Order Code RL31882
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants
(Title II, Part A of the Higher Education Act):
Overview and Reauthorization Issues
Updated July 23, 2003
James B. Stedman
Specialist in Social Legislation
Domestic Social Policy Division
Jeffrey J. Kuenzi
Analyst in Social Legislation
Domestic Social Policy Division
Bonnie F. Mangan
Technical Information Specialist
Domestic Social Policy Division
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress
Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants
(Title II, Part A of the Higher Education Act):
Overview and Reauthorization Issues
Summary
The Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants program (Title II, Part A of the
Higher Education Act) seeks to improve K-12 teacher preparation programs at higher
education institutions. The 108th Congress is considering this authority along with
the rest of the Higher Education Act (HEA) for reauthorization. On July 9, 2003, the
House passed legislation to amend and reauthorize HEA Title II (H.R. 2211, Ready
to Teach Act of 2003).
Title II Part A authorizes three types of competitively awarded grants — state
grants, partnership grants, and recruitment grants — with the annual appropriation
divided 45%, 45%, and 10% respectively among these kinds of grants. State grants
are one-time, 3-year grants for such activities as holding teacher preparation
programs accountable for quality of their graduates or reforming teacher certification
requirements. Partnership grants are one-time, 5-year grants to partnerships that must
include at least three entities:
an institution with a high performing teacher
preparation program, a school of arts and sciences, and a high need school district.
Among required uses are teacher preparation program accountability and professional
development.
Recruitment grants are one-time, 3-year grants to states or
partnerships, supporting scholarships with a teaching service requirement or activities
to recruit highly qualified teachers for high need districts and schools.
States receiving HEA funds must report annually on the quality of teacher
preparation, including information on the pass rates of graduates on initial
certification assessments.
Higher education institutions enrolling HEA-aided
students in their teacher preparation program must report annually detailing, among
other things, the certification exam pass rates of graduates. States must establish
procedures for identifying low-performing teacher preparation programs. If states
withdraw approval or funding due to this designation, the affected programs cannot
enroll students receiving HEA Title IV federal student aid.
During the HEA reauthorization process, the following grant-related issues may
be considered: program effectiveness; mandated division of the annual appropriation
when most states have received these one-time only grants; and the mix of kinds of
grants and kinds of activities. Issues regarding the general accountability provisions
may include: inconsistency across states in standards for identifying low-performing
teacher preparation programs; effectiveness of a pass rate-based accountability
framework for teacher preparation programs; the reporting by states and institutions
of 100% pass rates; and possible alternatives to the current framework.
Among its provisions, H.R. 2211 as passed by the House focuses on the
preparation and recruitment of highly qualified teachers as defined in the No Child
Left Behind Act of 2001, drops the one-time only limit on state grants, emphasizes
recruitment and preparation of minority teachers, somewhat expands activities
preparing teachers to use technology, and broadens the pool of students for whom
pass rates are calculated.
Contents
Recent Legislative Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Teacher Preparation by Higher Education Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Federal Involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
State Grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Partnership Grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Teacher Recruitment Grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Additional Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Implementation and Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant Programs — Accountability . . . . . . . 8
State Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Higher Education Institution Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Low-Performing Teacher Preparation Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Secretary’s Annual Report on the Quality of Teacher Preparation . . . . 9
Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Reauthorization Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Grant Program Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Effectiveness of the Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Funding Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Program and Activities Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Teacher Preparation Program Accountability Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Identification of Teacher Preparation Programs as
Low-Performing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Effectiveness of Accountability Based on Pass Rates . . . . . . . . . 11
Calculation of Pass Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Legislative Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
H.R. 2211 (Ready to Teach Act of 2003) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
General Features and Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
State Grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Partnership Grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Recruitment Grants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Accountability Provisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
List of Tables
Table 1. Appropriations for the Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant
Program, FY1999-FY2003 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants
(Title II, Part A of the Higher Education Act):
Overview and Reauthorization Issues
Recent Legislative Developments
On July 9, 2003, the House passed legislation to amend and reauthorize Title II
of the HEA (H.R. 2211, Ready to Teach Act of 2003). This legislation is discussed
in the concluding section of this report.
Introduction
As the 108th Congress engages in the process of reauthorizing the Higher
Education Act (HEA),1 it is likely to consider issues related to the quality of the K-12
public school teaching force.2 There is widespread awareness that the subject matter
knowledge and teaching skills of teachers play a central role in the success of
elementary and secondary education reform. Title II, Part A of the HEA includes
programs and provisions intended to improve the overall quality of the K-12 teacher
preparation programs currently administered by higher education institutions, hold
these programs accountable for the quality of their graduates, and strengthen
recruitment of highly qualified individuals to teaching.
This report provides an overview of the current programs and provisions of
HEA Title II, Part A, describes available information on their implementation,
identifies a number of the key issues that may be part of debate over the
reauthorization of this legislation, and concludes with an overview of HEA
reauthorization legislation affecting Title II, Part A. It begins with a discussion of the
broader context within which the reauthorization of HEA Title II, Part A will occur.
This report will be updated as major legislative action occurs.
1 For an overview of the HEA reauthorization, see CRS Issue Brief IB10097, The Higher
Education Act: Reauthorization Status and Issues, by James B. Stedman.
2 For an overview of the issues surrounding teacher quality at the K-12 level, see CRS
Report RL30834, K-12 Teacher Quality: Issues and Legislative Action, by James B.
Stedman. (Hereafter cited as CRS Report RL30834).
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Context
This section considers the current presence of higher education institutions in
the preparation of K-12 teachers, as well as the growing federal involvement in
activities designed to strengthen the quality of K-12 teaching.
Teacher Preparation by Higher Education Institutions.
Higher
education institutions are involved in multiple ways in preparing individuals to enter
K-12 teaching.
Approximately 1,200 institutions of higher education award
undergraduate degrees in elementary and secondary education. In addition to earning
baccalaureate degrees in education, other undergraduates get ready to teach by
participating in a teacher education program while earning a degree in an academic
subject area.
Still other individuals enter teaching through post-baccalaureate
certificate programs or master’s programs offered by higher education institutions.
Finally, alternative routes to teaching that target, for example, individuals changing
careers, may also involve higher education institutions.
The quality of higher education programs preparing K-12 teachers has been
sharply called into question over the past several years.
Teacher preparation
programs have been criticized for providing prospective teachers with inadequate
time to learn subject matter and pedagogy; for teaching a superficial curriculum; for
being unduly fragmented, with courses not linked to practice teaching and with
education faculty isolated from their arts and sciences faculty colleagues; for
uninspired teaching; and for failing to prepare teachers to function in restructured or
technologically equipped classrooms.3
Most recently, critics have pointed to high rates of failure of recent graduates on
initial licensing or certification exams.4
One of the most publically reported
instances of high failure rates was in 1998 when 59% of prospective teachers in
Massachusetts failed that state’s new certification exam.5 The results were reported
by institution, prompting questions about the quality of the preparation and training
prospective teachers had received from those institutions with low pass rates.6
During the 1990s, other states, such as Texas and New York, began tracking the pass
rates of the graduates from their teacher preparation programs and sought to hold
3 National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future, What Matters Most: Teaching
for America’s Future, Sept. 1996, pp. 31-32.
4 The terms certification and licensure are often used interchangeably to refer to the
procedures and requirements established by states for granting the license to teach. They
are used interchangeably in this report.
5 See Kit Lively, “States Move to Toughen Standards for Teacher-Education Programs,” The
Chronicle of Higher Education, July 31, 1998.
6 The Massachusetts teacher exams have been widely analyzed and their quality debated.
See, for example, Walt Haney, et al., “Less Truth Than Error? An independent study of the
Massachusetts Teacher Tests,” Education Policy Analysis Archives, Feb. 11, 1999, as
downloaded on Apr. 22, 2003, from [http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v7n4/]; and Report of the
Technical Advisory Committee on the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure,
submitted to the Massachusetts State Department of Education and Commissioner of
Education, Jan. 14, 2002.
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those programs accountable for the performance of their graduates on licensing
exams.
Federal Involvement. The federal government ventured into this area as a
result of the reauthorization of the HEA in 1998. As will be explored in this report,
Title II of the HEA authorizes several programs targeting K-12 teacher preparation
programs for improvement. It also includes provisions to increase the extent to
which higher education institutions are held accountable for the quality of their
teacher graduates.
Most recently, the 107th Congress amended the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA) to make K-12 teacher quality a central requirement for
elementary and secondary school districts and state educational agencies receiving
funding under ESEA Title I, Part A. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (P.L.
107-110) amended the ESEA to require state education agencies to have plans
ensuring that by the end of the 2005-2006 school year, all teachers teaching core
academic subjects will be “highly qualified.”7
Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant Programs
Title II, Part A of the HEA (as amended by the Higher Education Amendments
of 1998, P.L. 105-244) provides for three competitively awarded grants to improve
K-12 teacher quality — state grants, partnership grants, and recruitment grants.
Appropriated funds are to be divided as follows: 45% to state grants, 45% to
partnership grants, and 10% to teacher recruitment grants.
The FY2003
appropriation was $89.415 million. The President requested $90 million for FY2004.
The complete appropriations history of the program is provided in Table 1. Between
FY1999 and FY2002, 45 states (and outlying areas) received state grant funding
under this program, as did 33 partnerships. In addition, 48 recruitment grants were
made during this time period.
Table 1. Appropriations for the Teacher Quality
Enhancement Grant Program, FY1999-FY2003
Fiscal year
Appropriation (in millions)
1999
$77.212
2000
$98
2001
$98
2002
$90
2003
$89.415
7 See CRS Report RL30834 for the definition of “highly qualified.”
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State Grants. These one-time, 3-year competitive grants are awarded to the
state governor unless state constitution or law designates another person, entity, or
agency as responsible for teacher certification and preparation. Participating states
must provide a matching amount in cash or kind from non-federal sources equal to
50% of the amount of the federal grant. State grant funds must be used for one or
more of the following activities:
! holding teacher preparation programs accountable for the academic
and teaching quality of the teachers they prepare;
! reforming teacher certification requirements;
! creating alternatives to traditional teacher preparation programs and
alternative routes to teacher certification;
! creating mechanisms that enable local educational agencies (LEAs)
and schools to recruit highly qualified teachers, reward academically
effective teachers and superintendents, and expeditiously remove
incompetent or unqualified teachers; and
! addressing the problem of social promotion.
Priority in the awarding of state grants is given to applicants that have
undertaken initiatives to reform certification requirements designed to improve
teacher skills and content knowledge, reformed mechanisms to hold higher education
institutions accountable for teacher preparation, or developed efforts to reduce the
shortage of highly qualified teachers in high poverty urban and rural areas.
Each state receiving a state grant must report annually to ED and the House
Education and the Workforce Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor,
and Pensions Committee on progress toward certain specified objectives. Among
these are:
! increasing achievement by all students;
! raising the academic standards required for entering teaching
(including incentives to require an academic major in the subject or
a discipline related to the one in which the individual plans to teach);
! increasing the pass rate on initial licensing assessments;
! increasing the number of teachers certified through alternative
routes;
! increasing the percentage of secondary school classes in core
subjects taught by teachers with academic majors in those or related
fields, or who are able to demonstrate competence through subject
tests or classroom performance in core subjects;
! increasing the percentage of elementary school classes taught by
teachers who have academic majors in the arts and sciences or who
can demonstrate competence through high levels of performance in
core subjects;
! decreasing shortages of qualified teachers in poor urban and rural
areas;
! increasing the opportunities for professional development; and
! increasing the number of teachers able to apply technology to the
classroom.
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Failure to demonstrate progress by the end of the second year of a state grant can
lead to termination of the grant by ED.
Partnership Grants.
These one-time, 5-year grants are awarded
competitively to partnerships that must include at least three entities: a partner
institution,8 a school of arts and sciences at a higher education institution, and a high
need local educational agency (LEA).9 Other entities may join the partnership such
as the governor or state educational agency (SEA). Partnerships must match from
non-federal sources 25% of the partnership grant in the first year, 35% in the second,
and 50% in each succeeding year. No single member of the partnership can retain
more than 50% of the grant funds. These grants must be used for the following:
! holding teacher preparation programs accountable for the academic
and teaching quality of the teachers they prepare;
! providing preservice clinical experience to teacher candidates and
increasing the interaction between higher education faculty and
elementary and secondary school staff; and
! providing professional development to improve teachers’ content
knowledge and teaching skills.
Partnerships may also support such activities as:
! recruiting teachers;
! preparing teachers to work with diverse student populations;
! providing leadership training to principals and superintendents; and
! disseminating information on effective partnership practices.
8 A partner institution is a public or private higher education institution with a teacher
training program that (1) has either an 80% or higher pass rate by its graduates on state
qualifying assessments for new teachers, or is ranked among the highest performing
programs in the state; or (2) requires its students to participate in intensive clinical
experience, meet high academic standards, and either complete an academic major (in the
subject in which the student intends to teach if preparing to teach at the secondary level, or
in the arts and sciences if preparing to teach at the elementary level) or otherwise
demonstrate competence.
9 According to the statute, a high need LEA is one that is serving an elementary or secondary
school in an area with a high percentage of individuals from families in poverty, a high
percentage of out-of-field secondary school teachers, or a high teacher turnover rate. These
criteria are defined more precisely through program regulations. According to 34 CFR
611.1, a high need LEA must meet one of the following sets of conditions: (1) have at least
one school in which 50% or more of the students are eligible for free and reduced price
school lunches, or be eligible to operate, without a waiver, a schoolwide program under
ESEA, Title I; (2) have a school in which more than 34% of the academic classroom
teachers do not have a major, minor, or significant course work in their main field of
assignment, or have a school with two core subject fields in which more than 34% of the
teachers with main assignments in those fields do not have a major, minor, or significant
course work in their main assigned field; or (3) serve a school with a classroom teacher
attrition rate of 15% or more over the last 3 school years.
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In awarding these competitive grants, ED is to give priority to applicants that
involve businesses, provide for an equitable geographic distribution across the U.S.,
and encourage activities that carry the potential for creating improvement and
positive change.
Each partnership that receives a partnership grant must include an evaluation
plan in its application. That plan must include objectives and measures that are
similar to those on which states must report, with the inclusion of an objective to
increase teacher retention in the first 3 years of teaching. Failure to demonstrate
progress on these objectives and measures by the end of the third year of a
partnership grant can lead to termination of the grant.
Teacher Recruitment Grants. These one-time, 3-year grants are awarded
competitively to states or eligible partnerships (meeting the eligibility criteria for the
partnership grants). States and partnerships have the same matching requirements
for these grants as they have under their separate grant programs (see descriptions
above). Recruitment grant funds must be used for either of the following:
! teacher education scholarships, support services to help recipients
complete postsecondary education, and followup services during
their first 3 years of teaching (each year of assistance requires a year
of teaching in high need LEAs); or
! activities enabling high need LEAs and schools to recruit highly
qualified teachers.
The authorizing statute appears to specify that recipients of recruitment grants
must report annually to the Secretary concerning progress being made to achieve the
purposes of Title II Part A, and that failure to demonstrate progress by the end of the
second year of a recruitment grant can lead to termination of the grant.
Additional Requirements. Any LEA or school that benefits from activities
under HEA Title II must, upon request, provide parents of students with information
about the subject matter qualifications of students’ classroom teachers.10
The Secretary must report to the House Education and the Workforce
Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
regarding evaluation of the activities funded under this title, and disseminate
successful practices and information on ineffective ones.
Implementation and Evaluation. Information on the implementation and
the impact of the program is available from preliminary results coming from ED’s
4-year national evaluation of the partnership grant program, and a recent General
Accounting Office (GAO) report on all of Title II, Part A.
The in-progress national evaluation of the partnership grant program reportedly
finds that these grants have sparked increased collaboration among the entities
10 The ESEA, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act, has a similar reporting
requirement for each LEA receiving ESEA Title I, Part A funding.
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making up individual partnerships.11
For example, faculty from the teacher
preparation programs are interacting with their arts and sciences colleagues to, for
example, integrate education and content knowledge courses.
Further, higher
education faculty are collaborating with teachers in the partner LEAs. The ED
evaluation reportedly has found that nearly all partnership projects are supporting
induction activities. There is also a reported improvement in the recruitment and
retention of new teachers in these projects.
The GAO in its report described program implementation. In that context, it
identified some difficulties the program has had, and will have in evaluating its
impact, and cited a key funding problem.12 The GAO found that, in general, Teacher
Quality Enhancement Grant projects are focusing primarily on reforming
requirements for certification and for teacher preparation (85% of grantees surveyed
— includes projects funded under all three programs), providing professional
development to current teachers (85% of grantees surveyed), and recruiting new
teachers (72% of grantees surveyed).
GAO posited that evaluating projects’ impact on teaching quality will be hard
to do. The report is critical of ED for not approaching this task systematically and
for failing to provide adequate guidance on the assessment and reporting
requirements necessary to allow for such evaluation.
Given that the state grants are, by statute, one-time only grants, GAO concluded
that, without change to the law, ED could be unable to expend the state grant
funding. As noted above, through FY2002, 45 states and territories had received
state grant funding. With few eligible to receive new grants, ED might not be able
to comply with the mandate that 45% of the annual appropriation be devoted to state
grants.
Indeed, ED’s FY2004 budget request for this program requested
appropriations language overriding the 45-45-10 split in the annual appropriation to
allow the shifting of state funds to partnerships. ED estimated that without this
authority, $8.6 million of the FY2004 request could be returned to the Treasury (i.e.,
lapse).13
11 These results are described in the U.S. Department of Education’s Fiscal Year 2004
Justifications of Appropriation Estimates to the Congress, pp. R-92 — R-94.
12 U.S. General Accounting Office, Higher Education: Activities Underway to Improve
Teacher Training but Reporting on These Activities Could Be Enhanced, GAO-03-6, Dec.
2002. Findings from this study on the Title II accountability provisions are considered later
in this CRS report.
13 According to ED (FY2004 Budget Justifications), in FY2002, $2.1 million of the annual
appropriation lapsed because there were not enough “fundable” applications for either the
state or recruitment grants.
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Teacher
Quality
Enhancement
Grant
Programs
—
Accountability
This section describes the general teacher education accountability requirements
of Title II, Part A, and their implementation.14 All states and nearly all teacher
education programs in the country are affected by the accountability provisions in the
Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant program.
State Reports. States receiving funds under the HEA must prepare an annual
report card for the Secretary of Education on the quality of teacher preparation
including information on:
! the pass rate of graduates on all assessments used for teacher
certification;
! waivers of certification requirements, particularly for teachers
serving in high and low poverty school districts and in different
subject areas;
! state teacher licensing assessments and requirements;
! state standards for initial certification;
! alignment of state teacher assessments with state standards and
assessments for students;
! alternative routes to teacher certification and the pass rates of
individuals following such routes; and
! criteria being used to assess the performance of teacher preparation
programs.
Higher Education Institution Reports. Any institution of higher education
with a teacher education program enrolling HEA-aided students must release an
annual report to the state and the public detailing the certification pass rates of its
graduates, a comparison of its pass rates with the average pass rates of all such
programs in the state, and whether the program is designated as “low-performing”
(see below).
A higher education institution that fails to provide the required
information in a timely or accurate manner may be fined up to $25,000.
Low-Performing Teacher Preparation Programs. To continue receiving
HEA funds, a state must establish procedures for identifying low-performing teacher
preparation programs and for providing them with technical assistance. An annual
list of low-performing programs and those at risk of such designation must be
provided to the Secretary of Education. States set the criteria for determining low
performance and may include data collected under Title II Part A, such as pass rates
of graduates. An institution of higher education with a teacher education program
that has lost state approval or funding because of its designation as low-performing
is ineligible for professional development funding from ED, and cannot enroll any
students receiving assistance under HEA Title IV (source of the major federal student
aid programs) in its teacher preparation program.
14 This section is drawn from CRS Report RL31254, Pass Rates as an Accountability
Measure for Teacher Education Programs, by James B. Stedman and Bonnie F. Mangan.
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Secretary’s Annual Report on the Quality of Teacher Preparation.
The Secretary of Education is required to prepare an annual report on the quality of
teacher preparation based on information contained in the state report cards. The
report is based on data submitted by each state describing the quality of teacher
preparation in the state, including pass rates on teacher certification assessment,
waivers of certification requirements, and the identification of low-performing
teacher education programs.
Implementation. In June, 2002, the Secretary issued the first full annual
report as required under this legislation.15 Entitled Meeting the Highly Qualified
Teachers Challenge: The Secretary’s Annual Report on Teacher Quality, the report
concluded that the teacher preparation system in this country has serious limitations.
Not only does acceptable performance on certification assessments differ markedly
from state to state, ED found that most states, in setting the minimum score
considered to be a passing score, set those scores well below national averages.
Although the Title II legislation requires teacher programs to report on the pass rates
of “graduates,” in implementing this requirement, ED allowed teacher education
programs to report the pass rates of “program completers.” Institutions requiring
passage of the initial certification exam as a condition for program completion had
100% pass rates.16
The second full annual report, issued in July, 2003, is entitled Meeting the
Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge: The Secretary’s Second Annual Report on
Teacher Quality. This report largely reiterates many of the findings included in the
first report.
GAO has also reported on the implementation of the Title II accountability
provisions. In its December 2002 report (cited above), GAO concluded that ED
could not accurately report on the quality of teacher education programs in general
given the limitations of the information being collected as part of Title II
accountability provisions. The report was also critical of the use of the term
“program completer” in determining pass rates, noting that institutions and states
could make their teacher preparation programs appear more successful than they
actually were.17
15 As required by the authorizing statute, the Secretary had issued an earlier report to the
education committees of the U.S. Congress that compiled selected, available data from the
states — U.S. Department of Education, The Initial Report of the Secretary on the Quality
of Teacher Preparation, undated.
16 According to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, of the 1,191
institutions for which ED reported pass rate data, 308 or 26% had 100% pass rates (AASCU
Report to Congress: Validity of 100 Percent Pass Rate Scores, downloaded on March 3,
2003, from [http://www.aascu.org/passrateReport]). The Secretary’s annual report identifies
five states and Guam as having 100% pass rates as a whole.
17 The American Association of State Colleges and Universities analyzed its member
institutions that reported a 100% pass rate. AASCU concluded that, for its member
institutions, the 100% pass rates were not the result of deliberate attempts to subvert the
Title II reporting requirements.
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Reauthorization Issues
This section briefly identifies a number of issues related to the Teacher Quality
Enhancement Grants that might be considered during the HEA reauthorization
process. Issues addressing the grant programs funded under this authority are
considered separately from those arising from the general accountability provisions
applying to all states and nearly all teacher preparation programs.
Substantive legislative action has begun in the process of reauthorizing Title II,
Part A, with approval by the House Education and the Workforce Committee of a bill
to amend and extend Title II (see the concluding section entitled Legislative Activity).
Grant Program Issues. Congressional consideration of the grant programs
(state, partnership, and recruitment) may include at least the following issues.
Effectiveness of the Programs. It is probably too early to tell whether the
three grant programs authorized by Title II, Part A have achieved their objectives.
Funding has been awarded over 4 fiscal years, with a fifth (FY2003) just recently
appropriated. It does not appear that any grantees have had their grants revoked for
failing to demonstrate progress. The only national evaluation of Title II, for which
we have only preliminary results, is focused on the partnership grants. Further, as
GAO noted in its report, evaluating the impact of Title II grants in general may be
difficult given ED’s administration of the programs.
The current statute establishes a reporting and evaluating process applying to all
grantees, with continued funding conditioned on demonstrating progress. In light of
the GAO findings, the Congress may consider whether this process is adequate but
not well implemented, or whether the process itself should be amended.
Funding Structure. As ED and GAO have observed, the mandated division
of the annual appropriation for these programs and the one-time only nature of the
state grants raise the prospect of ED being unable to expend fully the state grant
portion of the appropriation. One or the other of these features of the current
program structure will probably have to be modified if future funding is to be fully
spent.
Program and Activities Mix. The funding structure issue raises questions
about the appropriate mix of programs and activities being funded under this
authority. ED has requested FY2004 appropriations authority to allow state grant
funds to shift to partnerships. During the reauthorization process, the Congress may
consider where the emphasis should be placed among these kinds of grants or the
kinds of activities being supported. How important is it to have SEAs involved in
addressing the improvement of teacher preparation or in strengthening teacher
recruitment? Is the interaction among the various entities engaged in partnership
grants likely to have a significant impact on the quality of teacher preparation and
recruitment, and, if so, should support for partnerships be expanded? How should
the Congress respond to the concern expressed by various higher education
associations that the Title II programs offer little or no direct support for improving
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teacher preparation at higher education institutions?18 Where should the balance be
placed among investment in such activities as teacher preparation, teacher
recruitment, professional development, and accountability? How much support
should be directed to alternatives to traditional teacher preparation programs and
alternative routes to certification?
Teacher Preparation Program Accountability Issues. The general
accountability provisions of Title II, Part A applicable to states and higher education
institutions with teacher preparation programs have generated significant debate since
their inception. Several of the issues that have arisen are briefly identified below.19
Identification of Teacher Preparation Programs as Low-Performing.
As described earlier in this report, the standards for identifying teacher preparation
programs as low-performing under Title II are set by each individual state. These
may or may not involve the various criteria in the reports required from institutions
and states, such as the pass rates of graduates on initial licensure exams. Federal
consequences for an institution identified as low-performing flow only if its state
takes specified action. To date, relatively few institutions have been identified as
low-performing under the Title II provisions. The Congress may consider whether
to modify this framework.
Proposals may be considered to bring the federal
government more directly into the process through such steps as setting the low-
performance standards or imposing federal penalties independent of any state action
against the teacher preparation program. Alternatively, given how recently the
current framework was initiated, some may want to maintain it without significant
change and see what impact it has over time. Still others may argue for scrapping
this federal effort since the standards are inconsistent across states.
Effectiveness of Accountability Based on Pass Rates. The Congress
may consider whether the emphasis in the Title II accountability process on licensing
exam pass rates should be constrained or expanded. The utility of the current pass
rate-based system from a national perspective may be limited because the selection
of certification exams and the setting of passing scores are state specific and do not
easily allow for interstate comparisons. Further, recent research concludes that many
current licensing exams are not rigorous, measuring essentially basic skills.20
Increased institutional pass rates on such exams may say relatively little about
whether teacher preparation programs are graduating students who will be good
teachers.
Nevertheless, the premise that teacher preparation programs should
graduate students who can pass initial credentialing exams does not appear to be at
issue. Indeed, there is some evidence that higher education institutions may respond
to low pass rates with, what one set of researchers described as, “innovative strategies
18 See Recommendations for Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, submitted to the
Congress by various higher education associations, Jan. 30, 2003, p. 21, available at
[http://www.acenet.edu/washington/HEAReauthorization.2003.pdf].
19 See, also CRS Report RL31254, Pass Rates as an Accountability Measure for Teacher
Education Programs, by James B. Stedman and Bonnie F. Mangan.
20 See “The Education Trust, Not Good Enough: A Content Analysis of Teacher Licensing
Examinations,” Thinking K-16, spring 1999.
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to enhance the content knowledge of prospective teachers as well as their writing and
reading skills.”21
For some policymakers, the limitations of the present system may suggest that
the current federal involvement is but an initial step in a multi-step process necessary
to improve teacher preparation program quality. For example, consideration may be
given to establishing a single, nationwide standard, although such a proposal is likely
to prove politically controversial. For others, the reporting burden and difficulty in
making cross-state comparisons may suggest a refocusing of these provisions,
perhaps to measures of state support for teacher preparation or the alignment of state
certification exams with state standards for teacher preparation program approval.
Calculation of Pass Rates. One of the more specific issues that the
Congress may debate during the reauthorization process is the calculation of pass
rates. This debate is likely to focus particularly on the 100% pass rates reported by
some states and many institutions. As described earlier, such rates resulted in part
from decisions made by ED regarding the definition of a graduate and in part from
institutional and state policies. To the extent that increasing numbers of institutions
report 100% pass rates the utility of these rates as an accountability measure is
undercut. The Congress may consider various alternatives to address this issue. For
example, institutions might be required to report the extent to which graduates passed
certification exams the first time they took them, regardless of how the institutions
define a graduate. Alternative measures to gauge the teaching effectiveness of
graduates of a program might be considered, such as changes in the academic
performance of a teacher’s students or expressions of school administrator
satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a program’s graduates.
Legislative Activity
This concluding section describes the bills reauthorizing Title II, Part A upon
which there was been substantive legislative action.
H.R. 2211 (Ready to Teach Act of 2003). On July 9, 2003, the House
passed H.R. 2211. The bill had been reported by the House Education and the
Workforce Committee on June 26, 2003. This bill would amend and extend Title II,
Part A of the HEA. In addition, this legislation would amend and extend Part B of
current law — Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology, and add a new
Part C — Centers of Excellence (these Centers would be established at minority-
serving higher education institutions and focus on improving K-12 teacher
21 Larry H. Ludlow, et al., “The Case That Won’t Go Away: Besieged Institutions and the
Massachusetts Teacher Tests,” Education Policy Analysis Archives, Dec. 12, 2002, as
downloaded on Mar. 14, 2003, from [http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n50/]. (A “besieged”
institution is defined as one with a large number of students who failed the initial
administration of the state licensing exam.) Nevertheless, the authors are critical of the
present emphasis on teacher testing, stating, “Even as we applaud the progress made by
besieged institutions in improving test score results, we must continue to inquire into
deleterious results of testing that detract from essential components of teacher preparation.”
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recruitment and preparation). The description below addresses the proposed changes
to Part A.
General Features and Changes. The general structure of Part A would be
retained — separate programs supporting state activities, partnership activities, and
recruitment (with the annual appropriation divided 45%, 45%, and 10% among these
three kinds of grants, respectively); and broad accountability provisions. The bill
would authorize $300 million for Part A programs for FY2004 and such sums as may
be necessary for the 4 succeeding fiscal years (i.e., through FY2008). Among
changes that apply throughout the Part A programs, the bill would focus these
programs on preparing and retaining highly qualified teachers as defined in the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act as amended by the No Child Left Behind
Act.22 Further, the bill increases the emphasis on the recruiting of minorities to K-12
teaching, somewhat expands the activities related to preparing teachers to use
technology, and includes provisions regarding teachers’ impact on student
achievement.
State Grants. To address the concerns about meeting the prescribed division
of the appropriation funds among state grants, partnership grants, and recruitment
grants, states would no longer be limited to a one-time only grant. Although most
currently authorized uses of funds would be continued, the bill makes some changes
to these uses. State grant activities would be modified with the addition of support
for innovative programs. Among their activities, these innovative programs would
be designed to increase the flexibility of teacher preparation programs in meeting
state requirements, generate long term data on teachers’ impact on student
achievement, provide high quality preparation to individuals from groups
underrepresented in teaching, and create measures to gauge the performance of
teacher preparation programs in preparing highly qualified teachers.
The bill
identifies charter colleges of education and university and local educational
partnership schools as examples of such innovative efforts. Separately, states would
also be newly authorized to use funds to develop ways of measuring the effectiveness
of teacher preparation and professional development programs, and to document
student achievement gains and teachers’ mastery of subjects taught as a result of
these programs. Among other changes to authorized uses of funds, states could use
Part A funds for strategies to improve the quality of preschool teachers and their
preparation programs. Funded states are also required to establish systems to
evaluate the effectiveness of teacher preparation and professional development in
increasing student achievement and teachers’ subject matter mastery.
Partnership Grants. With regard to entities in eligible partnerships, the bill
redefines both the partner institution and the high need local educational agency.
The bill appears to raise one of the possible eligibility criteria for an institution to be
considered a partner institution from a pass rate of 80% to one of 100%. Current law
defines a high need LEA in terms of having at least one school serving a high
percentage of poor students, having a high percentage of out-of-field teachers, or
having a high teacher turnover rate. The bill defines a high need LEA as an LEA
22 For the definition of a highly qualified K-12 teacher in that legislation, see CRS Report
RL30834.
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that: (1) has either at least 10,000 low-income students or an enrollment that is at
least 25% low-income; or (2) has an enrollment of less than 600 students and no
school with a locale code of other than 7.23 Further, a high need LEA must have a
high percentage of out-of-field teachers or a high percentage of teachers with
emergency, provisional, or temporary certification. The bill also adds a public or
private education organization to the required entities in an eligible partnership.
Further, a high need LEA in a partnership must benefit directly from at least 50% of
the partnership’s funding (current law prohibits any entity in a partnership from
retaining more than 50% of the funding).
Most authorized uses of funds would be continued although partnerships would
be required to choose among four activities — teacher preparation program reform
to ensure the programs prepare teachers who are highly qualified and able to use
technology, clinical experience for preservice and inservice teachers, professional
development, and teacher preparation activities that train teachers to serve student
with different learning styles and to improve student behavior. Current law requires
partnerships to undertake three required activities — accountability for teacher
preparation programs, preservice clinical experience activities, and professional
development. The bill, as does current law, identifies a number of additional
authorized activities. Some of these are modified from current law; some are new.
Among the new activities, partnerships can undertake activities regarding alternatives
to traditional teacher preparation and alternative avenues to state certification (state
grants have been authorized to be used for these activities); activities providing
clinical experience in math, science, and technology for current teachers with a
requirement that teachers participating in such experience continue teaching for at
least 2 years; coordination activities with community colleges to implement teacher
preparation programs through such means as distance learning; teacher mentoring
programs; and teacher training in the use of computer software for multilingual
education.
Partnerships are newly required in the application process to demonstrate that
higher education faculty will serve with highly qualified teachers in K-12 classrooms,
to assure that teachers in private K-12 schools will be served, and to describe the
induction activities they will implement for all new teachers in their first 3 years of
teaching.
Recruitment Grants. Applicants for recruitment grants are newly required
to describe how funds will be used to recruit minority students. New language
establishes a priority in the selection among eligible applicants for those assuring
they will recruit a high percentage of minority students. Recruitment grant fund can
also be used for recruiting into teaching employees from technology industries and
other “high-demand” industries, as well as from science, math, and engineering fields
in general.
23 School locale codes are assigned to schools by ED based on the Census Bureau’s
classification of the places in which they are located. Currently, there are eight such codes.
Locale code 7 is applied to a school in a place identified as rural and outside a metropolitan
statistical area.
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Accountability Provisions. Among modifications the bill would make to
the reporting requirements for states receiving state grants is the addition of
information on the extent to which substantial progress has been made with these
funds in increasing the percentage of highly qualified teachers in the state. The
requirements for the evaluation plans prepared by partnerships would be modified to
include objectives and measures regarding an increased percentage of highly
qualified teachers.
The bill seeks to address concerns about 100% pass rates being reported by
those states and teacher preparation programs requiring passage of initial certification
exams as a condition of program completion. To do so, the bill would require
reporting by states and institutions on the pass rates of test takers who complete at
least 50% of the requirements of teacher preparation programs. Further, each
institution would have to compare the average raw score on teacher certification
exams of its students (those completing at least 50% of the teacher preparation
program’s requirements) with the average raw scores for other institutions in the
state. State report cards would also have to include average raw score data for
teacher preparation programs. The bill also would require states to include among
their criteria for assessing the performance of teacher preparation programs evidence
of student achievement gains. Each state’s governor or the entity responsible for
teacher certification and preparation would have to attest as to the quality (e.g.,
accuracy) of the data being reported by the state to the Secretary of Education.