$5 Billion in Grants Offered to Revisit Teacher Policies
By WINNIE HU
Published: February 15, 2012
The Obama administration will propose a $5 billion competitive grant program to encourage states to overhaul the teaching profession, federal education officials said Tuesday, using its Race to the Top school improvement competition as a model.
Darron Cummings/Associated Press
Education Secretary Arne Duncan backs the proposed grant program.
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Katherine Jones/The Idaho Statesman, via Associated Press
Dennis Van Roekel, president of the largest teachers' union, also supports the proposed program.
The new program, which needs Congressional approval, is part ofPresident Obama’s budget proposal and expands upon a call in his State of the Union addresslast month to give schools more resources “to keep good teachers on the job and reward the best ones.”
Federal education officials said the program would seek to bring together state and district officials, union leaders, teachers and other educators to address a range of issues, among them tightening tenure rules, increasing salaries