99230.
The Legislature finds and declares the following:(a) Successful efforts to reduce class size in California classrooms have resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of emergency teaching permits issued by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Most emergency permit teachers have not completed subject matter courses required of teacher candidates enrolled in teacher preparation programs and are underprepared to teach. For the 1996–97 school year, the commission issued over 12,000 emergency multiple subject permits compared to under 6,000 for the 1995–96 school year. Of all multiple subject emergency permits issued, 50 percent are assigned to kindergarten and grades 1 to 3, inclusive.
(b) Among these emergency teaching permitholders is a group designated as preinterns, for whom obtaining an emergency credential is the first step in an established path to earning a teaching credential. Subsequent steps in the path include: professional development under their employer’s approved plan; receipt of support from an experienced teacher; coursework at an institute of higher education to complete their subject matter requirement; and successful passage of the Multiple Subject Assessment for Teachers (MSAT). Upon completion of all of these steps, candidates may enroll in internship programs approved by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. There is a need to enhance the subject matter knowledge of these preintern teachers consistent with the requirements of the MSAT and the academic content standards adopted by the State Board of Education
to facilitate their becoming credentialed teachers.
(c) Teachers with strong foundations of academic content knowledge in the subject areas they teach are more likely to be effective in promoting and improving student learning in those subject areas than teachers without those foundations.
(d) About 1,400,000 pupils, or nearly 25 percent of the pupils in California’s classrooms are English language learners (ELL). The state must invest in opportunities for the teachers of ELL to learn the most effective ways of transitioning these students to English in one year, consistent with Proposition 227, while not sacrificing their academic development in core subject areas.
(e) The statewide subject matter projects provide an infrastructure of collaboration, leadership, and expertise for providing subject matter specific professional development to teachers in the areas of reading, literature, writing, mathematics, science, history, social science, international studies, foreign language, art, physical education, and health.