Teacher credentialing: teaching performance assessment: workgroup.

Existing law requires the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to, among other duties, establish standards for the issuance and renewal of credentials. Existing law requires, as a minimum requirement for a preliminary multiple subject, single subject, or education specialist teaching credential, the satisfactory completion of a program of professional preparation that includes a teaching performance assessment that meets specified requirements and has been approved by the commission, as provided. Existing law requires a program of professional preparation to include a teaching performance assessment that is aligned with the California Standards for the Teaching Profession and that is congruent with state content and performance standards for pupils adopted by the State Board of Education. Existing law requires the commission, subject to the availability of funds in the annual Budget Act, to perform specified duties with respect to the performance assessment. Existing law also requires the performance assessment results to be reported so that they may serve as one basis for a recommendation by the program sponsor that the commission award a teaching credential to a candidate who has successfully met the performance assessment standards. Existing law also requires the commission, by July 1, 2025, to ensure that an approved teaching performance assessment for a preliminary multiple subject credential and for a preliminary education specialist credential assesses all candidates for competence in instruction in literacy, including, but not limited to, evidence-based methods of teaching foundational reading skills, as provided. This bill would, subject to the availability of funds in the annual Budget Act, require the commission to report the number of programs of professional preparation with low pass rates and assist those programs to use evidence-based strategies to support candidates to pass the assessment. The bill would prohibit the charging of fees to candidates for these instructional supports. The bill would additionally require the commission to maintain a secondary passing standard for the performance assessment that may be used, with consideration of other evidence of the candidate's performance related to the California Standards for the Teaching Profession, for a program sponsor's recommendation of a candidate to the commission for a teaching credential. The bill would require the commission to convene a workgroup composed of classroom teachers, teacher educators, and performance assessment experts, all selected by the commission, to assess the current design and implementation of the above-described teaching performance assessments, as provided. The bill would require the workgroup to develop recommendations concerning these assessments, as provided, to be presented to the commission by March 1, 2025, and would also require the commission to vote to adopt a set of recommendations by July 1, 2025, and implement the adopted recommendations by July 1, 2028. The bill would require the commission to report to the Legislature annually, beginning on October 15, 2025, and continuing through October 15, 2028, on the progress of the workgroup in making its recommendations and actions taken by the commission to implement the recommendations it adopts. Existing law establishes the Teacher Credentials Fund in the State Treasury, requires all fees collected by the commission for tests, examinations, or assessments to be deposited in the fund, and requires these funds to be expended, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for the development, agency support, maintenance, or administration of tests or other assessments established, required, or administered by the commission, unless otherwise authorized by the Legislature. This bill would, for the 2024–25 fiscal year only, require the commission to submit to the Department of Finance a plan for using existing funds available from the Teacher Credentials Fund to support the operations of the above-described workgroup. The bill would require, upon approval of the plan by the Department of Finance, an amount not to exceed $729,000 to be made available from the Teacher Credentials Fund to the commission for the operations of the workgroup, thereby making an appropriation. Existing law requires the commission to appoint an executive director of the commission and exempts the executive director from the State Civil Service Act. This bill would authorize the Governor to appoint one deputy to the executive director. The bill would exempt that deputy from state civil service, as provided.