Teacher credentialing: teaching performance assessments: Teacher Credentialing Task Force.

Existing law requires the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to, among other duties, establish standards for the issuance and renewal of credentials, certificates, and permits. 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. This bill would eliminate the requirement that a program of professional preparation include a teaching performance assessment. The bill would, commencing January 1, 2023, eliminate the teaching performance assessment as a requirement for candidates to receive a single subject, multiple subject, or education specialist credential. The bill would authorize candidates to complete an optional teaching performance assessment, as provided. This bill would require the commission to convene a Teacher Credentialing Task Force, as provided, by no later than March 1, 2023. The bill would require the task force to examine the current teacher credentialing process and the impact that high-stakes teacher credentialing assessments, and their associated costs, have on the current teacher shortage and the lack of diversity in the teaching workforce, and to provide any associated policy recommendations, and to report to the education policy committees of the Legislature, on or before December 1, 2023, on the barriers these assessments present and any policy recommendations based on those findings, for increasing the number of, and diversity of, qualified teachers in California. The bill would require the commission to contract with a nationally recognized, neutral, nonpartisan, nonprofit education policy organization to facilitate the task force's work, including completing the required report.