The Center's annual reports on the status of the teaching profession (see 2008 report here) have documented the strides made in reducing the number of underprepared teachers in classrooms across the state. With approximately 95% of California’s classrooms now staffed by fully prepared teachers, state and local policy-makers are in a perfect position to take the next step in strengthening its public schools: The creation of a broader, coherent and consistent teacher development system that ensures every professional has the opportunity to gain the knowledge and skill necessary to be effective in the classroom.

This teacher development system should be based on common agreement of what good teaching looks like over the span of a career. It should also include a set of reliable measures of teachers’ knowledge and skills that not only serve as the bridge between its major components – preparation, induction, professional development and accomplished teaching – but provide the foundation for high-quality professional learning, relate well to the stages of a career, and reflect individual experience and context.

A prerequisite to such a system is access to good data on the strengths and needs of the existing teacher workforce. Timely and accurate teacher information is critical to both current policy making and future planning, but there are a number of important questions  – such as where teachers go when they leave one assignment for another or how long they stay in the classroom  – that simply cannot be answered by using current sources. In addition, the value of available data is often compromised by the lack of consistency in recordkeeping across diverse agencies collecting teacher information.

To help remedy this situation, the Center has initiated a variety of activities to improve the collection, analysis and reporting of teacher data in California. Two Regional Development Database Collaboratives were designed to promote the use of good teacher information at the local level. The first to come on line was Kern County in the Central Valley. The second region to join the collaborative included Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Benito counties. For more information on each of these projects, click here.

At the state level, the Center initiated work to build an integrated teacher data system in 2002. With the release of the briefing document, Strengthening California’s Teacher Information System, the Center outlined an argument and approach for the establishment of a statewide teacher data system. Since that time, the Center has been an active advisor to the California Department of Education and the Commission on Teacher Credentialing as they implement the California Longitudinal Teacher Integrated Data Education System (CALTIDES). In May of 2007, the Center published a CenterView, California’s Emerging Teacher Data System, which outlined plans for the new data system, its implementation, and recommendations for its continued refinement. In May 2008, the Governor, as part of his budget revisions, proposed funding to maintain work on the system.

For more information on the status of CALTIDES, please visit the California Department of Education website on the project: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/td/lo/caltides.asp.