The Strategic Data Project College-Going Diagnostic for the Los Angeles Unified School District is referenced in the following Los Angeles Times article.
In California, teachers whose students include English learners are required by state law to have special certification. That's sensible, given the special challenges that come with running a classroom in which not all children are equally proficient in the language being spoken. There are two ways to secure that certification: by graduating from a college or university that grants such a certificate, or by attending a program that educates would-be teachers in that specialty. The teachers certified by the latter route receive what is called an "intern credential."
A new proposal before the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, scheduled for a vote on Thursday, would effectively eliminate the second option. That might be defensible if the rationale was to ensure that all teachers assigned to English learners were better prepared for the job. But critics say the primary purpose of this proposal is to push Teach for America, the nonprofit organization that places young college graduates and "high achievers" into teaching jobs in poor neighborhoods, out of California schools. That's been a long-standing objective of some teachers unions, but it's bad policy and should be rejected.
...