What California's 10 Largest School Districts are Doing to Ensure
that all of their Students have access to "Highly Qualified" Teachers

LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT

Interview conducted on October 21, 2003
Interviewer: Ken Futernick
Interviewee: Carolina Pavia, Administrator, Certificated Recruitment Branch

KF: Do you expect to comply with the NCLB’s requirement that all teachers in Title I schools be “highly qualified” by 2005-06?
CP: YES, to the extent that we will no longer employ emergency permit holders or pre-interns. In the past 18 months we have reduced the numbers of these teachers significantly. A small number were released, some went to pre-internships, but most were admitted to internship or credential programs. One of the unfortunate unintentional consequences of NCLB in LA Unified is that it has forced us to focus all our efforts with prospective new teachers on test preparation for CSET (California Subject Examination for Teachers) and not pedagogical training.

KF: Do you know what percentage of teachers at each school meet the federal definition of “highly qualified”? How about the percentage of teachers at each middle and high school with appropriate subject matter background for the subjects they teach (i.e., major, graduation units)?
CP: We know the credential status of our teachers but we do not know how many high school teachers currently meet the subject matter requirement of NCLB. We are relying on HOUSSE* to satisfy the subject matter requirement for all of teachers who are “not new.” The problem we face in the future will be hiring new high school teachers who must have completed a major or have taken 32 units in the field they are teaching. We may never be fully in compliance with this requirement.

* “HOUSSE” (High Objective Uniform State Standard of Evaluation) is a provision of the Federal No Child Left Behind Act that allows “not new” teachers to demonstrate subject matter competence through an alternative evaluation process. After 2005, all new elementary teachers will be required to pass a rigorous subject matter test.” Middle and secondary teachers will be required either to pass a rigorous subject matter test or to have completed a major for each of the core subjects they are assigned to teach.

KF: Does your district have a strategic plan to ensure that all students will be assigned to qualified teachers?
CP: Yes we do. Answers to many of your questions along with a more detailed explanation of our staffing strategy are contained in the following documents. These reports are, of course, works in progress because of changing conditions.

1. “Los Angeles Unified School District Recruitment Plan 2004-05”

2. “Making LA Unified the District of First Resort: A Teacher Quality Strategic Plan”

KF: Does the district have an explicit plan (or is it contained in the strategic plan) that addresses teacher retention?
CP: The strategic plan addresses teacher retention to some extent, and we have looked at the teacher retention study from Baltimore*. We have mentoring and induction programs that help, but this is an area we need to pay more attention to in my opinion.

* Information about Baltimore’s “Project Site Support” can be found at: http://www.sitesupport.org/index.cfm