California this fall will launch its first registered apprenticeship program for teachers, a model that lets participants earn a wage while they complete the training and coursework needed for a full credential. The initiative arrives as the state confronts a persistent shortage of fully qualified teachers, with nearly 16,000 entering classrooms last school year without complete credentials — a figure that represents roughly 5% of the teaching force and marks a significant increase over the levels recorded just three years earlier, according to a report by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.
“More teachers are entering the profession, but too many are leaving,” Mary Vixie Sandy, the commission’s executive director, told state lawmakers last month, pointing to a continued reliance on underprepared personnel, emergency permits and substitutes to fill vacancies. The highest rates of underprepared teachers are concentrated in California’s Central Valley, the far north, and rural Sierra communities.
The financial burden of becoming a teacher in California is steep. Earning a credential can cost more than $30,000 on top of a bachelor’s degree, and candidates must log at least 600 hours of classroom time — often unpaid — before they can lead a class of their own. An analysis from the Learning Policy Institute, an education research nonprofit, found that many teachers carry student debt for years as a result. Even in areas with lower living costs, starting salaries around $63,000 do little to offset the upfront expense, and retention rates are especially low among those who entered the profession without full training.
Apprenticeship and residency programs are designed to break that cycle. Residents co-teach under a mentor during their first year and receive a stipend of up to $40,000 while they complete a preparation or graduate program. The new apprenticeship track will work similarly, with apprentices also able to take substitute-teaching assignments to boost their earnings. But building the infrastructure is slow: the Tulare County and Santa Clara County offices of education spent roughly two years setting up the first teacher apprenticeship programs, which together will serve just eight students in their inaugural year.
The Trump administration’s cancellation of a $18 million Biden-era grant last year dealt a blow to expansion plans. The money had been awarded to the Tulare County Office of Education to scale up teacher training, including residencies and apprenticeships, but the Department of Education rescinded it, saying the grants promoted “divisive ideologies” such as diversity, equity and inclusion that no longer fit federal priorities. The cuts disrupted programs across the Central Valley.
Among those affected was Hayden Pulis, who left his studies at the University of Central Oklahoma and returned home to Hanford, a farming community of about 55,000 people where most adults have never finished college. He applied for a residency slot at Hanford High School. “I didn’t have any teaching experience before,” Pulis said. “Personally, I wasn’t ready to take over a classroom.” Weeks after he was accepted, he learned in a meeting that the federal grant money was gone, throwing his future into uncertainty.
The Tulare County Office of Education, which supports about 20 residents in a typical year, had been planning to serve nearly 100 with the federal funds. After scrambling to find alternative state dollars, the office was able to honor its commitment to Pulis, though his stipend was reduced to $35,000. “It was a weight off my chest,” Pulis said. If the program hadn’t come through, he said he would probably still be coaching football.
The financial relief has been meaningful. Pulis, who got married and relocated to California in the same year, used the Golden State Teacher Grant — a state program that provides up to $10,000 toward a credential in exchange for a promise to work in high-need schools — to cover much of his tuition. Combined with the residency stipend, the support gave him and his wife, a nursing student working as a waitress, a head start on building wealth. “Major expenses that would have been much harder to bear” were made manageable, he said.
For teachers who entered the classroom through emergency-style permits rather than a residency, the experience is often far more difficult. Luis Garcia, who won a Teacher of the Year award at Hanford West High School this year, started teaching in 2018 without full qualifications. Interns like Garcia are given a full-time salary and their own classroom but are expected to simultaneously enroll in a credentialing program. “In a pinch it’s much easier to hire an intern but at what cost,” said Brooke Berrios, who oversees some teacher preparation programs at the Tulare County Office of Education.
Garcia said the lack of structured support made those early years a trial. “It was difficult because I was on my own,” he recalled. He now mentors both residents and interns and said the difference in preparation quality is unmistakable. Residents who co-teach under an experienced mentor are far less likely to wash out: Melanie Leung-Gagné, a researcher with the Learning Policy Institute, noted that teachers trained through residencies have significantly higher retention rates than those who enter on emergency permits or waivers. Of the teachers who started in Hanford without proper training during the pandemic, about half have since left, according to local teacher data reviewed by CalMatters.
Garcia still carries about $30,000 in debt from the graduate-level program he completed as an intern, plus another $50,000 from his undergraduate years. He said he has no regrets and takes pride in the recognition from colleagues and students, but he laughed when asked if the award came with a cash prize. “I’ll gladly take a donation,” he said.
California has poured roughly $2.1 billion into teacher-shortage responses over the last decade, much of it through grants that lower the cost of credentialing and improve training. The largest share goes to residency stipends. Starting this summer, the state will also launch a program that pays student teachers $10,000 for the hundreds of hours of classroom work required during their preparation. But the Golden State Teacher Grant program is set to end this year unless lawmakers approve new funding in the upcoming budget, and the federal grant that would have expanded residencies in the Central Valley remains rescinded. The apprenticeship model is the newest piece of a patchwork that, for now, still leans heavily on underprepared teachers in the communities that can afford it least.