On The Money: Teacher Credentialing Gets Failing Grade

By Mike Luery

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) -- "We're dealing with children here and we're putting them at risk," Assemblyman Ricardo Lara warned today.

The chair of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee was highly critical of the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, an agency that took up to three years in some cases to investigate complaints of teacher misconduct, according to State Auditor Elaine Howle.

Lara, a Democrat from South Gate, was joined by other lawmakers from both parties who blasted the state agency for failing to remove bad teachers from the classroom.

"One teacher was arrested for kidnapping and rape and it took the Commission three years to pull the credential," Lara exclaimed in reading the Auditor's report. He added, "It took three and a half years to revoke a teacher's credential after he was found exposing middle school students to pornography. Three and a half years to revoke a credential after a teacher was found kissing a student."

But the star witness today at the Capitol was Kathleen Carroll, a former staff attorney with the Commission on Teacher Credentialing who testified against her former bosses. She described the Commission as an agency where, "you have a significant percentage of employees fearing retaliation."

Carroll lost her job in retaliation, she says, for blowing the whistle on wrongdoing at the Commission – an agency that had a backlog of 12,000 cases involving teachers accused of serious crimes – including felonies.

But for those who saw wrongdoing at the Commission, Carroll says they were fighting a culture of cronyism – a government agency where managers hired and promoted their relatives and friends.

"And that just created a real circle of fear for employees to speak out against wrongdoing," Carroll told CBS 13.

The State Auditor found 43% of the employees there feared retaliation. In response, the Commission's Executive Director, Dale Janssen testified, "It is not as high as 40% for retaliation. It's more like 20%. And we have been working on that."

Lawmakers were incensed – and vowed to shake up the management at the Commission. Assemblyman Luis Alejo, a Democrat from Salinas stated, "I find the response here today by the Commission totally unacceptable and again ongoing denial of what's happening within the Commission."

I asked the Commission Chair, Ting Sun, if she intended to resign. "Well I'm on the Commission itself and I'm not part of the management, I guess if that's what you're asking?" she said.
I then asked, "They want to have a shakeup in management based on what the Legislature is saying. Do you agree with that? Are you going to make changes?"

Sun replied, "Well certainly as Chair of the Commission I am working with staff to make changes to comply with the auditor's recommendations, absolutely."

Already, the Executive Director of the Commission, Dale Janssen has announced he's leaving to retire at the end of the year. Assemblyman Lara stated, "There is very little confidence in management of this Commission."

"The way this agency is run is absolutely inexcusable," Senator Doug LaMalfa said in a statement. The Richvale Republican added, "The Commission must immediately begin implementing the recommendations of the Auditor and get serious about reforming the way they operate. Accountability and oversight must begin now."

You can expect the legislature to demand more changes in the months ahead.

If you see examples of government waste, send us an e-mail to onthemoney@kovr.com. You can also follow On The Money stories in progress via Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/mikeluery