Previously, teacher candidates had been required to earn a bachelor's degree and then go through a fifth-year program to earn a permanent state teaching credential. Critics had long complained that the extra cost and time involved in a fifth year deterred some students from teaching careers. Education schools, instead of squeezing pedagogical training into a fifth year, now will be able to blend subject-matter coursework, pedagogy, and classroom experience at the undergraduate level. As a result, policymakers hope to recruit more students into teaching at earlier stages in their college careers. Too often people do not pursue careers in teaching unless they don't know what else to do with their lives.
Interns work as teachers while completing their licensing requirements.
Regardless of how they qualify for the preliminary credential, all candidates now must go through a two-year induction to earn a permanent license. All prospective teachers will have to pass the state's new Reading Instruction Competency Assessment, or RICA, which was created in response to concerns about California 4th graders' poor reading scores. Beginning in 2000, they will also be asked to show their competence with computers. The state is also working on a standardized assessment of teaching performance that will be given at various times during teachers' formal preparation. During their two years of induction, teacher candidates and their mentor teachers will use the assessments to measure the novices' strengths and weaknesses.