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Lessons · Teaching · the degree and the transcript the Commission reads

The degree, and the transcript somebody else has to read

Every California teaching credential starts from a bachelor's degree from a regionally accredited institution, evidenced by an official transcript sent from that institution to the preparation programme, not by the copy you keep at home.

Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.

What it is for

A candidate had her degree certificate framed on the wall and could not understand why the programme kept asking. The framed thing proves she graduated. The transcript proves what she studied and how she did, and it has to arrive from the college, sealed or sent electronically, because a document a candidate could have edited proves nothing to anybody.

How to think about it

Order the transcript in the first week, before you read anything else, and order it to go where the programme tells you to send it. If your degree is from outside the United States, start earlier still, because it has to go through an approved evaluation service first and that takes longer than anything else on this road.

Worked example

Degree from a regionally accredited college, with the record ordered to the programme
Ordered on day one, because it travels at somebody else's speed.
Sent from the college itself, sealed or electronic, never a copy from my file
A document you could have altered proves nothing.
Degree from outside the United States, so an approved evaluation service first
An extra step and an extra wait, and it is the longest one on this road.
Degree in another subject entirely is fine, and very common
The degree is the floor. The subject is shown separately.

Your turn

Name the level of degree every California teaching credential starts from.

A California credential starts from a  degree from an accredited institution

The trap

Assuming your degree subject has to be the subject you will teach. It does not, in either state. A history graduate can hold a mathematics credential; the subject is demonstrated separately and it is demonstrated on purpose, not by accident of what you studied at twenty.

Practise the degree and the transcript the Commission reads on HoneA question on it now, a real problem where there is one, and it is remembered for review. Free, no email needed.