Program Budget: Bilingual Teacher Training Program

Pursuant of one of the most seminal issues facing the California Department of Education (CDE), this report will review the financial nuances of the Bilingual Teacher Training Program (BTTP). This report will examine the Schedule of the First Apportionment for The Bilingual Teacher Training Program Fiscal Year 2009-2010, which addresses the entitlement period for 2008-09 and 2009-10 for 14 counties including Riverside County and San Bernardino County. This report will also outline the implications of Senate Bill 4 of the 2009-10 Third Extraordinary Session (SBX3 4), by which local education agencies (LEAs) have been given absolute discretion concerning the allocation of heretofore restricted categorical funds. The latter section of this report bears on the former as the BTTP falls under the purview of the categorical program flexibility provision of SBX3 4. The possible implications that are partially addressed by this report include the reallocation of funds that were previously earmarked for BTTP towards other educational necessities. The subtext of these implications is that a growing portion of California’s student population, students whose home language is not English, may not benefit from the positive effects that the BTTP may indirectly afford them. This implication is not necessarily damning of the CDE; it by no means implicates the CDE of anything beyond addressing the necessities of very difficult state budget restrictions. The data by which this report is informed has been gathered from the CDE website, specifically, from the funding profile for Bilingual Teacher Training (ID 1768), the Bilingual Teacher Training program profile, the apportionment schedule for the 2009-10 fiscal year for the Bilingual Teacher Training Program, and a letter from the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O’Connell, concerning the CDE’s understanding and respective propositions concerning SBX3 4.

BILINGUAL TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM MODEL

            The Bilingual Teacher Training Program (BTTP) authorizes credentialed educators, in fulfillment of California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) requirements, “to provide English Language Development (ELD), specially designed academic instruction in English (SDAIE), and primary language instructional services to English learners (ELs)” (California Department of Education, Bilingual Teacher Training section, para. 3) to kindergarten through twelfth grade students. The BTTP’s curriculum and training framework addresses the California Teacher of English Learners (CTEL) Examination. The CTEL is one of the primary methods of authorization of veteran teachers and out-of-state teachers to provide specialized instruction for ELs (ibid. para. 7). BTTP is significant because the statute concerning staff development programs authorized by the CTC, pursuant of Education Code Section 44253, which required the CTC to issue certificated authorization to veteran teachers to provide ELD and/or SDAIE, has expired as of January 1, 2008 (ibid, para. 8). Essentially, because the Certificate of Completion of Staff Development is no longer available to veteran teachers, those veteran teachers who wish to teach ELs will be required to participate in the BTTP. There are 14 centers which, incidentally, correspond to the 14 counties listed in the Schedule of the First Apportionment for The Bilingual Teacher Training Program Fiscal Year 2009-2010, that provide BTTP to 11 statewide regions (ibid, para. 10 & California Department of Education, Schedule of the First Apportionment for the Bilingual Teacher Training Program Fiscal Year 2009-10 section).

BILINGUAL TEACHER TRAINING FUNDING PROFILE (ID 1768)

            In the 2009-10 fiscal year, the funds provided for the BTTP are eligible to local educational agencies (LEAs) that have received funding for the BTTP during the 2008-09 fiscal year for grades K-12 (California Department of Education, Bilingual Teacher Training (Flexible Funds) section, item 1). The Education Code Section 42605; budget item 6110-193-0001; control section 12.42 authorizes a state apportionment for the 2009-10 fiscal year of $1,708,000 for the entirety of the BTTP (ibid, item 2). This apportionment is approximately 5.6% less than was apportioned during the 2008-09 fiscal year (ibid, item 2). Furthermore, funding through the 2012-13 fiscal year will be based on the 2008-09 fiscal year, which corresponds to the allotted time frame of Senate Bill 4 of the 2009-10 Third Extraordinary Session concerning categorical funds flexibility (ibid, item 2 & O’Connell, J., 2009, Fiscal Issues Relating To Budget Reductions and Flexibility Provisions).

IMPLEMENTATION OF SBX3 4

            According to a letter from the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the CDE understands Senate Bill 4 of the 2009-10 Third Extraordinary Session (SBX3 4) to mean that local education agencies (LEAs) have complete autonomy concerning the utilization of restricted portions of the General Fund for any educational purpose (California Department of Education, Fiscal Issues Relating To Budget Reductions and Flexibility Provisions). LEAs have been afforded this flexibility until the 2012-13 fiscal year. To wit, the CDE understands this language to mean that “funds are therefore unrestricted; program or funding requirements, as otherwise provided in statute regulation, and budget act provisional language associated with the funding, are not in effect” (ibid, para. 11).

BILINGUAL TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM FINANCIAL FRAMEWORK

            As has been previously stated , BTTPs are provided in 14 counties, in 11 regions throughout California (California Department of Education, Regional Support Centers). Essentially, the $1,708,000 allotted to the BTTPs is divvied up between 14 counties throughout California. A full list of these counties and regions as well as their specific respective apportionment is provided in figure 1. The apportionment schedules range from $37,000 to approximately $300,000. It is worth noting that the highest apportionment, approximately $300,000, is apportioned to San Joaquin County which comprises three different regions. Riverside County and San Bernardino County, in particular receive $112,431 and $207,544 respectively. Both Riverside County and San Bernardino County comprise one of the eleven regions. According to Ed-Data (2010), Riverside County and San Bernardino County have 420,159 and 420,325 students respectively. Of those students, 95,316 and 91, 721 students are designated as English Learners. Riverside has a reported 19,491 credentialed teachers, whereas, San Bernardino has a reported 19,492 credentialed teachers. Hypothetically speaking, if each of the credentialed teachers had benefited from the BTTP and were certified to instruct ELs—which is highly unlikely, there would be approximately 5 ELs per every certified teacher. Given that not every credentialed teacher is authorized to teach ELs—although considering the demographic trends, it may be advisable to remedy this situation, the following may not be exactly accurate: considering the above numbers, it could be alleged that if every teacher is certified to teach ELs, as perhaps ought to be the case, under the proposed funding scheme, each teacher would benefit from $.09 worth of training. As this perhaps may be unfair, as nowhere near all teachers in either Riverside or San Bernardino County are certified to teach ELs, it may behoove one to look at a particular school site to extrapolate a more finely tuned analysis. In this regard, this report focuses on San Gorgonio High School in the San Bernardino City Unified. In this particular school site, there are 57 teachers out of 169 whose assignment type is designated as Other—suggesting that they are not subject area teacher, vocational teachers, or special education teachers, and therefore most likely to be EL teachers. The school site is home to 626 ELs. This means that there are about 11 ELs per EL teacher. If San Gorgonio High School is even remotely representative of San Bernardino County, these data would suggest that approximately 35% of teachers in San Bernardino County may be authorized to teach ELs. Given this very gracious approximation, these data would indicate that approximately 6822 in San Bernardino County are authorized to teach ELs. These data indicate that these teachers would be benefiting from approximately $30.42 worth of training.

CONCLUSION

            It would seem that the Bilingual Teacher Training Program may already be running on a severe financial deficit. It must be said that the above calculations are by no means as accurate as might be warranted by any substantive State finance apportionment. However, even if these calculations are nearly accurate—that is to say, even if these data are off by several hundred teacher or students or by several hundred dollars, they are still astonishing. Beyond this, it may be problematic to open such a small budget up for general purpose use as it may be very attractive to cannibalize such a seemingly underfunded and therefore useless program. Although, this report is by no means accurate enough to suggest any point-to-point reform, it does pose a very serious question: Are our teachers adequately prepared to address the needs of our dynamic student populations?

SCHEDULE OF THE FIRST APPORTIONMENT FOR THE BILINGUAL TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM FISCAL YEAR 2009-10
County code	District Code	Local Educational Agency	2008-09 Entitlement	2009-10 Entitlement	Current Apportionment (100 Percent)
ALAMEDA COUNTY
01	10017	Alameda County Office of Education	136,431	128,814	128,814
		COUNTY TOTAL	136,431	128,814	128,814
IMPERIAL COUNTY
13	10132	Imperial County Office of Education	39,462	37,259	37,259
		COUNTY TOTAL	39,462	37,259	37,259
LOS ANGELES COUNTY
19	10199	Los Angeles County Office of Education	179,363	169,349	169,349
		COUNTY TOTAL	179,363	169,349	169,349
MONTEREY COUNTY
27	10272	Monterey County Office of Education	72,181	68,151	68,151
		COUNTY TOTAL	72,181	68,151	68,151
ORANGE COUNTY
30	10306	Orange County Department of Education	121,360	114,584	114,584
		COUNTY TOTAL	121,360	114,584	114,584
RIVERSIDE COUNTY
33	10330	Riverside County Office of Education	119,080	112,431	112,431
		COUNTY TOTAL	119,080	112,431	112,431
SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY
36	10363	San Bernardino County Office of Education	219,817	207,544	207,544
		COUNTY TOTAL	219,817	207,544	207,544
SAN DIEGO COUNTY
37	10371	San Diego County Office of Education	162,012	152,966	152,966
		COUNTY TOTAL	162,012	152,966	152,966
SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY
39	10397	San Joaquin County Office of Education	308,854	291,610	291,610
		COUNTY TOTAL	308,854	291,610	291,610
SAN MATEO COUNTY
41	10413	San Mateo County Office of Education	72,182	68,152	68,152
		COUNTY TOTAL	72,182	68,152	68,152
SANTA CLARA COUNTY
43	10439	Santa Clara County Office of Education	68,612	64,781	64,781
		COUNTY TOTAL	68,612	64,781	64,781
SONOMA COUNTY
49	10496	Sonoma County Office of Education	131,275	123,946	123,946
		COUNTY TOTAL	131,275	123,946	123,946
TULARE COUNTY
54	10546	Tulare County Office of Education	93,201	87,997	87,997
		COUNTY TOTAL	93,201	87,997	87,997
VENTURA COUNTY
56	10561	Ventura County Office of Education	85,170	80,415	80,415
		COUNTY TOTAL	85,170	80,415	80,415
STATE TOTAL			$1,809,000	$1,707,999	$1,707,999
California Department of Education
School Fiscal Services Division
5-Feb-2010

Figure 1. Schedule of the First Apportionment for the Bilingual Teacher Training Program Fiscal Year 2009-10 (California Department of Education, 2010).

REFERENCES

California Department of Education. (2010). Bilingual teacher training. Retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/el/bt/

California Department of Education. (2010). Bilingual teacher training (flexible funds). Retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fo/profile.asp?id=1768

California Department of Education. (2010). Regional support centers. Retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/el/bt/regbttpcenters.asp

California Department of Education. (2010). Schedule of the first apportionment for the bilingual teacher training program fiscal year 2009-10 [data file]. Retrieve from http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fo/r14/btt09result.asp

California Department of Education. (2010). Fiscal issues relating to budget reductions and flexibility provisions. Retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/eb/yr09budgetacts.asp

Ed-Data. (2010). School Reports. Retrieved from http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/Navigation/fsTwoPanel.asp?bottom=%2Fprofile%2Easp%3Flevel%3D06%26reportNumber%3D16