New Initiative Seeks to Strengthen Teacher Workforce In Monterey Bay Area

Grant from James Irvine and Stuart Foundations will support effort to address local teacher shortages and reduce inequities among schools.

(Santa Cruz) The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning today announced an important initiative to support quality teaching in Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz Counties. With grants from the James Irvine and Stuart Foundations, and in partnership with the Monterey Bay Educational Consortium, the Center will support the development of the Teacher Workforce Initiative, a data-driven regional plan to ensure that every child has a fully prepared and effective teacher.

“We’re excited to be working here in our own backyard with members of the Monterey Bay Educational Consortium. They have a deeply held belief that good teaching matters, and the education leadership in the Monterey Bay region is very strong,” said Margaret Gaston, Director of the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning. “With state and local programs that prepare and support learning for classroom teachers being scaled back due to the budget crisis, this grant couldn’t have come at a better time; it will make a real difference for children in our local communities.”

While the demand for teachers has eased slightly across California, research conducted by SRI International for the Center projects the shortage of credentialed teachers will continue to grow in schools serving poor, minority and English language learning students. The research has also found that these students are much more likely to be taught by an underprepared teacher.

The Monterey Bay region is a virtual mirror of the teaching workforce challenge facing California. On average, 14 percent of all teachers in the region had not yet qualified for a preliminary teaching credential during the 2002- 2003 school year. Many of those teachers were concentrated in low-performing schools serving low-income, minority students. But unlike other parts of the state, the teacher workforce in the tri-county area is older, therefore “we are more likely to be ahead of the baby-boom retirement wave than other regions,” said Gaston. “Because we are going to have more teachers retire, our need for fully prepared and effective teachers is going to accelerate in the next few years, slightly ahead of the statewide trend.”

The Center is partnering with the Monterey Bay Educational Consortium to foster and apply locally developed solutions to strengthening the teaching workforce in the region. “Having accurate local data about our teaching workforce will help us to understand the challenges confronting our schools and drive the development of regional strategies to strengthen our teaching workforce,” said Diane Siri, Superintendent of the Santa Cruz County Office of Education and Chair of the Monterey Bay Educational Consortium. “This is a great opportunity for education leaders in our region to focus and extend an already strong collaborative on strengthening our teaching workforce.”

“Together we are addressing the shortage of credentialed teachers and preparing the teacher workforce for the educational challenges we face, especially in schools serving socio-economically disadvantaged students,” said Dr. Bill Barr, Monterey County Superintendent of Schools. “Working together with our partners in our community colleges and institutes of higher education will help us to get out in front of these challenges and ensure we continue to have a high quality teaching workforce in the years ahead.”

The Teacher Workforce Initiative, with the support of approximately 65 local education agencies as well as professional organizations and associations, will meet to take a first look at the status of the regional teacher workforce on May 11.

“We hope that this kind of data and analysis will provide a clear view of teacher development in our area and give all of us a chance to plan and place scarce resources where they can do the most good,” said Lance Linares, Executive Director of the Greater Santa Cruz Community Foundation.

The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning is an independent, nonprofit organization working to strengthen the quality of teaching in California. The Center’s annual report, The Status of the Teaching Profession, has become the leading resource on teacher quality throughout the state. This report and additional information about the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning is available on the Center’s Web site at www.cftl.org.

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