This from
AACTE:
On April 24, U.S. Secretary of
Education Arne Duncan announced that the
Department of Education will indeed move forward on publishing regulations that
the Obama Administration believes will transform teacher preparation for the
better. These regulations represent just one dimension of the Administration's
efforts to create a federal ratings system for
higher education. The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
(AACTE) agrees wholeheartedly with Secretary Duncan that teacher preparation
programs are a critical component of the U.S. educator pipeline. We disagree,
however, about the current state of teacher preparation and what the
appropriate federal role should be.
First, the teacher preparation field is
already on an upward trajectory toward ensuring that every teacher candidate is
profession-ready—through the increased use of valid and reliable performance
assessments, the development of new robust professional accreditation standards
and extensive reforms in multiple states. Furthermore, it is disappointing to
see that the Administration is exercising unilateral executive authority to
implement its priorities for teacher preparation rather than working with Congress
to deliberate and act on these very important issues, which are central to the
reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA).
AACTE has long advocated for Congress
to reauthorize Title II of HEA to overhaul the current reporting requirements
for institutions of higher education to make them more meaningful to both
teacher preparation programs and the public. We, along with many higher
education and PK-12 organizations, strongly support Senator Jack Reed's (D-RI)
and Representative Mike Honda's (D-CA) Educator Preparation Reform Act,
a bill that reauthorizes Title II and updates the TEACH grants. Unfortunately,
the Administration's proposal is likely to differ significantly from that bill.
In 2012, following negotiated
rulemaking sessions on teacher preparation, AACTE and the Higher Education Task
Force on Teacher Preparation raised several concerns
about the Department's proposal for defining a "high-quality program"
in the TEACH grant statute. The proposal represented a significant overreach of
federal authority in the teacher preparation arena, essentially requiring every
state to rate its preparation programs, to use metrics that are problematic, to
heavily employ PK-12 value-added data based on the students of program graduates
and to tie student eligibility for federal financial aid to the rating of the
preparation program—and offering no resources to states to undertake this
significant effort.
In addition, it is curious that the
Department is moving on the regulations at this time, seven years after the
TEACH grant program was authorized. The Department has yet to share any
meaningful data with the public about the use and impact of the TEACH grants.
The limited data AACTE has been able to collect show that tens of thousands of
teacher candidates are using these grants to support their preparation, and
graduates are already teaching in high-need schools and high-need subject areas
(a requirement of the grants). Given that the grants seem to be doing what they
were intended to do, which is recruit high performers (who must maintain a 3.25
GPA during their preparation) to become teachers in high-need schools and
subject areas; given that Congress is already deliberating on the federal role
in accountability for teacher preparation; and given that so many states
already have developed or are in the process of developing meaningful systems
of determining teacher preparation program quality, we question the utility of
this federal intervention.
While we are eager to see what these
new regulations include when they are released in the coming months, we are not
optimistic that they will be significantly different from what the Department
put forward in 2012. Our members look forward to engaging with the Office of
Management and Budget, the Department, the Congress and the broader education
community over the coming months as the proposal moves forward.
Sharon
P. Robinson, Ed.D., president and CEO of the American Association of Colleges
for Teacher Education
2 comments:
Federal government has about as much expertise and constitutional responsibility for state university programs as a spoiled three year old has responsibility over family finances. They can't even address their constitutional responsibilities (diplomacy, board defense, treasury, etc)effectively, why screw up that which they have not constitutional basis.
Federal government has about as much expertise and constitutional responsibility for state university programs as a spoiled three year old has responsibility over family finances. They can't even address their constitutional responsibilities (diplomacy, board defense, treasury, etc)effectively, why screw up that which they have not constitutional basis.
Post a Comment