In November 2022, California established the Arts and Music in Schools Act to fund arts education programs in TK-12 public schools. With funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, SRI Education led an inquiry to estimate the number of new arts teachers required to fulfill the promise of the act. This brief presents funding allocations…

California Bay Area school districts are experiencing a teacher shortage that threatens to further widen the opportunity gap for schools with the neediest student populations. Financial incentives, administrator support levels, appropriate and consistent professional development, and mentoring are often cited as areas that cause teachers to leave…

To develop and support an effective, diverse educator workforce, education leaders in California are encouraged to coordinate, or braid, state funds, federal funds, and specialized grants. By braiding funds, education leaders can adapt to the ebb and flow of annual budgets to better meet local needs that can improve outcomes for students. This…

Currently, there are 1.3 million English Learners (EL) in California public schools (CDE 2018). The passage of Proposition 58, which presented multilingual education as key to students' future economic success without every using the word bilingual, lifted the previous restrictions on bilingual education programs and increased the demand for…

The diversity of California's teaching force continues to lag behind its student population. While students of Color make up 78% of the state's K-12 population, Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers (TOCIT) comprise just 34% of the teaching workforce (California Department of Education, 2018), a statistic that has dominated the teacher…

Education Code §44393 (f) requires the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (Commission) to report to the Legislature annually regarding the California Classified School Employee Teacher Credentialing Program. The requirements of the report are specified in Education Code §44393 and must include the following: (1) The number of classified school…

The demand for high quality teachers in P-12 public school districts in California outweighs the supply. A 2018 report by the Learning Policy Institute states that 88% of teacher demand is a result of attrition (Darling-Hammond et al., 2018). The issue of teacher retention is examined through the conceptual framework of new teacher mentoring.…

Research shows that students derive both social-emotional and academic benefits from a diverse educator workforce. The state has taken notable steps to prioritize a more diverse educator workforce in recent years. These include: (1) convening a California Department of Education (CDE) Educator Diversity Advisory Group, tasked with offering…

Education Code §44393 (f) requires the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (Commission) to report to the Legislature annually regarding the California Classified School Employee Teacher Credentialing Program. The requirements of the report are specified in Education Code §44393 and must include the following: (1) The number of classified school…

Innovation in education is vital for responding to emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and for building progress on longstanding challenges in schools. The infusion of substantial, highly flexible pots of federal relief dollars created an opportunity to pilot new programs and initiatives. Many states and districts opted to invest…

Research says that teacher diversity benefits all students, regardless of race or Ethnicity. However, while the majority of students in the U.S. are of color, only about 20% of teachers are of color. Increasing the racial and cultural diversity of the teacher workforce takes a statewide commitment to collecting and analyzing educator workforce…

Teacher racial diversity has been widely considered important in education. However, it remains unclear to what extent and how teacher racial diversity has been addressed at the federal, state, and district levels. In this study, we employed text mining to collect and analyze over three million documents at the federal, state, and district levels.…

Education Code §44393 (f) requires the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (Commission) to report to the Legislature annually regarding the California Classified School Employee Teacher Credentialing Program. The requirements of the report are specified in Education Code §44393 and must include the following: (1) The number of classified school…

In fall of 2015, a Field Poll of California voters revealed that Californians are well aware of the emerging shortage of K-12 public school teachers and think the state should take decisive action to rectify the situation. Eighty-six percent of voters view the shortage as a serious problem, and nearly two-thirds see it as very serious. Ninety-one…

Education Code §44393 (f) requires the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (Commission) to report to the Legislature annually regarding the California Classified School Employee Teacher Credentialing Program. The requirements of the report are specified in Education Code §44393 and must include the following: (1) The number of classified school…