Thousands of California public school instructors, do not have proper qualifications to teach the classes assigned to them. That number has declined over the past five years, but as a California Watch investigation showed last year, not nearly as much as bogus early state data indicated.

Now, an analysis by the group of journalists under the direction of the nonpartisan Center for Investigative Reporting indicates that the Commission on Teacher Credentialing is misreporting the problem by using a questionable method of calculating so-called “misassignments.”

Most of the missassigned teachers labor in poor and low-performing schools where the practice can be least afforded. The commission surveys all schools on the issue every four years, but churns out an annual study on disadvantaged schools where the problem is more acute.

Last September, the journalists found that duplicative data nearly doubled the 2005-06 misassignment baseline, exaggerating smaller future improvements dramatically. The commission, which provides the only data available on the subject, calculates that around 12% of teachers at these heavily-Latino schools are misassigned.

But California Watch says the formula is flawed. The commission formula divides the number of misassignments by the number of certified employees to yield a rate. But the formula ignores that one person can have multiple misassignments, and often does, rendering the number meaningless.      

The commission acknowledged the anomaly but defended the formula it has used since 1987 as the only way to have a consistent measurement of misassignments for comparisons across time.

Although educators agree that the problem is easing, the commission calculates that 12,000 teachers and certified personnel at 1,000 poor schools did not have the proper credentials in 2010-11. The accuracy of that figure is unknown.

–Ken Broder  

To Learn More:

In California, Thousands of Teachers Missing Needed Credentials (by Joanna Lin, California Watch)

State’s Calculation of Teacher Misassignments Gives Skewed Rate (by Joanna Lin, California Watch)

Teacher Supply in California: A Report to the Legislature Annual Report, 2010-2011 (Commission on Teacher Credentialing)

State Worked Six Years to Fix Teacher Problem Over-Hyped by Erroneous Stats (by Ken Broder, AllGov California)