Oh my gosh! I passed the CTEL exam. Yeah for me. Stupid no child left behind and the stupid state of California decided that all teachers need to know how to teach English as a Second language (ESL) students and are forcing us to become CLAD (Crosscultural, Language, And Academic Development) certified. The more I learned about it as I studied for the exam, the more I realized that Oakland Unified schools (OUSD) and CA are taking the cheap way out by training all teachers so they can stick ESL kids in regular classes therefore saving money by not having to hire specialists in self contained bilingual classes. At least that is what it looks like to me. So OUSD has been very vague about when this needs to be completed but OUSD has a history of saying "oh, by the way, that CLAD thing we told you to do, you have one week to show us you've completed the work or we'll take your credential away." So, I took an independent study course to study for the exam. I bought the course from Univ of San Diego in April and had 9 months to do. Well, Ansel was born early and then took short naps so I only just finished it. Meanwhile I took the exam in December and just found out I passed. SO I don't have to do anything else for now.
I find teaching requirements so frustrating. I did three years of grad school, hold two Masters and two teaching credentials, I am
nationally board certified, I have cleared my credential in California and renewed it once already, and I have taught for 8 years. Aren't I done? I am still paying off grad school and new requirements keep popping up. I will at least get reimbursed up to $600 from OUSD for the cost of the test and the class (I spent about $100 over) because I passed. This is a year's worth of stress over for me. Now if I could just get paid the back pay OSUD owes me for underpaying me the last 4 months...
As a reward for listening to me rant and rave here are some cute pictures. Our dear friends Jim and Heike and their son Lukas are moving to Austria for a couple of years. Here are Lukas and Ansel playing and giving hugs.
4 comments:
I was lucky enough to get my clear CLAD credential all in my one year credential program. Maybe that was the advantage of doing it in Oakland! My credential has been renewed once, good until 2010 and now I wonder what hoops I'll have to jump through if I ever do go back. Especially since I haven't put it my hours this time around...Oh well, I should probably start saving some money since I know i'll have to dish it out to take some dumb classes.
Congrats on passing your test - I had no idea - about so many things - Diana, you have 2 masters? What a star you are. This is why I work with youth outside of school - none of the credentialing requirements. I'm too lazy!
how was the CTEL?? I have to take it next month as i finished the CLAD ONE MONTH LATE and now $1500 is down the drain...( by the way you don't know me ,but I googled CTEL stuff and this came up!)
any thing I should know??(except everything I already knew from 4 semester classes of the CLAD?)
thanks Jane
Don't know if you'll see this, jane, but I took a clad overview course which helped. The book we used was The Crosscultural Language and Academic Development Handbook by Diaz-Rico and Weed. Good overview to study. I thought a lot of the questions were vague on the ctel and I could have gone either way. good luck.
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