high-quality teachers and bring greater racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity to the profession.
The Coalition for Teacher Quality
is a broad coalition of civil rights, disability, parent, student, community, and education groups advocating at the federal level for stronger federal policies to promote teacher quality and equity.
The LCFF Equity Coalition
is a coalition of civil rights, advocacy, community, family, student, educator and other organizations working to implement the state’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and focus resources on closing opportunity gaps. A subset of these groups make up the Educator Equity Workgroup and collaborate to foster and support legislative and budget proposals, and monitor and advocate for progress at the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing and State Board of Education.
Resources
DECLARATION OF MATTHEW R. STEPHENS IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS’MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION in Miliani Rodriguez v. State
PLAINTIFFS’ NOTICE OF MOTION AND MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION in Miliani Rodriguez V. State
[PROPOSED] ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION in Miliani Rodriguez v. state
PLAINTIFFS’ APPENDIX OF supporting declarations in support of its motion for preliminary injunction in Miliani Rodriguez v. state
DECLARATION OF BRUCE D. BAKER in support of plaintiffs’ motion for Preliminary injunction in Miliani Rodriguez v. state