Feds ready new regs on teacher prep programs :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet

Feds ready new regs on teacher prep programs :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

Feds ready new regs on teacher prep programs

(District of Columbia) Expectations are that U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan will release a controversial rewrite of regulations governing teacher preparation programs before leaving office in December.



The rules, under development since 2014, are in response to concerns of the Obama administration that too many teachers come into the classroom unprepared and end up leaving the profession after only a few years.



The draft regulations circulated for public comment last year drew criticism from teacher unions by putting too much emphasis on student test scores as an indicator of educator performance. Some state officials were also concerned that the changes called for in the new regulations would be expensive to carry out – probably far more than the $42 million that the Department of Education has estimated.



Duncan has called improving university and other training programs a “morale issue” as beginning teachers “too often struggle at the beginning of their career and have to figure out too much by themselves,” he said in a 2014 conference call with the press.



Among the requirements, states would need to grade training providers and survey graduates about their education. Contact would also be made with school districts hiring the new teachers to learn about how each has performed.



The rules come forward as the teaching profession is being challenged from a number of directions. With districts nationally mostly recovered from the recession, fewer college students are entering preparation programs – so much so that many districts are having trouble filling open positions.



Some experts believe the hangover from layoffs continues to plague the profession but others have said the status of the classroom educator has been damaged in recent years by criticism that teachers are to blame for poor student performance.



Although there appears little to stop the administration from issuing the new rules, opponents of the regulations have said they can do something about stopping enforcement. American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, for instance, is calling on its members to write their representatives Feds ready new regs on teacher prep programs :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet: