Your donation will help us produce journalism like this. Please give today.

A new report from the National Council on Teachers Quality finds that California has made marginal, if any, progress on improving state policies that shape effective teachers.

For the third straight time, California was given an overall grade of D+ by the council, which issues a new report for every other year. Compared with the 2011 report, it says the state in 2013 improved on policies that help deliver well-prepared teachers (D+ from D) and those that identify effective teachers (D- from F) but it slipped in retaining effective teachers (C+ from B-).

It stayed the same in expanding the teacher pool (C-) and removing ineffective teachers (F).

The report takes on added relevance, given that many of these very issues are the subject of an on-going lawsuit in Los Angeles, Vergara v California, in which student plaintiffs are challenging state laws that they say keep ineffective teachers in the classroom.

California ranked 34th among the states and the District of Columbia. The entire report is available here, and the focus on California is here.