The California Requirements the Most Advanced in the United States
The qualifications required by the State Board of Education in California are the highest required in any state. They are as follows:
REQUIREMENTS
High school certificates may be issued by county and city and county boards of education under the provisions of section 1519, subdivision 5 (a); section 1775, subdivision 1 (a), and section 1792 of the Political Code of California, to candidates who meet all of the following requirements, to wit:
(1) Requirement of Bachelor’s degree. Each candidate shall have received a Bachelor’s degree from a standard college requiring not less than eight years of high school and college training.
(2) Requirement of one year of graduate study. Each candidate shall submit evidence that in addition to the academic and professional courses required for the Bachelor’s degree, he has completed at least one year of graduate study, doing full regular work, though not necessarily a candidate for a degree, in an approved graduate school as hereinafter defined. Such graduate study shall include at least one full year course of advanced or graduate work in at least one of the subjects in which candidate expects to be recommended for certification.
(3) Requirement of fifteen units of work in education. Each candidate shall also submit evidence that he has completed in undergraduate or graduate standing, or the two combined, not less than fifteen units (semester hours) of work, in courses listed in the department of education in the institution in which the graduate work is completed, or courses in other departments of that or other institutions accepted as preparation for teaching by the department of education. These fifteen units of work shall include the several courses in education hereinafter prescribed.
Required work in education. The required fifteen units of work in the department of education shall include the following courses:
(a) A course in school and classroom management, or equivalent work—a minimum of one unit.
(b) Work in actual practice of teaching, with conferences—a minimum of four units.
(c) A teacher’s course in at least one subject in which the candidate expects to be recommended for certification, if such course be given in the institution and be accepted by or listed under the work in education—a maximum of three units for all such courses.
(d) A course in secondary education, presenting particularly the purpose and attainable goals of high school work—a minimum of two units.
(e) Such other courses relating to the theory, function and administration of public education, as are needed to complete the required fifteen units.
Practice teaching. The work in practice teaching shall be done under the general supervision of the department of education of the institution in which the year of graduate work is taken, and may be done in schools of elementary, intermediate or secondary grade, though preferably in secondary school work of the kind the candidate is preparing to teach, and under the direction of competent instructors in such work. The work in practice teaching may also be done in connection with the training school of any California state normal school.
Teachers’ courses. Each teacher’s course shall be a bona fide teacher’s course and shall be made as concrete and practicable as possible, and shall have for its purpose the preparation of teachers to give intelligent instruction in the subject in the high schools of this State.[97]
Continuation Training of School Officers
The requirements which have been discussed up to this point have to do with admission to the teaching profession. Beyond that point there is nothing that can be described as sufficiently common to be regarded as typical. There are voluntary and compulsory gatherings of every kind and variety intended to keep teachers intellectually alert and to inform them of progress in educational matters. There are institutes, so called, where teachers hear lectures. There are extension lectures, provided sometimes by boards of education, sometimes by teachers’ associations. There are meetings of teachers called by the superintendent or by the supervisor of a special subject or of a special grade.
The miscellaneous activities which are indicated by such a list as the above all recognize the necessity of continued study on the part of teachers in service, and many boards of education are requiring study in addition to success in teaching as an essential prerequisite to promotion or to increases in salary.
The most significant movement which has ever been witnessed in the training of teachers in service is the summer-school movement. All the leading institutions of learning in the country are filled during the long summer vacation with teachers who are pursuing courses in education or in the various subjects which they teach.
Specialized Training for Administration
Two phases of continuation study on the part of teachers deserve special discussion. First, the form of promotion which carries a teacher into school administration, that is, into a principalship or superintendency, is being hedged about with very definite demands for advanced study on the part of candidates. This advanced study must take the form of readings or courses on administrative problems. Such problems have been exemplified in earlier chapters which have dealt with costs, promotions, and the like. It can be safely asserted that the time is not far distant when a special preparation will be required for entrance on administrative positions.