Teacher Training Programs
Activities Underway to Improve Teacher Training, but Information Collected To Assess Accountability Has Limitations Gao ID: GAO-03-197T October 9, 2002In 1998, the Congress amended the Higher Education Act (HEA) to enhance the quality of teaching in the classroom by improving training programs for prospective teachers and the qualifications of current teachers. This testimony focuses on two components of the legislation: one that provides grants and another, called the "accountability provisions," that requires collecting and reporting information on the quality of all teacher training programs and qualifications of current teachers. The Subcommittee asked that we provide information on (1) activities grantees supported and what results are associated with these activities and (2) whether the information collected under the accountability provisions provides the basis to assess the quality of teacher training programs and the qualifications of current teachers.
Education has approved or awarded 123 grants to states and partnerships totaling over $460 million dollars. Grantees have used funds for activities they believe will improve teaching in their locality or state, but it is too early to determine the grants' effects on the quality of teaching in the classroom. While the law allows many activities to be funded under broad program goals outlined in the legislation, most grantees have focused their efforts on reforming requirements for teachers, providing professional development to current teachers, and recruiting new teachers. However, within these general areas, grantees efforts vary. The information collected as part of the accountability provisions to report on the quality of teacher training programs and the qualifications of current teachers has limitations. The accountability provisions require that all institutions that train teachers who receive federal student financial aid provide information to their states on their teacher training programs and program graduates. In order to facilitate the collection of this information, the HEA required Education to develop definitions for terms and uniform reporting methods. Education officials told us that they made significant efforts to define these terms so that the terms incorporated the uniqueness of teacher training programs, state reporting procedures, and data availability. In doing so, Education defined some terms broadly. Education officials told us that this gave states and institutions discretion to interpret some terms as they wished--resulting in the collection and reporting information that was not uniform; making it difficult to assess accountability. Our nation's teachers are inextricably linked to student achievement. This bond highlights the importance of teacher preparation programs. The grants and accountability provisions established by the HEA seek to improve teacher training, but information collected to assess accountability has limitations.
GAO-03-197T, Teacher Training Programs: Activities Underway to Improve Teacher Training, but Information Collected To Assess Accountability Has Limitations
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GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-03-197T, a testimony before the Subcommittee
on 21ST Century Competitiveness, Committee on Education and the
Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives:
October 2002:
TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMS:
Activities Underway to Improve Teacher Training, but Information
Collected to Assess Accountability Has Limitations:
Why GAO Did This Study:
In 1998, the Congress amended the Higher Education Act (HEA) to
enhance
the quality of teaching in the classroom by improving training
programs
for prospective teachers and the qualifications of current teachers.
This testimony focuses on two components of the legislation: one
that
provides grants and another, called the ’accountability provisions,“
that requires collecting and reporting information on the
quality of
all teacher training programs and qualifications of current teachers.
The Subcommittee asked that we provide information on (1) activities
grantees supported and what results are associated with these
activities
and (2) whether the information collected under the accountability
provisions provides the basis to assess the quality of teacher training
programs and the qualifications of current teachers.
What GAO Found:
Education has approved or awarded 123 grants to states and partnerships
totaling over $460 million dollars. Grantees have used funds for
activities they believe will improve teaching in their locality or
state, but it is too early to determine the grants‘ effects on the
quality of teaching in the classroom. While the law allows many
activities
to be funded under broad program goals outlined in the legislation,
most
grantees have focused their efforts on reforming requirements for
teachers, providing professional development to current teachers, and
recruiting new teachers. However, within these general areas, grantees‘
efforts vary.
[See PDF for image]
Early exposure to teaching is a recruitment strategy used by several
grantees.
[End of figure]
The information collected as part of the accountability provisions to
report on the quality of teacher training programs and the
qualifications
of current teachers has limitations. The accountability provisions
require
that all institutions that train teachers who receive federal student
financial aid provide information to their states on their teacher
training programs and program graduates. In order to facilitate the
collection of this information, the HEA required Education to develop
definitions for terms and uniform reporting methods. Education
officials
told us that they made significant efforts to define these terms so
that
the terms incorporated the uniqueness of teacher training programs,
state
reporting procedures, and data availability. In doing so, Education
defined some terms broadly. Education officials told us that this gave
states and institutions discretion to interpret some terms as they
wished”resulting in the collection and reporting of information that
was
not uniform; making it difficult to assess accountability.
Our nation‘s teachers are inextricably linked to student achievement.
This bond highlights the importance of teacher preparation programs.
The grants and accountability provisions established by the HEA seek to
improve teacher training, but information collected to assess
accountability
has limitations.
The full testimony statement is available at www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/
getrpt?GAO-03-197T. For additional information about this testimony,
contact Cornelia M. Ashby, (202-512-8403).
Testimony:
Before the Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness, Committee on
Education and the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives:
United States General Accounting Office:
GAO:
For Release on Delivery Expected at 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, October 9, 2002:
Teacher Training Programs:
Activities Underway to Improve Teacher Training, but Information
Collected To Assess Accountability Has Limitations:
Statement of Cornelia M. Ashby, Director
Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues:
GAO-03-197T:
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I appreciate the opportunity to testify on the preparation of teacher
candidates and related provisions in Title II of the Higher Education
Act (HEA). The Department of Education‘s National Center for Education
Statistics recently reported that most teacher training programs leave
new teachers feeling unprepared for the classroom. Because recent
research reports that teachers are the most important factor in
increasing student achievement, the quality of teacher training is
critical. In 1998, the Congress amended the HEA to enhance the quality
of teaching in the classroom by improving training programs for
prospective teachers and the qualifications of current teachers. Among
other purposes, Title II of the legislation provides teacher quality
enhancement grants to states or partnerships and, under the
’accountability provisions,“ the legislation requires collecting and
reporting information on the quality of teacher training programs and
the qualifications of current teachers.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, the Ranking Minority Member of the full
Committee along with the Chairman, Senate Committee on Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions, asked us to review some of the Title II
provisions. We plan on issuing a report in December. Today I will
briefly discuss our results relating to whether the grants and
reporting requirements found in Title II of HEA are contributing to
improving the quality of teaching in the classroom. Specifically, I
will discuss (1) Title II grantee activities and what results are
associated with these activities and (2) whether the information
collected under the accountability provisions provide the basis to
assess the quality of teacher training programs and the qualifications
of current teachers. To learn about grant activities, we surveyed 91
grantees, the total at the time of our survey, and conducted 33 site
visits[Footnote 1] in 11 states--California, Connecticut, Georgia,
Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, Rhode Island,
Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin. Grantees in these states were selected
because they represented almost half of the total grant funding at the
time, were providing a range of grant activities, and were
geographically dispersed. We also interviewed Education officials and
experts on teaching and teacher training. In addition, we reviewed
relevant literature, regulations, and department documents. We did our
work between December 2001 and October 2002 in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.
In summary:
Grantees have used their funds for activities they believe will improve
teaching in their locality or state. While the law allows many
activities to be funded under broad program goals outlined in the
legislation, most grantees have focused their efforts on reforming
requirements for teachers, providing professional development to
current teachers, and recruiting new teachers. Within these general
areas, grantees‘ efforts vary. However, it is too early to determine
the grants‘ effects on the quality of teaching in the classroom.
The information collected as part of the accountability provisions to
report on the quality of teacher training programs and the
qualifications of current teachers has limitations. The accountability
provisions require that all institutions that train teachers who
receive federal student financial aid--not just those receiving teacher
quality enhancement grants--provide information to their states on
their teacher training programs and program graduates. In order to
facilitate the collection of this information, the legislation required
Education to develop key definitions for terms and uniform reporting
methods, including the definitions for the consistent reporting of
’pass rates.“ Education officials told us that they made significant
efforts to define these terms so that the terms incorporated the
uniqueness of teacher training programs, state reporting procedures,
and data availability. In doing so, Education defined some terms
broadly. Education officials told us that this gave states and
institutions discretion to interpret some terms as they wished--
resulting in the collection and reporting of information that was not
uniform; making it difficult to assess accountability.
Background:
Over $460 million has been approved or awarded for grants under the
1998 HEA amendments to enhance the quality of teacher training programs
and the qualifications of current teachers. Three types of grants were
made available--state, partnership, and recruitment grants. State
grants are available for states to implement activities to improve
teacher quality in the state.[Footnote 2] The legislation requires that
states receive a state grant only once and that the grants must be
competitively awarded. Partnership grants must include at least three
partners--teacher training programs, colleges of arts and sciences, and
eligible local school districts[Footnote 3]--to receive partnership
grants to improve teacher quality through collaborative activities.
Partnerships may also include other groups, such as state educational
agencies, businesses and nonprofit educational organizations, as
partners. Recruitment grants are available to states or partnerships
for activities, such as scholarships, to help recruit teachers.
In addition to the grants, the 1998 HEA amendments include an annual
reporting requirement on the quality of teacher training programs and
the qualifications of current teachers. This component of the
legislation, called the accountability provisions, requires an annual
three-stage process to collect and report information in a uniform and
comprehensible manner. The legislation requires that Education, in
consultation with states and teacher training institutions, develop
definitions and uniform reporting methods related to the performance of
teacher training programs. In the first stage, nearly every institution
that prepares teachers--not just those receiving teacher quality
enhancement grants--is required to collect and report specific
information to its state, including the pass rate of the institution‘s
’graduates“ on state teacher certification examinations. Then, in the
second stage, states are required to report to Education the pass rate
information institutions reported in the first stage, supplemented with
additional statewide information, including a description of state
certification examinations and the extent to which teachers in the
state are teaching on waivers--teaching without being fully certified.
The third and final stage is comprised of a report to the Congress from
the Secretary of Education on the quality of teacher training programs
and the qualifications of current teachers. The first round of
institutional reports were submitted to states in April 2001;
subsequently, state reports were submitted to Education in October
2001. Using this information, the Secretary of Education reported to
the Congress in June 2002.[Footnote 4]
How one determines the quality of teacher training programs and the
qualifications of current teachers has long been debated. The debate is
currently centered on the best way to train teachers: the traditional
approach, which typically includes extensive courses in subject matter
and pedagogy,[Footnote 5] or alternative training methods that either
1) accelerate the process of training teachers by reducing courses in
pedagogy or 2) allow uncertified teachers to teach while receiving
their training at night or on weekends. This debate is further
complicated because the requirements for teacher training programs and
current teachers varies by state. Every state sets its own requirements
for teacher certification, such as which certification
examination(s)[Footnote 6] a teacher candidate must take, what score is
considered passing on this examination, and how many hours teacher
candidates must spend student teaching--practice teaching during their
teacher preparation program--in order to become a fully certified
teacher in that state. In this way a teacher who is fully certified in
one state may not meet the qualifications for certification in another
state. For example, in Virginia and Mississippi, teacher candidates are
required to take the same test to be certified to teach high school
mathematics. But teacher candidates in Virginia must score 178 (50th
percentile of all test takers) to pass the examination, whereas in
Mississippi candidates must score 169 (20th percentile).
While the 1998 HEA amendments provided grants and established reporting
requirements to improve the quality of teacher training programs and
the qualifications of current teachers, it was not until the recent No
Child Left Behind Act that the Congress defined a highly qualified
teacher.[Footnote 7] For the purposes of that act, the legislation
defines highly qualified teachers as those who have demonstrated
knowledge or competence in their subject matter, hold bachelors
degrees, and are fully certified to teach in their state.[Footnote 8]
Grantees Used Funds for a Range of Activities, but It Is Not Yet Known
if These Activities Will Affect the Quality of Teaching:
Grantees used funds for activities they believe will improve teaching
in their locality or state, but it is too early to determine the
grants‘ effects on the quality of teaching in the classroom. While the
law allows many activities to be funded, our survey and site visits
showed that most grantees have focused their efforts on reforming
requirements for teachers, providing professional development to
current teachers, and recruiting new teachers. Some positive
information about the results of these activities has been reported by
grantees. For example, recruitment grantees have told us that they have
been able to recruit more teachers into their programs since the
inception of the grant program.
Grantees Used Funds for a Variety of Activities:
The legislation outlines broad program goals for improving the quality
of teaching with grant funds, but provides grantees with the
flexibility to decide the most suitable approach for improving
teaching. Grantees focused on a combination of activities, and in our
survey, we found that 85 percent of the respondents were using their
grant funds to reform the requirements for teachers, 85 percent were
using their grant funds for professional development and support for
current teachers, and 72 percent were using their grant funds for
recruitment efforts. However, within these general areas, grantees‘
efforts varied.
Reforming Requirements for Teachers:
Most grantees reported using their funds to reform requirements for
teachers. Since every state sets its own requirements for teacher
certification, such as how many hours a teacher candidate must spend
student teaching to become a fully certified teacher in that state,
some state grantees reported using their funds to reform the
certification requirements for teachers in their state. Grantees also
reported using their funds to allow teacher training programs, and
colleges of arts and sciences to collaborate with local school
districts to reform the requirements for teacher training programs to
ensure that teacher candidates are trained appropriately. Some examples
of these reforms include:
* Requirements for teacher certification. During our site visits we
found that many state grantees are reforming their state certification
requirements to ensure that new teachers have the necessary teaching
skills and knowledge in the subject areas in which they will teach. For
example, Illinois does not currently have a separate middle school
(grades 5 through 9) certification. Most middle school teachers in
Illinois are instead certified to teach elementary or high school.
However, recognizing that this does not adequately address the
preparation needs of middle school teachers, state officials intend to
use the grant to create a new certification for middle school teachers.
This new certification would require middle school teachers to
demonstrate specialized knowledge of how to best instruct adolescents.
* Requirements for teacher training programs. Many teacher training
programs reported that they were reforming the requirements for teacher
candidates by revising the required coursework. For example, the grant
officials from the Massachusetts Coalition for Teacher Quality and
Student Achievement reported that they wanted to provide teacher
candidates with exposure to schools earlier than was typical in
training programs. To do so, they revised their curriculum so that some
of their required teacher preparation courses were set in public
schools, giving teacher candidates an opportunity to experience the
school environment prior to student teaching. Boston College officials
expressed that this strategy would increase the chances that these
teachers would be successful.
Professional Development and Support for Current Teachers:
Many grantees reported having high teacher turnover and saw a need for
providing professional development and other support in order to retain
current teachers. The primary goal of professional development
activities is to provide training and support for current teachers with
the intention of improving their skills and retaining them in the
classroom. Grantees supported a variety of activities that provided
professional development and support, such as providing coursework
towards an advanced degree and assigning mentor teachers to new
teachers.
During our site visits, we found that mentoring was the most common
professional development activity. Of the 33 grant sites we visited, 23
grants (70 percent) were conducting mentoring activities. Many of the
grantees we visited reported that mentoring programs are beneficial to
the mentor teacher as well as the new teacher. The mentor can coach the
new teacher on how best to instruct students and adjust to his or her
job. In return, a mentor teacher may benefit from additional training
and compensation. Some grantees used their funds to establish a mentor
training program to ensure that mentors had consistent guidance on ways
to help new teachers. For example, Rhode Island used its grant funds to
allow two experienced teachers to tour the state to provide training to
future mentor teachers and help schools set up mentoring programs.
Officials in Rhode Island believed this was an effective way to ensure
that new teachers receive quality support.
Recruiting New Teachers:
Many grantees reported having a teacher shortage in their area and used
the grant funds to develop various teacher-recruiting programs. Of the
grant sites we visited, most grantees were using their funds to fill
teachers shortages in urban schools or to recruit new teachers from
non-traditional sources--mid-career professionals, community college
students, and middle and high school students.
The following are examples of grantees using their funds to fill
shortages in urban areas or to recruit new teachers from non-
traditional sources:
* Recruiting for urban school districts. Grantees that were
experiencing a teacher shortage in their urban schools often provided
various incentives for teacher candidates to commit to teaching in
urban environments. For example, ’Project SITE SUPPORT“[Footnote 9]
housed at the Johns Hopkins University recruits teacher candidates with
an undergraduate degree to teach in a local school district with a
critical need for teachers while, at the same time, earning their
masters in education. The program offers tuition assistance and in some
cases, the district pays a full teacher salary. As part of the terms of
the stipend, teachers are required to continue teaching in the local
school district for 3 years after completing the program. Grant
officials told us that this program prepares teacher candidates for
teaching in an urban environment and makes it more likely that they
will remain in the profession.
* Recruiting mid-career professionals. Many grantees targeted mid-
career professionals by offering an accelerated teacher training
program. For example, the Teacher Recruitment and Induction Project at
Southwest Texas State University offered scholarships to mid-career
professionals to offset the cost of classes required for teacher
certification. The scholarships paid for a 1-year, full-time program
that results in a teaching certificates and 18 hours of graduate level
credits for teacher candidates. Grantee officials told us that because
the grant covers the Austin, Texas area--an area with many technology
organizations--they have been able to recruit highly skilled
individuals who can offer a variety of real-life applications to many
of the classes they teach.
* Recruiting from community colleges. Some grantees have used their
funds to recruit teacher candidates at community colleges. For example,
National Louis University, one of the largest teacher training
institutions in Illinois, has partnered with six community colleges
around the state of Illinois so that the community colleges can offer
training that was not previously available. The grant pays for a
University faculty member to teach on each of the community college
campuses. This program allows community colleges in smaller, rural
communities to provide teacher training without teacher candidates
incurring the cost of attending National Louis University--a large
private university. The grant program official told us that school
districts in these areas will have a greater chance of recruiting new
teachers trained at one of these community colleges because they were
most likely to be from that community.
* Recruiting middle and high school students. Other grantees target
middle and high school students. For example, the Los Angeles Unified
School District develops programs to attract high school students to
the field of teaching. The majority of its grant resources has been
used to fund a paid 6-week high school internship for students to work
in the classroom with a teacher.[Footnote 10] The high school intern
spends most days with a teacher in the classroom. The intern‘s
activities could include helping the teacher correct papers and plan
activities. Once a week, interns have a class with a grant-funded
teacher on curriculum and lesson planning. The grant official told us
that the internship introduces younger people to teaching as a
profession and, therefore, may increase the chances that they will
become teachers in the future.
Figure 1: Recruitment Efforts to Attract Young People to the Field of
Teaching.
[See PDF for image]
Note: Early exposure to the classroom is a recruitment strategy used by
several grantees to introduce teaching as a profession.
Source: Archives from the U.S. Department of Education.
[End of figure]
It Is Too Early to Determine Grants‘ Effect on the Quality of Teaching
in the Classroom:
While grantees are using their funds on a number of activities, it is
too early to know whether these activities will affect the quality of
teaching in the classroom. Based on our survey, grantees reported that
some of the activities are having positive effects and that their grant
allowed them to support activities that would not have been possible
without grant funds. For example, some grantees have been able to
report on the number of teacher candidates served through their grant
programs. Many grantees also reported that the partnerships and
alliances formed through the grant program have had and will continue
to have positive effects on their ability to address the quality of
teaching in the classroom.
While the reported positive activities are encouraging, it is too early
to know how or if they will translate into high quality teaching in the
classroom. Many grantees we visited have not collected the types of
data, such as student achievement scores, needed to show the impact of
these activities on student learning. Those that have attempted to
collect these data needed to judge results are not yet in a position to
report their findings because these types of data require time to
collect, and the grant program is relatively new. Because these
activities address the quality of teaching, it will take time to see
the effects on student achievement.
Information Collected to Assess the Quality of Teacher Training
Programs and the Qualifications of Teachers has Limitations:
The information collected as part of the accountability provisions to
report on the quality of teacher training programs and the
qualifications of current teachers has limitations. The accountability
provisions require that all institutions that train teachers who
receive federal student financial aid--not just those receiving grants-
-provide information to their states on their teacher training programs
and program graduates.[Footnote 11] In order to facilitate the
collection of this information, the legislation required Education to
develop key definitions for terms and uniform reporting methods,
including the definitions for the consistent reporting of pass rates.
Education officials told us that they made significant efforts to
define these terms so that the terms incorporated the uniqueness of
teacher training programs, state reporting procedures, and data
availability. In doing so, Education defined some terms broadly.
Education officials told us that this gave states and institutions
discretion to interpret some terms as they wished--resulting in the
collection and reporting of information that was not uniform; making it
difficult to assess accountability.
The accountability provisions required states and institutions to
report information, such as the percentage of an institution‘s
graduates who pass the state certification examination, also known as
the pass rate. In order to gather information on the pass rate,
Education first needed to define graduate. Education officials told us
that in many teacher training programs, candidates do not graduate with
a degree in teacher training, but rather receive a certificate.
Therefore Education did not define graduate but rather created the term
’program completer“ to encompass all teacher training candidates. The
table below explains our analysis of the information the legislation
required to be collected, the way that Education defined selected terms
to collect the information, and the reporting implications of
Education‘s definitions.
Table 1: Definitions for Collection of Accountability Provision
Information:
Term: Graduate; Legislative Requirements: To identify the percentage of
all graduates at a teacher training institution who successfully passed
the state certification examination(s).; Education‘s Definition:
Education did not define the term graduate, but rather used the term
’program completer“ and defined it as someone who has met the
requirements of a state approved teacher-training program.; Reporting
Implications: Some institutions only reported candidates who completed
all course work and passed the state certification examination. In
calculating the pass rate, these institutions did not include those
students who passed the course work but failed the examination. As a
result institutions reported a 100% pass rate, which is not informative
to the Congress or the public on the quality of the teacher training
programs at those institutions.
Term: Waiver; Legislative Requirements: To identify the number of
teachers who are teaching without state certification, including those
on temporary or emergency permits, those pursuing an alternative route
to certification or those teaching as long-term substitutes.;
Education‘s Definition: Any temporary or emergency permit, license or
other authorization that permits an individual to teach in a public
school classroom without having received an initial certificate or
license (as defined by the state) from that state or any other state.;
Reporting Implications: Some states defined an initial certificate or
license so broadly that it allowed them to report few or no teachers as
teaching on waivers.
Term: Alternative route to certification
or licensure; Legislative Requirements: To identify a route to
certification that is not a regular teacher training program.;
Education‘s Definition: As defined by the state.; Reporting
Implications: Some states defined alternative route so narrowly, which
allowed them to report that few teachers had taken an alternative route
to certification.
Source: GAO Analysis of legislation, Department regulations, and state
Title II reports.
[End of table]
Thus, using definitions provided by Education, states and institutions
could report information that made their programs seem more successful
than they might have been. Institutions could inflate their pass rate
by reporting only on those teacher candidates who completed all
coursework and passed the state teacher certification examination
without including any information on teacher candidates who completed
all coursework but failed the examination--thus ensuring a 100-percent
pass rate. During our review, we found that a few states and many
institutions are inflating their pass rates to 100-percent. For
instance, we found that in at least three state reports to Education,
every institution reported 100-percent pass rates. Those institutions
included in their calculations only those teacher candidates they
determined to be program completers--those who passed the state
certification examination and met the state‘s other requirements--
excluding those who failed the examination. While requiring teacher
candidates to pass the state certification examination as part of a
teacher training program is not, in and of itself a problem, reporting
on only those candidates who pass the test does not provide the basis
to assess the quality of teacher training programs and the
qualifications of current teachers.
In other instances, Education allowed states to define some terms from
the legislation in a way that was applicable to their state because of
the variability in how states defined and collected information on some
terms. This allowed states to define some terms so that they could cast
the quality of their teacher training programs and the qualifications
of their current teachers in the most positive light. For example, the
accountability provisions required that states report on the number of
teachers on waivers. Because Education allowed each state to define
initial certificate or license for itself, each state reported
different information in its waiver count. Figure 2 presents
information from three neighboring states--Maryland, Virginia, and
Washington, D.C.--with different definitions of certification leading
to variations in who was included in their waiver count. The degree of
this variation from state to state is unknown. Thus, the data collected
for the Congress does not present an accurate account of teachers who
are not fully certified.
Figure 2: Criteria for Waiver Calculations Varies among Three
Neighboring States:
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO Analysis of School Year 2000 State Title II Reports:
[End of figure]
In closing, Mr. Chairman, our nation‘s teachers are inextricably linked
to student achievement. This bond highlights the importance of teacher
preparation programs. During our review, we saw many examples of how
grant funds are being used to either recruit and prepare new teachers,
or develop and retain current teachers. However, due to the lack of
clearly defined terms by the Department, the information Education
collected and reported to the Congress under the accountability
provisions does not portray the quality of teacher training programs
and the qualifications of current teachers. At the request of the full
Committee and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions, we will continue our study of these issues and issue a report
in December.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I will be happy to respond
to any questions you or other members of the Committee may have.
Contacts and Acknowledgments:
For further information, please contact Cornelia M. Ashby at (202) 512-
8403. Individuals making key contributions to this testimony include
Kelsey Bright, Sonya Harmeyer, Tamara Harris, and Anjali Tekchandani.
FOOTNOTES
[1] In addition to the site visits, we conducted a brief interview with
the director of another grant, the Renaissance Partnership for
Improving Teacher Quality, which consists of 30 institutions of higher
education located in 10 different states.
[2] All 50 states, Washington DC and 8 territories--the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of the
Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic
of Palau--are considered states under the HEA.
[3] School district eligibility is limited to those with (1) a high
percentage of students whose families fall below the poverty line and
(2) a high percentage of secondary school teachers not teaching in the
content area in which the teachers were trained to teach, or a high
teacher turnover rate.
[4] U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education,
Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge: The Secretary‘s Annual
Report on Teacher Quality, June 2002.
[5] Pedagogy is defined as the study of teaching methods. Courses on
pedagogy include training on how to best instruct students, but may
also include course work on classroom management skills--such as how to
maintain order in the classroom.
[6] Most states require teachers to take multiple state certification
examinations in order to become certified to teach in certain subject
areas.
[7] No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Public Law 107-110 sec. 9101
(23).
[8] Proposed departmental guidance on the definition of highly
qualified teachers includes participants in an alternative training
method who function as regular classroom teachers and are making
satisfactory progress toward full state certification.
[9] The acronym SITE SUPPORT stands for ’School Immersion Teacher
Education and School University Partnership to Prepare Outstanding and
Responsive Teachers.“
[10] The Los Angeles Unified School District operates on a year-round
basis, with staggered vacation schedules for students. Internships
occur during scheduled student vacations, allowing some students to
participate as interns during their vacation in other schools that are
in session.
[11] Institutions are required to report to their states on the
following: (1) pass rates, (2) program information--number of students
in the program, average number of hours of supervised practice teaching
required for those in the program, and the faculty-student ratio in
supervised practice teaching, and (3) a statement of whether the
institution‘s program is accredited by the state.
