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California Teaching Credentials

Make your difference, one student at a time.

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Teaching Credential Degrees


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Credential in Education Specialist Instruction, Mild/Moderate Disabilities

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Learn to teach students with disabilities and help them with classroom challenges, navigating, school life, and developing critical life skills that will benefit them for years to come. You'll participate in one of two tracks, student-teaching or intern program, to gain the experience you need to be a leader in the classroom.

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Credential in Multiple Subject Teaching

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The multiple subject credential program will prepare you with the basic skills requirement, and more, to become an elementary teacher of record in any TK-8 classroom, whether in a traditional classroom, online, or both, in California. Over the course of your studies, you'll get the instruction needed to be adept in subject matter competency and provide a well-rounded and comprehensive elementary education to each and every student in your class.

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Credential in Single Subject Teaching

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The single-subject credential program provides you with the knowledge and skills you need to teach English, math, science, or other subjects to middle school or high students. This comprehensive single subject teaching credential offers three paths to a credential: student teaching, intern teaching, and an early completion intern teaching option.

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Find Out How You Can Turn Your Bachelor’s Degree into a Rewarding Career as a Teacher


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Educational Leadership and Management

Find the Teaching Program That's Right for You

By using our Teacher Preparation Program Finder and answering a few questions, you’ll be guided towards a great teaching credential or certificate program for you.

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Program Overview


Few career paths offer such deep levels of civic engagement, emotional rewards, and direct force of impact on the next generation as a career in education. And few careers are as vital and valuable to society as those of our educators. Are you interested in being a part of the next generation of future teachers to teach early childhood education, elementary school, middle school, high school, or special education in your local school district? You can get the California teaching credentials at our university. Become one of our teacher candidates and get one step closer to be one of the qualified elementary school teachers.

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Make an impact. Become a teacher with an Alliant International University teaching credential program. Explore our California teaching credential programs.

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Online Teaching Credential Programs

Alliant programs for school teachers offer an innovative format featuring online courses and classes coupled with hands-on training experience, allowing you to tailor your education program to your schedule while still getting the professional training you need to teach and excel in your teaching career. Our programs are designed not only for a regular teacher candidate but also for a special education teacher seeking to further their teaching credentials in CA. The teacher education programs prepare our graduates and teacher candidates to earn their teaching license and work in elementary, middle, and high schools.

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CTC-Approved Curriculum

Alliant California teaching credential programs are approved by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC), one of the highest standards in the industry. The elementary education specialist credential program trains future teachers in necessary skills and provides them with hands-on experience so they can have complete confidence in front of a classroom.

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Your Path to the Classroom

Every student’s path is unique, so we offer three distinct pathways to finishing your preliminary single subject credential or multiple subject teaching credential. We understand the challenges of being an educator and take the necessary measures to make sure each one of our students is prepared for the classroom.

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Student Teaching

Experienced teachers know that each student’s road to success rarely looks the same. The professors at Alliant know this too. That’s exactly why we offer three distinct pathways to finishing your preliminary single or multiple subject teaching credential. We understand the challenges of being an educator and take the necessary measures to make sure each one of our students is prepared for the classroom.

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Standard Intern Teaching

The intern teaching option lets you pursue your teaching certification in California or online while earning an income. You'll be a salaried teacher-of-record for four terms, meaning you assume immediate and full teaching responsibility and management of the classroom as you work on earning your education specialist credential. This option works best for those coming into the teaching degree program with more classroom teaching experience.

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Early Completion Intern Teaching Option

The early completion option is an abbreviated version of the standard intern teaching path toward your teacher certification. You are a salaried teacher-of-record for four terms, but your program coursework is accelerated. For this option, we highly recommend you have previous classroom experience.

Advance Your Career

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Masters in Education

Make your teacher education path even more distinct with the option to dual-enroll in our online Master of Arts in Education with Teaching Emphasis program at our university.

How it Works: As a student in a Preliminary Teaching Credential program, you only need 3-5 more courses to earn your MAE in Teaching. That’s because all of your California teacher credentialing coursework is applied to your master’s. And the best part? It’s also all online.

Why it Works: A master’s degree offers you an enhanced expertise in teaching and theory that you can apply in the classroom. You can also create new pathways of opportunity in your career while further developing your own education.

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Expanding Our Impact to Arizona

We are proud to expand our Impact with our Arizona Teacher Preparation Programs.

We offer Arizona Board of Education-approved programs in primary and secondary education, as well as a concurrent Master of Arts in Education in Teaching. These programs prepare our graduates to ace the California Subject Examination for Teachers (CSET) and to work in elementary, middle, and high schools.

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What Would it Take for You to Succeed as a Dual-Language Instructor?

Find Out in this New Online Bilingual Authorization Program

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Teach California

Alliant has partnered with TEACH California to address California's teacher shortage. We value the benefit of this partnership for California teacher recruitment. We are dedicated to getting aspiring teachers in classrooms as seamlessly as possible with each teacher preparation program.

Throughout your time in the teacher credential program and teacher certification studies, you’ll develop a strong educational foundation and gain vital student assessment skills. Through online coursework in diverse learning methods and theories, you’ll discover how to teach English-language learners, and you’ll learn about how cultural background affects learning styles.

Most importantly, you'll gain hands-on experience. Because getting out of our classroom and into your own is the best way to develop your personal teaching style and get you one step closer to your licensure and teaching career.

For those in California, explore our CTC-Approved Teaching Credential Programs offered at Alliant’s California School of Education (CSOE) and become a credentialed teacher in California. We help prospective teachers achieve their teaching certificate and educational career goals by having numerous resources available for our students to excel as future educators.

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How to be a Qualified California Teacher

  1. Fulfill the basic education requirements

    To earn a teaching credential in California, you need to have at least a bachelor's degree from a college or university recognized by the state. You are also required to finish a teacher preparation program that has been approved by the CTC (Commission on Teacher Credentialing).

  2. Complete the student teaching requirement

    You are required to render a minimum of 600 hours of field experience during the program's duration. Different programs may offer varying types of classroom experiences and different durations for each. Therefore, you may choose to participate in traditional student teaching, co-teaching, teacher residency, or intern teaching to have hands-on teaching experience.

  3. Complete the teacher certification exams in California

    The specific subject matter assessments that you must pass will depend on the type of teaching certification that you are pursuing. Those seeking a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential are required to take the CSET Multiple Subjects Exam, while applicants for a Single Subject Teaching Credential need to pass the CSET exam that corresponds to the specific subject for which they are seeking certification.

  4. Submit an application for certification.

    The quickest and most convenient method of applying for a California teaching credential is through the online application system. To initiate the application process, the program sponsor must formally recommend you for the appropriate certification through the CTC's online system. After the recommendation is submitted, you'll have 90 days to fulfill the required recommendation document.

    As part of the process, you'll be asked to answer Professional Fitness Questions that pertain to your criminal and professional background, which will be used to evaluate your eligibility for the desired CA teaching credential. You must also provide fingerprint clearance from both the California Department of Justice and the FBI along with your application.

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