Teachers: California Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment System.

Existing law establishes the California Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment System, to be administered jointly by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing and the Superintendent of Public Instruction for specified purposes, including providing an effective transition into the teaching career for first-year and 2nd-year teachers in California. Existing law requires the Superintendent, each fiscal year, to adjust the allocation made to a school district or consortium of school districts for each beginning teacher participating in a local teacher induction program pursuant to the California Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment System by the inflation factor set forth in a specified statute. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations regarding the teacher shortage in the state and the California Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment System. This bill would make an appropriation of an unspecified amount from the General Fund to the Superintendent and the commission for the 2016–17 fiscal year to fund the California Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment System. The bill would instead require the allocation described above to be adjusted each fiscal year by an inflation factor provided in the annual Budget Act. This bill would also state the intent of the Legislature that future funding for the California Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment System be provided each year in the annual Budget Act. Existing law requires the Superintendent and the commission to award supplemental grants on a competitive basis to California Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment System teacher induction programs to be expended to assist clusters of teacher induction programs operated by school districts or consortiums of school districts. This bill would delete the requirement to award these grants. Exiting law required the Superintendent and the commission, by December 1, 2007, to report to the Legislature and the Governor on the current state of the California Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment System. Existing law also required the Superintendent and the commission, by July 1, 2008, to review and revise the Standards of Quality and Effectiveness for Professional Teacher Induction Programs of March 2002. This bill would delete these obsolete reporting requirements. This bill would also make conforming changes, recast certain provisions of existing law, delete other obsolete references, and make other nonsubstantive changes.