The Los Angeles Unified School District is looking for a few thousand good teachers.

No classroom experience? Doesn’t matter. Lack a teaching credential? The district will work around it and still be happy to get candidates on board.

That’s the way it’s been in the district for the past three years, when at least 60 percent of the 12,000 teachers hired have not had state teaching certificates. As a result of that continuing practice, a full 20 percent of the district’s 34,000 total teachers are now non-credentialed.

Many believe it’s the students who are paying the price for that lack of experience and training.

“You have people teaching who have no idea what they’re doing,” said John Perez, vice president of United Teachers Los Angeles. “It’s not a good situation.”

At this point, there is little reason to believe the situation will be any different as the district hires 4,000 new teachers needed for the upcoming school year. Despite an expensive new recruiting effort aimed at attracting experienced teachers, it’s likely that most of those new hires won’t have the full year of classroom training or the 30 college credits in education courses needed to earn a state credential.

Other than making teaching salaries more competitive with the private sector, many people in the education community believe there is little the district can do to improve the situation.

“They’re not filling vacancies,” said one former LAUSD administrator. “They’re just putting bodies in there. It exacerbates the problems.”

To fill its 4,000 openings with as many experienced teachers as possible, the district is launching a $250,000 ad campaign aimed at recent college graduates with education degrees and teachers currently working in other districts.

The effort is among the first of its kind undertaken by the LAUSD. It will feature billboard and broadcast ads along with the posting of jobs on well-trafficked employment Web sites. In the campaign, officials plan to sell the L.A. campuses as places of great potential where a dedicated teacher can make a difference, despite the district’s troubled reputation.

“Some people have a concept that it’s dangerous here, and they don’t want to come to work in L.A.,” said Antonio Garcia, director of teacher recruitment for LAUSD. “But we have strictly enforced school safety and lots of alternative programs for troubled kids.”

School board President Genethia Hayes, an adamant reformer since her election, supports the idea of pitching the campuses as places that aren’t as bad as people might think.

“The district has to do a better job of getting the good news out,” Hayes said. “Even with the low test scores, that doesn’t mean we aren’t turning corners.”

Despite the negative perceptions, there is no shortage of applicants for open teaching positions. About 20,000 people apply every year to fill as many as 6,000 spots. But the majority are mid-career professionals who may have been fired or hit by downsizing at their previous positions, or college students who want to teach but don’t have the money to spend an extra year earning their education credentials.

To get those people on board as quickly as possible, the district grants them an emergency teaching credential under the condition that they will eventually take enough classes to earn state certification.

Money changes everything

Asked what is needed most to attract experienced teachers, a number of people gave a one-word answer: money. Given the booming economy and low unemployment, it’s clear that the more the district offers, the better its chances of attracting experienced educators.

“The brightest students today are going into business or law, not teaching,” said one 35-year veteran of the school district. “And money is driving that.”

College professors point out that there aren’t as many students as there used to be in teaching programs, and it’s getting harder to make the argument that bright people should become teachers when the pay gap widens every year.

“The people we see here are some of the most dedicated teachers I’ve seen in years,” said William McComas, associate professor of science education at USC. “But what about the folks we don’t see?”

Nonetheless, money is one thing the district isn’t offering. Two weeks ago, the school board decided to offer teachers a 6 percent raise far less than the 21 percent the union is demanding to better compete with other districts in L.A. County.

With a starting salary of $32,558, Los Angeles schools rank 12th among districts in the county. LAUSD officials say they will make up for the lack of money with support, specifically through a free program offered to help non-credentialed teachers attain state certification.

“There are many emergency teachers who are extraordinary,” said Hayes. “It only becomes a problem when we don’t support them and help them get their credentials.”

Success story

Marvin Miranda is one young teacher who felt a lack of support from the district when he was hired on an emergency basis four years ago. A graduate of Notre Dame, he was hired less than 24 hours after applying for a teaching job.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” the 26-year-old Miranda said about his first day at work. Taking over halfway through the year, he found himself in front of a second-grade class full of apathetic kids who seemed determined to make his life hell. “Within four hours, I wanted to cry, take off and never come back,” he said.

Miranda eventually settled in, but school officials say they want to do all they can to make sure other emergency teachers have an easier time. Part of that involves the program aimed at helping emergency teachers earn credentials.

Garcia said 95 percent of the teachers who take advantage of the program eventually earn credentials, and as many as 90 percent stay in the teaching profession for several more years.

But a number of emergency hires don’t pursue a credential because they’re simply trying to make some money while peddling their screenplay or waiting for a break in their chosen profession. For those people, earning credentials is beside the point.

(Under current LAUSD policy, teachers can take up to 15 years to complete a credentialing program, though administrators plan to start limiting that to five years in order to eliminate some of the less motivated teachers.)

“We need a system in place to weed people out,” said Hayes. “We don’t need teachers who are waiting to be discovered.”