EDITORIAL : TAKING TEACHERS TO SCHOOL A NEW REPORT SAYS TOO MANY TEACHERS ARE UNQUALIFIED.

So much seems to be working against children receiving a quality education: Too many students and too few teachers; too many administrators and too few teachers; too much bureaucracy and not enough creativity and innovation.

Now comes another report on what's wrong with public schools, and it's conclusion - that there are too many unqualified teachers - should be of particular concern as California goes through a massive expansion of its teacher workforce.

The report by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future concludes that many new teachers are entering the classrooms with inadequate training and preparation.

For example, the report found that teacher preparedness in math and English in California is among the worst in the country. More than half of math teachers and 29 percent of English instructors in the state haven't taken the required units of college coursework in their fields.

And nearly one in eight of California's new teachers haven't met the minimum requirements to educate children effectively, according to the report.

The findings are of particular importance now, as schools across California hire thousands of new teachers under a state budget provision that is reducing class sizes to a maximum 20 students in gardes K-3.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is hiring new teachers right out of college classes, issuing hundreds of ``emergency credentials'' to young teachers who haven't yet earned regular credentials.

The executive director of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing dismissed the study's conclusions, saying that California has been a leader in teacher preparation and hires only qualified instructors.

Such obviously self-serving responses illustrate the difficulty in reforming anything, particularly education. Unfortunately for children, protecting turf often gets in the way of what's best for students.

Others, however, have recognized that more teacher training is necessary.

The release of the report coincided with the award of an $8.2 million grant from the Los Angeles-based Weingart Foundation to improve teacher training within the California State University system.

The grant responds to one of the critical issues raised in the America's Future study: The need to take a hard look at how well states recruit students to become teachers, how well they prepare teachers to actually step into a classroom, command respect, inspire learning and walk away at the end of the day feeling proud, respected, rewarded.

Although the report's findings are nonbinding, we encourage the state superintendent of public instruction to seek to implement its recommendations as quickly as possible.

And we commend the Weingart Foundation for providing the money to boost teacher training.