A BETTER GRADE OF TEACHERS LAUSD HAS FEWER UNDERPREPARED FACULTY.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

New teacher recruiting methods and a slower economy have sharply cut the number of underprepared teachers - including those with emergency credentials - throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District, a study released today shows.

The study by the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group based in Santa Cruz, found that the percent of underprepared teachers in the LAUSD declined from about 23.7 percent of all teachers last school year to about 16.5 percent this year.

Statewide, the drop was from 14 percent to 12 percent.

LAUSD officials contend that the improvement was even greater, because the study counts as underprepared the district's 3,249 interns, who have passed subject competency tests and received district training, but aren't yet certificated.

Researchers said there is a difference of opinion on the interns, who lack the education theory teaching majors get in college, but that using either calculation the trend has improved.

By counting the interns, the LAUSD says only about 7 percent of its approximately 34,000 teachers are classified as underprepared this year, compared with 14.7 percent last year. The district considers those who have emergency credentials, or who are in its pre-intern program, as underprepared.

``There really has been progress made in recruiting and placing teachers in LAUSD so the number of emergency-permit teachers has dropped dramatically,'' said Margaret Gaston, the center's executive director. ``We've really seen some great gains in the way they recruit and place teachers.''

LAUSD spokeswoman Stephanie Brady said, ``We're very proud of the statistics.''

Deborah Hirsh, the LAUSD's chief human-resources officer and a former Navy captain in charge of military recruitment, said the entire process has been revamped, including implementing a $65,000 online application system that identifies highly qualified candidates and allows recruiters to contact them more quickly.

``Instead of six weeks, we can get to them within 24 hours,'' said Hirsh, who's been with the district just more than a year.

Still, researchers said, within the LAUSD and throughout the state, there continue to be inequities, with more inexperienced teachers working in poorer areas where there are more minority students, many of whom are learning English.

``We have an inequitable and inadequate patchwork of programs that result in the least-prepared teachers getting the most-difficult assignments with the least support,'' said Patrick Shields, the study's principal researcher with SRI International, a nonprofit think tank in Menlo Park.

The study did not look specifically at the LAUSD's distribution of teachers.

Hirsh said the district has aggressively focused on reducing inequities in lower-income local districts in part by offering college students, interns and other teaching candidates early contracts that guarantee they'll have a job, but often on condition they will work in the inner city.

The approach has meant that Local District G in South Los Angeles, for example, had its percentage of underprepared teachers fall from 24.3 a year ago to 9.4 percent this year, according to district figures.

The district sent 102 interns to the local district and 177 credentialed teachers this school year.

Hirsh defended the use of interns to bolster the teaching ranks in inner- city local districts, saying they are in the pipeline to get certificates, the state recognizes them as highly qualified and studies have showed they perform competently.

Hirsh said LAUSD recruitment has changed fundamentally so that hiring goes on year-round, with top candidates offered contracts immediately before they can be hired by other districts.

Last year, the district signed 1,100 new early contracts, including students about to graduate and about to be certificated.

``They can sit back and know, `I have a job,''' she said.

Beth Barrett, [phone]

beth.barrett(at)dailynews.com