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Welcome to the First
Monthly Publication of the Policy Brief.
The purpose of this brief is to provide a resource for teacher
education professionals, administrators and students, from which
teacher preparation, recruitment, retention and renewal programs
and policies can be developed. As a service to the members of
the National Association of Community College Teacher Education
Programs, this document synthesizes the most up-to-date national
information specifically affecting current teacher education
initiatives. The Policy Brief is developed by the National Center
for Teacher Education of the Maricopa Community Colleges. |
Penalizing Diverse Schools?
The purpose of the No Child Left Behind Act is to raise student achievement,
nationwide. To accomplish this goal, the act requires various student sub-groups
to be tested and display progress in every school across the nation. In demographically
diverse schools, local educators must assess the performance of several sub-groups:
each ethnic group, students with limited English, those with disabilities and
children from low-income families.
According to a new study, thousands of schools in California are falling short
of the No Child Left Behind standards. This is not due to low achievement, but
rather because their student diversity triggers federal sanctions more readily
than less diverse schools.
The study found that the percentage of schools that met their Adequate Yearly
Progress (AYP) goals were indirectly correlated to the number of student subgroups
they were comprised of. In other words, the more diverse the school, the less
likely they were to meet their AYP goals. Additionally, schools that served lower
income families and their children, on average, were less likely to achieve their
AYP growth targets.
Failing just one of approximately 20 separate targets brings federal sanctions,
from allowing parents to choose another school, to replacing school staff if
performance does not improve.
These findings could have huge impacts on the already heated issues surrounding
the No Child Left Behind Act. Download the complete
study as an pdf.
Senate Democrats Introduce Higher Education Bill
On October 28, Democratic senators on t he Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
(HELP) Committee introduced S. 1793, a bill to reauthorize the Higher Education
Act (HEA) of 1965. The bill, dubbed the College Quality, Affordability, and Diversity
Improvement Act of 2003, represents the first major step toward HEA reauthorization
on the Senate side.
Schools of education have much at stake in the reauthorization. For example,
Tit le II of S. 1793 offers new initiatives and funding aimed at improving the
Teacher Quality Enhancement program. Funding for state and partnership grants
would grow to $300 million. Other competitive awards would provide support for
mentoring programs, housing incentives for teachers in certain communities, partnerships
between community colleges and 4-year institutions, training for paraprofessionals
to become teachers, and a leadership development program for principals and superintendents.
Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology is also reauthorized under
this title.
The state grant program is amended to better articulate links between teacher
preparation programs and the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of
2001, and collaboration between schools of education and local districts is encouraged.
| The bill, dubbed the College Quality, Affordability,
and Diversity Improvement Act of 2003, represents the first major step
toward HEA reauthorization on the
Senate side. |
The partnership grant program is redesigned to improve preparation and induction
programs through enhanced clinical experiences, better professional development
opportunities, and paid internships for students who have already completed a
4-year degree. Language calls for only the “highest performing” education
schools in a state— those with at least 80% of their graduates having
passed states’ tests—to be eligible to compete for this funding.
In all, authorized spending on Title II would grow to $650 million. Beyond the
new competitive grant programs, S. 1793 also includes the targeted, enhanced
loan-forgiveness bill adopted by the House of Representatives earlier this year.
Rules regarding teacher quality and other accountability measures are also modified
in this bill. S. 1793 calls on colleges and universities to report the percentage
of teaching candidates who pass each of the states’ tests, rather than
program completers recommended for licensure. States would then rank teacher
preparation programs according to these scores.
States would be required t o collect data from institutions on placement, faculty,
and tracking of graduates. Colleges would also have t o report the number of
students in their programs, hours of supervised “ practice teaching,” and
the faculty-student ratio in practice teaching. Unlike the approach favored in
t he House of Representatives, however, the proposed Senate language moves away
from holding education schools accountable for the success of their graduates
in raising K-12 test scores.
The Senate Democratic proposal would also f und a 2-year study of teacher education,
administered by the National Academy of Sciences, to develop a suggested core
curriculum in pedagogy for schools of education in areas such as learning, human
development, assessment, teaching strategies, and reading instruction. Previously,
Senate action had been limited to a single oversight hearing. The House of Representatives,
in contrast , has nearly completed its work on the legislation dividing it into
four separate parts and tackling all but the largest — student financial
aid—this year. The completed reauthorization of HEA is not anticipated
until the 109th Congress.
Reprinted with Permission from AACTE; BRIEFS, [December 8, 2003]. |
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