Authored by Grace Carr via The Daily Caller,
California may be a hub for business and technological advancement, but its teachers aren’t matching the success of the state’s entrepreneurs.
A new 2017 survey on teacher effectiveness shows that California teachers are delivering grades just shy of failing. The survey ranked America’s most populous states in teacher preparedness, and California came in multiple letter grades below its companion states according to the 2017 State Teacher Policy Yearbook the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports.
Florida earned a B+, New York a B, Texas a B-, Pennsylvania a C, and California a D-. California also ranks below 31 other public school systems.
The National Council on Teacher Quality’s 2017 survey sought to evaluate states on their levels of teacher aptitude and preparedness, taking into consideration myriad factors — like compensation — that lead to successful or poor teaching.
The council analyzed nine policy areas in its evaluation of every state in order to obtain its results. California earned a failing grade in hiring, teacher and principal evaluation, and ability to keep good teachers. The council’s survey also showed that since it last measured teacher effectiveness in 2015, little progress has been made in California.
“States’ teacher policies have an enormous impact on the quality of education in the state,” council managing director of state policy Elizabeth Ross told the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
“The inability of California to name what an effective teacher is creates the conditions where we go round and round,” Tony Smith, a former school superintendent and education regulation backer also said in a critique of the state school systems’ cyclical ineffectiveness, the Sentinel reports.
California earned its best grade — a B — in teacher compensation, largely a result of the state’s extremely high cost of living.
The Golden State has earned D’s since the council’s first survey in 2009.
The survey comes after records showed that the majority of graduating students at Ballou High School in Washington, D.C., did not attend more than six weeks of class but still managed to be accepted into college. Almost half of the graduates had unexcused absences totaling more than three months of missed school and roughly 20 percent were absent more times than they were present for classes.