Written Public Comment Submission Detail

Public Comment Details

Meeting
Commission Meeting - April 2021

Agenda Item
4H: COVID Flexibilities: Recommendation to Extend the Waiver of Preconditions Related to Demonstration of Subject Matter Competence and Student Teaching

Name
Amber Lamprecht

Organization
UC Berekeley

Comments
Hello, my name is Amber Lamprecht, I’m one month away from graduating from the BE3 Teacher Prep Program at UC Berkeley. I’m writing today because I’d like to address the commission on agenda item #4H.
I spent over 20 years teaching as a Reading Specialist and decided to bring my talents to the public school classroom during a time when the need for Elementary School teachers was crucial due to the teacher shortage. I entered right before Covid struck and am so excited to be an energizer in the field I LOVE with the new skills I have been trained with recently. HOWEVER... I am struggling to pass one subtest of the CSET Multiple Subjects assessment because it has been 30 years since I took Algebra 2, and Covid shut down the testing centers for the majority of this year. I have had to spend months relearning a subject I'll never teach in Elementary school to be able to get my credential, and now it is holding me up from getting my teaching credential next month. I have years of experience and training I paid for that I want to bring to the students of Oakland, an area many teacher in my program refuse to work in, but because of this ridiculous requirement I am spending months of time relearning content I won't even be teaching. WHERE IS THE SENSE IN THIS?? This is actually taking my focus off the students I am student-teaching this semester.
I am a member of the CARE-ED, the California Alliance of Researchers for Equity in Education network and I am supporting their petition urging the Commission to end the high-stakes teacher testing in California, for the following reasons:
First, as we described in our 2019 brief on barriers to diversity and justice in the teacher pipeline, and in our more recent petition, Ending High-Stakes Standardized Testing in Teacher Education, high-stakes tests like the CBEST, CSET, and RICA have not been proven by research to produce a higher quality teaching force.
Secondly, while these high-stakes tests are not valid and reliable in predicting teacher quality, they do disproportionately filter out students and teachers of color.
Third, according to a 2009 study, teacher licensure scores have little if any effect on classroom student achievement.
In place of such tests, we reiterate the recommendations from our 2019 brief and recent petition:
- “Provide models for how institutions are effectively using a variety of more authentic criteria (including previous university coursework, supervisor evaluations of work in schools and/or community settings, and experience addressing issues of diversity and justice) to determine eligibility for program entrance and completion;” and
- “Support institutions in developing and implementing their own criteria and process for
ensuring that diversity and justice are at the heart of admissions.”
If you have read this far, THANK YOU for considering my perspective in this matter. There are so many others I know that feel similarly and don't have the time to write because they are teaching today!!!

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