A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Efforts to Address Our Teacher Quality Challenges

The challenges are great, but efforts at the federal, state, and local levels to address them are making a difference.

Efforts throughout the Nation

States, higher education institutions, and school districts are taking steps to improve teaching. The following are major national efforts to address teacher quality:

• INTASC (Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium)—developing performance-based assessments for the initial licensing of teachers.
• National Board for Professional Teaching Standards—establishing voluntary standards and assessments for highly accomplished teaching; many states and districts provide support for teachers to undergo the rigorous procedure to become National Board certified.
• NCATE (National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education) and TEAC (Teacher Education Accreditation Council) —establishing standards for colleges of education as part of voluntary national accreditation systems.
• Holmes Partnership, the National Network for Educational Renewal, the Renaissance Group, Project 30 and others—reforming teacher education through partnerships between higher education and K-12 schools.
• National Commission on Teaching and America's Future—working in partnership with 12 states that have committed to implementing the Commission's recommendations from its 1998 report on teacher quality; the Commission has designed a policy inventory that states can use as a starting point for developing comprehensive strategies to improve the quality of their teaching force.
• Recruiting New Teachers, Inc.—providing information to prospective teachers, conducting policy research on innovative pathways into teaching, and providing technical assistance to states and districts.

Strategies of the U.S. Department of Education

The U.S. Department of Education is working aggressively to improve the quality of teaching in America's schools and has organized its efforts around the following six strategies. (Overhead 23)

• Strengthen the Recruitment, Preparation, and Support of New Teachers

  Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant programs (authorized under Title II of the Higher Education Act) support comprehensive reforms in state policies; partnerships among higher education institutions, schools of arts and sciences, and high-need school districts to improve teacher education programs; and state and local efforts to recruit qualified teachers for high-need schools.

  The Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology initiative provides grants to build the capacity of teacher preparation institutions to ensure that new teachers are prepared to integrate technology effectively into the curriculum.

  A Contextual Teaching and Learning project is studying, designing, and disseminating teacher preparation and professional development models that prepare teachers to help students make connections between what they are learning and its value in their lives in and beyond school.

  A proposed National Job Bank and Clearinghouse on Teacher Recruitment would link teachers with the schools that need them and provide information on successful teacher recruitment programs and policies.

  A proposed Transition to Teaching program would recruit retired military personnel and other mid-career professionals into teaching.

  A National Awards Program for Model Teacher Preparation is being developed to highlight exemplary teacher preparation programs.

  The High Standards to the Classroom initiative, proposed as part of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, includes professional development grants to school/college partnerships, with a focus on induction support for new teachers.

• Strengthen Standards in the Profession

  The Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) is developing standards for initial teacher licensure for general and special educators.

  A National Study of Teacher Testing by the National Academy of Sciences will analyze the current state of teacher testing, recommend ways to improve existing tests, and suggest viable alternatives.

  The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards is working to complete the development of assessments and to increase the number of highly accomplished teachers certified by the National Board.

• Improve Professional Development

  The Eisenhower Professional Development Program provides grants to states, school districts, and higher education institutions to support high-quality professional development activities aligned with challenging state student performance standards.

  The National Awards Program for Model Professional Development disseminates exemplary models of professional development by identifying schools and school districts whose professional development has led to increased student achievement.

  The proposed High Standards to the Classroom initiative would succeed Eisenhower, Goals 2000, and Title VI and focus on the type of professional development teachers and administrators say they need most: sustained, intensive, collaborative, and standards-based.

• Strengthen School Leadership

  The proposed High Standards to the Classroom initiative includes support for innovative ways to recruit, prepare, and support principals as instructional leaders. The Department is also considering additional ways to support strong leadership in schools.

• Support Research, Development, and Dissemination

  The Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, a consortium of universities, focuses on ways education policies can improve the recruitment and retention of capable teachers, develop their knowledge and skills, and support teachers' work and student learning simultaneously.

  The National Partnership for Excellence and Accountability in Teaching (NPEAT) brings together states, school districts, higher education institutions, professional organizations, and other stakeholders across the nation to support effective strategies to prepare, induct, and provide career-long professional development for K-12 teachers.

• Increase Awareness and Measure Our Progress

  Speeches by Education Secretary Richard Riley—including the National Press Club address on September 15, 1998 and the State of American Education speech on February 16, 1999—have focused increasingly on the issue of teacher quality.

  Conferences on Teacher Quality will include a conference for college and university presidents that emphasizes their leadership role in improving teacher education, day-long institutes on teacher development for deans at the regional Improving America's Schools Conferences, a larger National Conference on Teacher Quality, and follow-up summer institutes for faculty teams from higher education institutions.

  The Biennial National Report on Teacher Quality, first issued in January 1999, will constantly refocus public attention on the teaching profession and provide a way to measure the nation's progress in recruiting, preparing, and retaining good teachers.

[Challenges from the U.S. Secretary of Education]

[Next Steps for Communities]