CSUDH News

The primary source of news and information about California State University, Dominguez Hills, its students, faculty, and staff.

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CalMatters: $33M to Ease Preschool Teacher Shortage

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CSUDH student doing educational activities with children.

Source: CalMatters

California needs 11,000 more pre-kindergarten teachers by 2025, as lawmakers embark on a huge expansion of free early education in California. 

Could $33 million in donations to two California State University campuses, announced Wednesday, increase the pipeline of educators for these little learners? 

The larger of the two gifts, $22 million, is the biggest-ever donation for Cal State Dominguez Hills. The grant is from the Ballmer Group, a limited liability company and philanthropy co-founded by Los Angeles Clippers owner and billionaire Steve Ballmer. The group also gave $11 million to nearby Cal State Long Beach for much of the same programming. The gifts will be doled out annually at roughly equal amounts for six years; both campuses got their first allotment in June.

The two schools educate a large share of low-income students. The campuses will spend about 80% of the money on scholarships for aspiring teachers and the rest on hiring personnel and expanding teacher training.

While most students at Cal State get enough financial aid from state and federal sources to avoid paying tuition, “the issue is that becoming a teacher is a lot more expensive than just being an undergraduate student,” said Jessica Zacher Pandya, dean of the College of Education at Dominguez Hills.  

Students aspiring to be teachers must pay hundreds of dollars in licensure exams and commit to 600 hours of student teaching. The Ballmer Group scholarship will help students cover those fees, work fewer hours and borrow less so they can focus on completing their studies and teaching credentials.

Dominguez Hills plans to support roughly 1,200 students over a six-year period starting this spring, Pandya said. Students will get awards of $2,500 to $10,000, the largest amount reserved for those fulfilling their student-teaching hours. Some of that scholarship money will fund students who plan to teach in schools with large numbers of Black students, including in high schools, Pandya said.

The university is also developing a credential that will focus specifically on early grades, pre-kindergarten to third grade. The Ballmer Group money will help pay for faculty to develop that curriculum. Right now, the standard credential is for teaching grades kindergarten through eighth grade. The new credential is “much more developmentally appropriate” to teach younger students, Pandya said.

And as the Los Angeles area and California shift more of their early education from private institutions to school districts that pay higher wages, the Dominguez Hills campus hopes to graduate more teachers specifically trained to educate those young kids.

The campus hopes to attract current early-education instructors, who are typically women and people of color, into its programming, Pandya said.

EdSource: New Grants Support Early Childhood Educator Training

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CSUDH student teaching children at an educational event.

Source: EdSource

California State University Long Beach (CSULB) and California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) today announced $33 million in funding from the Ballmer Group, a philanthropic organization, to support programs designed to address the shortage of early childhood educators (ECE). These grants are intended to help close the emerging ECE teacher gap as well as provide living wage jobs for these educators.

California school districts need an estimated 12,000-15,000 credentialed ECE teachers to drive California Gov. Newsom’s expansion of early childhood education such as TK, or transitional kindergarten, experts say.

CSULB and CSUDH both have key programs that train early childhood educators, a profession long dominated by women of color in California. Whereas preschool teachers often exist on meager wages, TK teachers are paid the same as K-12 teachers. That’s why these programs should increase the economic mobility of ECE teachers who can use their new credentials to access jobs with better pay and benefits.

CSUDH to Bolster Racially Diverse Educators with $22 Million Gift from Ballmer Group

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Teacher doing building activity with young children.

The historic gift marks the largest donation ever given to CSUDH.

More than 1,000 new teachers of preschool and early elementary school grades will start work in the Golden State over the next six years thanks to two new programs being launched at CSUDH, following a transformative gift announced today.

Ballmer Group is committing a historic $22 million to CSUDH over six years, marking the largest donation ever given to the university. The majority of the gift will fund scholarships for students through the university’s Toros Teach L.A. program, which will help address California’s severe shortage of early childhood educators by preparing, graduating, and placing culturally competent, racially diverse teachers and leaders in schools across the Los Angeles region.

“This program, supported by a generous gift from Ballmer Group, will have an outstanding impact on communities with a high need for credentialed preschool and early childhood educators,” said CSUDH President Thomas A. Parham.

“It will support communities of color by creating a pipeline of teachers working and staying in the area, and improve those educators’ ability to create positive outcomes for their students through the use of culturally competent pedagogies.”

California’s early education workforce faces a serious shortfall of teachers, with some estimates putting the need at nearly 10,000 educators as the state expands access to transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds by the 2025-26 school year. CSUDH’s Toros Teach L.A. program will include two initiatives to address this need: Early Childhood Excellence and Black Educator Excellence. Through these, the university will build equity-embedded credentials, help districts recruit and support their Black educators and all educators of Black children, and enable educators to forge successful teaching careers with less debt and improved career retention.

“We are excited to work with Ballmer Group toward educating and mentoring culturally responsive teachers for the preschool-3rd grade classrooms of the Los Angeles region,” said Jessica Zacher Pandya, dean of the College of Education at CSUDH. “With this generous gift, we can offer this training to more future teachers, who can then serve the communities they come from while helping to alleviate this critical need for the state.”

The grant supports scholarships for up to 1,200 students, allowing them to earn bachelor’s degrees and PK-3 or K-8 teaching credentials. The program also includes training and upskilling for current teachers, including new units needed for the PK-3 credential once it becomes available and certificate coursework for current teachers who want to improve their ability to teach ethnically diverse learners.

“This significant, impactful gift accelerates our rollout of the new PK-3 credential, while also fostering a diverse pool of future educators,” said Mi-Sook Kim, dean of CSUDH’s College of Health, Human Services and Nursing, which houses the Department of Child Development. “Our Child Development program will also support current teachers looking to upgrade their learning and earn a new credential to progress in their career.”

Ballmer Group’s grant to CSUDH was paired with a gift of $11 million to California State University, Long Beach, to support similar programs on that campus.

“Early education is a game-changer for giving kids a fair shot in school and life,” said Kim Pattillo Brownson, Director of Strategy and Policy for Ballmer Group. “Teachers are vital to this work, and CSUDH and CSULB will now be able to support LA’s future early educators through scholarships, degree programs, and partnerships to support our children’s learning.”

Connie and Steve Ballmer co-founded Ballmer Group in 2015 to focus on improving economic mobility and opportunity for children and families in the United States who are disproportionately likely to remain in poverty. Ballmer Group directs its philanthropy to help ensure that a person thrives through a healthy birth and stable family, a safe childhood and adolescence, a good education, and a career that can support a family.

LAUSD Superintendent Gives Keynote at Credential Celebration

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Superintendent Carvalho speaking at podium
LAUSD Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho.

“America is only as great as its educational system.”

That was Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho’s message for the aspiring teachers gathered at the College of Education’s 2022-23 Credential Celebration on May 22. Carvalho was the keynote speaker for the event, which celebrated the nearly 300 teacher-students who completed a CSUDH credential program this year.

Before introducing Carvalho to the audience of Toros and their family and friends, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Michael Spagna spoke about the mission of the College of Education (COE) and the central role teachers play in shaping society. 

“We are creating ‘nation builders,’” he said, referencing the term used for teachers in the Republic of Korea. “We are one of the top producers of talent for LAUSD, the second biggest school district in the U.S.”

“Until we pay attention to the larger ecosystem and work with our intersegmental partners to really bolster L.A. Unified, we won’t truly reach equity and get to a social justice agenda–which is what our university is about.”

COE Associate Dean Corinne Martinez, Dean Jessica Zacher Pandya, LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, and CSUDH Provost Michael Spagna
Left to right: COE Associate Dean Corinne Martinez, Dean Jessica Zacher Pandya, LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, and CSUDH Provost Michael Spagna.

In her welcoming remarks, College of Education Dean Jessica Zacher Pandya also referenced the College’s vision–which includes principles of justice, equity, and critical consciousness, as well as the goal of preparing critical educators to co-create and enact transformative change.

“You are those critical educators, and we are here to celebrate you,” Pandya said.

Carvalho then took to the podium to offer his congratulations, discuss the impact education had on his own life trajectory, and expand upon the idea of teachers as “nation builders.”

“We are a nation at a point of inflection,” Carvalho said. “If there’s one place in America where we have a chance of actually growing, it is in our classrooms. Public education and democracy are two sides of the same coin.

“I am looking not only at nation builders, but the architects of hope and the engineers of opportunity–for teachers are exactly that,” he added.

Carvalho went on to explain that he came from humble beginnings, and that his parents never had the opportunity to attend school past the third grade. Carvalho’s fourth grade teacher took him under her wing, affirming him and giving him the confidence he needed to succeed in school. He implored the teachers present to truly invest in their students and form real, emotional connections with them.

COE Associate Dean Corinne Martinez congratulating Zulema Pettway
COE Associate Dean Corinne Martinez congratulating Zulema Pettway.

“You will not touch the child’s mind without first touching their heart,” he said. “You will create meaningful, magical moments with kids, and take them to places they never dreamed they could reach.

“That was my journey.”

Following Carvalho’s speech, credential program graduates had their names called as they walked the stage. For Zulema Pettway, earning her special education credential marked a great personal achievement.   

“It was a hard road to get here, but worth it,” she said. “I want to be a light for my students and give them the opportunities they deserve.”

View more photos from the Credential Celebration on SmugMug.