(adopted by the Delegate Assembly
of the California Council on the Education of Teachers
at the 1998 CCET Spring Conference on March 26, 1998)

WHEREAS the Advisory Panel on Teacher Education, Induction, and Certification for the Twenty-First Century (SB 1422 Panel) has completed and distributed its recommendations to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing; and

WHEREAS many of those recommendations are now being drafted into law by the California Legislature, and into regulation by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing; and

WHEREAS many of the laws and regulations affect institutional and individual members of the California Council on the Education of Teachers; therefore

BE IT RESOLVED that the California Council on the Education of Teachers in keeping with its Policy Framework of April, 1997, adopts the following positions on the laws and regulations which may be addressed in legislation and/or regulation during the coming months:

* Support for expansion and funding of the Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment System (BTSA), as long as such expansion consistently includes a collaborative role for both school practitioners and university-based teacher educators.

* Support for multiple routes into the teaching profession which hold all candidates, including district interns and pre-interns (emergency permit teachers) responsible for meeting one rigorous set of standards for receiving a teaching credential through an accredited program, those standards being aligned with the California Standards for the Teaching Profession.

* Support for candidate assessment which is valid, reliable, unbiased, cost-effective, and based on research on effective teaching and best professional practice.

* Support for programs of teacher preparation which would attract qualified candidates, especially those from under-represented groups, as early as their undergraduate years when possible, and which would continue the support and development of these candidates throughout their preparation and their teaching careers.

* Opposition to attempts at the over-regulation of professional practice which would impose one methodology or philosophy on the preparation and ongoing professional development of teachers, to the exclusion of other sound, research-based approaches.