Earlier in the week we wrote about states making positive changes in teacher prep policy. We've got another to add to the growing list -- California Senator Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles) recently introduced a bill (SB-5) to lift a ban on undergraduate education majors and an existing one-year time limit on credentialing programs. The bill, prompted in part by a report released last fall by the Task Force on Education Excellence, would update a law from the 1970s which created California's system of one-year, graduate-level credentialing programs.
There's definitely merit to this idea. It's hard to see, for example, how an elementary teacher could take enough coursework in reading, elementary math, assessment, classroom management and more and have a robust semester-long student teaching experience, all in one year. But the devil is in the details: an education major that skimps on content knowledge requirements and doesn't pack in strong professional coursework is hardly going to prepare teachers to teach to the Common Core, as the report is aiming for.
More time for preparation could be good; let's hope they make it count.