A quarterly report presented at a March 29 Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board of Education meeting last week disclosed that only 607 teachers, or 26%, of 2,336 teachers were completely credentialed by the state.
Unlicensed teachers are required to complete an internship program on the job in order to receive preliminary credentials, according to media reports.
“The fact that the state is doing so poorly in educational attainment based on standardized tests is certainly not going to be helped by bringing in teachers who are not fully qualified according to the state's own standards," said Tim Snowball, a civil rights attorney with Freedom Foundation, a union watchdog.
For example, the Los Angeles Times reported that 60% of 8 and 9-year-olds are not meeting English subject matter standards compared to 40% of 16-year-olds.
“California is one of the states that spends the most money and yet we are one of the lowest states in terms of the results on standardized testing,” Snowball told the Southern California Record. “What that tells me is that it's not so much there being a correlation between spending and results as there is between teachers wanting to teach their students. We have to ask where is that money going. In many cases, money is going to fund union agreements with these districts and getting people these cushy retirement packages or cushy benefits. None of that results in a better turnout for the students.”
The quarterly report further disclosed that 555 teachers who were noncompliant with COVID-19 vaccination have been terminated since December 2021 amid reports of a teacher shortage.
The Epoch Times reported that LAUSD, which serves 600,000 students, had more than 500 teacher vacancies.
“There is no question now that with the variants even if you're vaccinated, you can still catch COVID and you can still spread COVID,” Snowball said. “So, at this point whether or not someone is vaccinated basically seems to be a policy question that districts have made in that they're trying to force people to do that.”
As previously reported in the Southern California Record, the Freedom Foundation sued the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) on behalf of a coalition of Los Angeles-area parents who alleged in their complaint that, in keeping schools closed, LAUSD prioritized the union's social agenda over the education of students.
“The parties have decided that it's in the best interest of their relative parties not to go forward,” Snowball added. “The big takeaway and the point I'm still proud of in terms of having filed that case is that COVID has displayed to parents that these teachers' unions are not in it for the best interests of the kids, they are in it, by any means necessary, to try to get whatever deal is going to be best for their members even when it means kids getting hurt.”