Teachers for Our Future

As Governor, Phil Angelides will strengthen our schools by attracting bright young people to teaching and giving teachers the support and training they need and deserve.

To compete successfully in the global economy of the 21st century, California must have the best schools and best teachers to give our children the knowledge and skills they need. Instead of bashing teachers, Phil Angelides will be a Governor who elevates the teaching profession – who trains them and rewards them – so young people from across America join our corps of educators.

To meet the challenge of recruiting over 100,000 new teachers in the next decade, Phil Angelides will pursue a comprehensive plan to assure that every child has a well-trained teacher in the classroom and that every teacher has the support he or she needs to do a difficult and vital job. His plan will attract bright young people and mid-career workers to teaching, reduce fees on students studying to become teachers, and provide more support and professional training for teachers in the classroom.

California's teacher recruitment challenge.

California is facing an enormous challenge to its ability to put a highly skilled teacher in every classroom. Many of California's teachers are members of the baby-boom generation. Over the next decade, a third of California's teacher corps will likely retire. Their retirement leaves California with big work to do: to attract 100,000 bright young people to teaching; to fully train them; and to support them in the classroom as they launch their careers and teach our children.

California is already experiencing a shortage of fully credentialed teachers in its classrooms. Today, more than 20,000 teachers, one in every fifteen teachers working in our schools, have not completed their training for a credential. Many math and science classes are led by teachers teaching outside of their fields of expertise. In addition, about 5 percent of teachers are annually leaving public schools for reasons other than retirement.

Without quick action to meet these retirement, retention, and recruitment challenges, California's ability to achieve education excellence is in jeopardy. The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning projects that the number of uncredentialed teachers in California classrooms will grow to 33,000, or about one in ten, over the next decade. As the Center notes, "when fully credentialed teachers are in short supply, low-performing, minority, and poor students are the ones who get shortchanged." California cannot raise student achievement if it does not put fully trained teachers in the classroom.

Governor Schwarzenegger has taken California in the wrong direction.

Governor Schwarzenegger's response to the teacher shortage has been to bash teachers, make it more expensive to become a teacher, and cut school funding needed to attract, retain, and support teachers.

Instead of encouraging more of our brightest young people to enter teaching, he launched a drive last year to take away the modest pensions teachers now earn. He forced a wasteful special election on his proposal to put new teachers on probation for five years, a measure rejected by voters. He has raised fees for teacher candidates at the California State University by 30 percent. And he broke his promise to schools to restore funding lost during the budget crisis.

As a result, state efforts to recruit, retain, and support teachers languish or have been eliminated. And, not surprisingly, enrollment in teacher preparation programs has declined by 12 percent. "Looking ahead, this lack of investment may prove disastrous," the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning warns.

The Angelides Teachers for Our Future plan will take California in the right direction.

As part of his comprehensive effort to invest in our schools, raise student achievement, and bolster California's economic competitiveness, Phil Angelides will work as Governor to assure that every child has a highly skilled teacher in the classroom. His plan will:

1. Restore and restructure California's teaching fellowship program to attract bright young people and mid-career adults to teaching.

To recruit talented teachers to the schools that need them most, in 2000 California created the Governor's Teaching Fellowship, a competitive program to award $20,000 in tuition and living expenses to 1,000 students who train as teachers and agree to teach for at least four years at a low-performing school. But the program was defunded during the budget crisis.

As Governor, Phil Angelides will restore and restructure the teaching fellowship program. The program will continue to give an incentive for more of our brightest young people to become teachers and teach at low-income schools. And he will modify it to make the fellowship available to talented mid-career adults who want to go into teaching but need help to support their families as they pursue public service in our schools.

2. Roll back Arnold Schwarzenegger's college fee increases on teacher training.

At a time California needs to be training more credentialed teachers for our schools, enrollment in teacher preparation programs is instead declining, in part because of sharp increases in college fees, which have nearly doubled for teacher trainees since 2001. As Governor, Phil Angelides will immediately roll back public college fees to the level they were before Arnold Schwarzenegger took office. Those lower fees would cut the cost of completing an undergraduate degree and teacher credential training at CSU by over $2,500.

3. Identify the pay and incentives California needs to attract and retain talented teachers.

As in any other profession, compensation plays an important role in our schools' ability to recruit and retain qualified teachers. It may become increasingly difficult for California to attract and retain the huge number of new teachers it will need at the statewide beginning salary of $34,000 and average top salary of $70,000. Just as any CEO focuses on assuring his enterprise has the best talent available, Phil Angelides will identify the pay and incentives California needs to attract and retain talented teachers and meet the ambitious learning goals the state has set for our children.

4. Restore funding for teacher support and learning.

Assuring that every classroom has a highly skilled teacher is not just a matter of recruiting. California must do a better job of keeping trained and experienced teachers. Every year, about 5 percent of California's public school teachers leave in mid-career, and our schools must hire 5,000 people annually just to replace teachers who left in their first seven years of teaching. This failure to keep trained teachers costs California an estimated $456 million a year in wasted training and recruitment dollars.

Study after study has shown that investments in teacher support and professional development can improve teachers' working lives and keep them in the classroom. In the late 1990s, California funded or launched a number of innovative programs to support teachers and let them keep up with their fields. But the state slashed them by two-thirds in the budget crisis and Governor Schwarzenegger has neglected them.

As Governor, Phil Angelides will stand behind California's teachers, giving new teachers the support and mentoring they need to succeed in the classroom. He will expand the Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment program to include intern teachers and restore funding for Peer Assistance and Review, under which experienced teachers help new or struggling teachers. He will increase California's investment in professional development, allowing teachers and principals to improve their teaching and leadership skills.

5. Double the number of public school counselors to support teachers in the classroom.

School counselors offer critical support to classroom teachers, helping them deal with and provide services to students who have learning, discipline, mental health, or family problems. But California ranks dead last among the states in counseling support for teachers and students, with only 6,442 counselors for more than 6 million students – one counselor for each 878 students in our K-12 schools. That piles extra burdens on teachers. As Governor, Phil Angelides will double the number of counselors, bringing California in line with the national average.

6. Expand homeownership assistance for teachers.

In California's expensive housing market, teachers often struggle to afford a first home near their school. As Treasurer, Phil Angelides created the Extra Credit Teacher Home Purchase Program to provide low-interest home loans and down-payment assistance to teachers who have committed to serve in the toughest-to-teach schools. The program has helped about 1,500 families buy a home and helped attract and retain qualified teachers at the schools that need them most. To meet California's unmet and growing need for fully qualified math and science teachers, Phil Angelides will expand the Extra Credit program, making it available to fully credentialed math and science teachers who agree to teach in high schools, where enrollments will soar over the next decade.

» Click here to read more about Teachers for Our Future.