Teachers Learning to Diversify : Education: In face of state budget crisis, instructors most likely to survive layoffs go beyond their ABCs. It helps to be bilingual, well-read on high-tech sciences and qualified to teach a variety of subjects.

When Cyndie Carlton was studying music at Cal State Long Beach in the late ‘60s, her primary concern was to earn the necessary credentials to teach children in elementary schools.

Carlton reached her goal of becoming a music instructor, but now she has a new concern that could land her back in the classroom--as a student. This time, her main concern is to earn enough credits so that she can keep a teaching job. Any teaching job.

For the past few months, Carlton, 42, has teetered between the unemployment line and a steady job in the Saddleback Valley Unified School District in South Orange County. In May, she was handed a pink slip by the district, which had dismantled its entire elementary music program to balance its budget. After the state promised more money for education, the district reinstated the music program for one more year.

So for now, Carlton still has a job. But she still doesn’t feel safe.

“Music is not marketable,” Carlton said. “Whenever districts need to cut programs, they look at the fine arts. It’s thought of as a luxury or a frill. I need security.”

With 200,000 new students entering public schools every year in California, unemployment for teachers would seem highly unlikely. Although school districts need as many teachers as possible to handle the children of the mini-baby boom of the 1980s and the continuing influx of non-English-speaking immigrants, the state budget crisis has forced school officials to turn to layoffs and bigger classes.

Threatened with layoffs by the thousands, the teachers most likely to survive the economic cuts are those who go beyond their ABCs. Essentially, educators say, budget constraints mean the era of the one-subject teacher is ending.

Today, the most recruitable teachers are not only knowledgeable about the three Rs--they also are bilingual, up to date on the latest high-tech sciences and qualified to teach a variety of subjects. Teachers without those skills are likely to be last in line for new jobs, and even those who believe they have what it takes to survive in the classroom wonder if there will be enough jobs to go around.

“The idea of getting a job is always on my mind,” said student teacher JoAnne McCarthy, who completed her second semester at Cal State Fullerton in June. “I had no idea when I first applied a year and a half ago that the situation would be as critical as it is right now. At the time, there was a desperate need for teachers and districts were a having a difficult time filling their needs. I thought there would be no difficulty in finding a job.”

In the past, school employees were specialists. School nurses cared for sick students. School psychologists counseled disturbed children. Art and music specialists visited classrooms to give lessons. But as local school districts trimmed budgets and personnel, teachers became full-time substitutes in other areas.

“Teachers nowadays not only have to teach, they have to be counselors, nurses, art and music specialists and psychologists,” said Carol Barnes, chairwoman of elementary and bilingual education at Cal State Fullerton. “Besides walking on water, teachers have to be flexible and adaptable.”

To protect themselves, teachers are attempting to qualify for as many credentials as possible, said James Guthrie, executive director of policy analysis in California Education, a think-tank at UC Berkeley.

“The long-run result is to get rid of specialists and go into generalists. Teachers are acting wisely on their own behalf,” Guthrie added.

In California, public school instructors must be certified by the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing. In order to get the credential, which must be renewed every five years, candidates must have at least 30 hours of college credits beyond their bachelor’s degree and pass a test in the subject they want to teach. The commission also requires teachers to take 150 hours of professional growth classes or workshops that help them learn new skills or improve their method of instruction.

Elementary school teachers are issued multi-subject credentials and must pass a general test, while high school instructors usually are credentialed in a single subject, such as history, science or math.

But school districts need instructors in some subjects more than others. For example, science teachers are always in need, while there is an overabundance of history instructors. Critical shortages of teachers are growing in subjects such as math, science and special education, especially in higher grades. The problem also exists in elementary schools, although teachers in lower grades tend to have more job security because of the baby boom.

Resource teacher Lois Chappell is confident that her job is not in jeopardy. Chappell, 50, started teaching the disabled in San Diego five years ago, after moving from Arizona with a “learning-handicapped” credential. Chappell also got a certificate to become a resource teacher--one who handles several classes at a time--for the disabled.

Although the San Diego school district has pared down its special education program and lowered the number of resource teachers, Chappell said her multiple credentials have kept her competitive in the job market.

“With my credentials, I have three or four different routes to go,” Chappell said. “I know I can go to another district to get another job if needed.”

But even teachers trained in critical subjects could find themselves unemployed if they are not credentialed in more than one subject, according to Hal Vick, staff consultant for the California Teachers Assn. chapter in Ventura County.

“With the budget cuts, we’re seeing that people with limited credentials are vulnerable,” Vick said. “If you have single-subject credential and that program is cut back, you can be laid off. We’re asking our people to diversify.”

Music instructor Carlton, who is certified to teach elementary and high school music and secondary English, said she realizes that the odds of keeping her $22,000-a-year job at Montevideo Elementary School in Mission Viejo will diminish if she doesn’t earn credentials to teach other subjects.

As it stands now, Carlton said, her options are slim. She could stay in the district, which could again decide to drop its music program next year if the economic climate is still bad, or she could become a substitute teacher in English. But Carlton said she will most likely return to college and pursue another credential, which could take up to four semesters.

Aware that being able to teach as many subjects as possible is a matter of job survival, the California Teachers Assn. in recent negotiations with school districts has insisted on more teacher workshops to upgrade current skills or learn new ones, CTA President Ed Foglia said. The workshops help teachers satisfy their credential requirements for professional-growth classes, but teachers cannot instruct in those subjects until they earn the required college credits.

“The more diversified you are, the better chance you have of staying employed,” Foglia agreed.

But Guthrie warned that diversification can have its drawbacks. In effect, it can turn a specialist into a jack of all trades and a master of none. A teacher may be “legally allowed to teach in the class, but that doesn’t mean you want your children in there to learn,” he said.

Another disadvantage, the CTA’s Vick said, is that while school districts usually offer higher salaries to teachers with more credentials and college credits, they are more apt to recruit teachers they can afford. Those who are “overqualified” may find themselves priced out of the teaching market if they have too many credentials.

“School districts are looking for cheap teachers,” one instructor said.

Unless the teacher happens to be bilingual, that is.

Besides the additional job security that comes with being bilingual, there are also financial advantages to being fluent in another language. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, bilingual teachers earn $5,000 more per year than their monolingual colleagues, and other districts, such as Santa Ana and Anaheim Unified, give bonuses.

The increased salaries are a simple case of supply and demand. While the number of students who speak little or no English in the state is soaring--enrollment of limited-English-proficient, or LEP, students now stands at more than 860,000--the number of bilingual teachers trained in California is not.

Because there is a state mandate requiring that public schools must provide its LEP students with equal education, school districts cannot afford to let their bilingual teachers go, said S. Ana Garza, Cal State Fullerton coordinator of admissions in the department of elementary and bilingual education.

In Orange County, where the immigrant population has skyrocketed in the past five years, the shortage of bilingual teachers is so critical that districts have been recruiting in other states to find instructors fluent in other languages. The Los Angeles and Long Beach Unified school Districts have even resorted to recruiting bilingual teachers from other countries, such as Spain and Canada.

“Every district in the state needs bilingual teachers,” said Michael Acosta, administrator in the certificate-employment division of the Los Angeles Unified School District. “The districts have two options. Either they go outside the district or state to find the people they need or they grow their own. It’s a long process.”

In Los Angeles Unified, where budget cuts have run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, teachers with multiple language skills stand a better chance of keeping their jobs than those without, said Michael G. Wilson, the district’s assistant regional administrator.

“You’re more marketable if you have bilingual ability or credentials in an area where there is a shortage of teachers,” Wilson said. “You’re most likely to be exempt from being laid off.”

Take David Tokofsky, a teacher at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles. Tokofsky, recently named one of 72 national winners of the prestigious Christa McAuliffe fellowship for teaching government, wants to teach history full-time. But his ability to speak Spanish may take precedence.

Tokofsky said he was hired straight out of UC Berkeley in 1983, when school officials studied his college transcript and found that he was bilingual and could coach soccer. Through the years, Tokofsky has earned credentials in history, social science and Spanish. Now, he teaches U.S. government and English-as-a-second-language math.

Although Tokofsky was honored for teaching history, he is worried that he eventually may have to teach in Spanish all the time. He has already received a notice from the school district saying he may be reassigned in the fall because of state budget cuts.

“If I end up teaching Spanish all day long, I don’t know whether I can do it,” Tokofsky said. “I wouldn’t have the same intensity and purpose as when I teach about the social sciences. The school districts are more interested in getting a warm body in the room than what is being taught in the class. The content is being lost.”

Another factor in the increased competition for dwindling teaching jobs is that interest in education is on the rise, Foglia said.

“It’s a myth that teaching is the area you go into if you can’t make it anywhere else,” Foglia said. “We’re busting at the seams with people who are in the upper half of their classes and who are in good standing. Teaching is attractive and that’s where people want to go.”

In the California State University system, which churns out 70% of the state’s new public school teachers and 10% of the nation’s instructors annually, the number of graduates who are credentialed by the state has jumped from 9,184 in the 1985-86 school year to 11,221 in 1988-89.

“It’s the idea of completely helping someone else that makes teaching special,” McCarthy, the Cal State Fullerton student, said. “I know the money isn’t going to be there in teaching. But the personal satisfaction will outweigh anything money could give me.”

The satisfaction was enough to lure McCarthy, 27, an art design major in college, from the garment industry, where she worked for three years, to the classroom. Before she decided to return to school, she was earning $32,000 a year. A teacher’s salary begins in the $23,000 range.

McCarthy admits she is nervous about the budget crisis and its impending impact on education in the state. Her training ground, the Placentia Unified School District, issued layoff notices to 140 certificated employees last month.

“The atmosphere is of unrest,” McCarthy said. “It’s ludicrous because there is an incredible need for teachers. That’s what makes it so frightening. Are we going to have end up with 40 kids in a classroom? It’s much too much for a teacher to handle and it’s unfair to the children.”