California's Teaching Force 2008

California’s Teaching Force 2008: Key Issues and Trends is the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning’s tenth annual report on the status of the teaching profession in California. It finds that a grim budget outlook, complex challenges to the supply and assignment of public school teachers, and the lack of an effective teacher data system pose significant hurdles to California’s ability to meet increasing demands for students’ high academic performance.

This report updates data on the teacher workforce and raises serious questions about the current capacity of the state’s teaching force to help students meet the academic goals the state has set for them. For instance, schools in the bottom achievement quartile have more than four times as many underprepared teachers as those in the top achievement quartile. And in high schools across the state, a quarter to a third of teachers in core subjects are teaching out-of-field, are underprepared or are in their first two years of teaching.

The new report also reveals that one-third of middle school algebra teachers are underprepared or teaching out-of-field, and underprepared mathematics teachers are more likely to teach in the state’s lowest performing schools.

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