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I am pleased to appear before you to testify about the Department of Education's proposal for the reauthorization of Title V of the Higher Education Act of 1965. This reauthorization comes at a time when it is particularly important that we, as a Nation, do more to develop our teacher workforce. I care deeply about this issue. As a former National Teacher of the Year, I was invited to the Department to provide a teacher's perspective on the work that we do. I know first-hand the importance of good teaching and of providing teachers with high-quality preparation and support.
David Haselkorn, the President of Recruiting New Teachers, Inc., may have said it best: "Teaching is the essential profession that makes all other professions possible." The highest standards in the world, the best facilities, and the strongest accountability measures will do little good if we do not have talented, dedicated, and well-prepared teachers in every classroom. As President Clinton emphasized in his Call to Action for American Education in the 21st Century, teachers must receive the education and support they need to help our children meet the challenges of the 21st century. Our Nation's goals in education will not be achieved without the development of an excellent teacher workforce. As a Nation, we face significant challenges in this regard.
One of our challenges is in teacher recruitment. If current trends continue, over the next decade we will need to hire more than 2 million teachers because of increasing teacher retirements and an enrollment boom that will bring more students than ever before into our classrooms --a total of almost 55 million students by the year 2006. High-poverty urban and rural schools will experience the most severe teacher shortages. Of the 2 million teachers needed, approximately 15%, or 345,000, will be hired in central cities, in schools with large concentrations of low-income students. An additional 207,000 teachers will be needed in isolated, and often poor, rural areas.
In addition, a critical gap exists between the diversity of our nation's students and that of their teachers. While a third of America's students are minority, only 13% of their teachers are. That gap is growing and is most severe in urban and rural schools. Our nation's schools need a diverse and excellent teaching force that can bring distinctive life experiences and perspectives into the classroom, provide valuable role models for minority and non-minority students alike, enrich the curriculum, assessment, and school climate, and strengthen connections to parents and communities.
Teacher shortages will continue to be concentrated in our Nation's underserved communities. Students in high-poverty urban and rural schools --the very students who need the best teachers --often have teachers who are the least qualified. For example, 71% of physical science students and 33% of English students in high-poverty schools take classes with teachers who lack even a college minor in their field.
Quality of preparation is a key factor in teachers' ability to facilitate student learning. Unfortunately, many teachers report feeling unprepared for the challenges of today's classrooms. While we would never ask our doctors to perform surgery after only a few weeks of clinical experience, we often ask new teachers to enter classrooms after only a few weeks of in-classroom training. New teachers often lack the deep content knowledge and the knowledge of effective classroom practices that they need in order to help children learn. Many teacher preparation programs do not prepare teachers to use technology effectively in the classroom.
The need for effective teacher preparation in high-poverty settings is particularly great, given the complexity that poverty brings to the classroom. In urban school districts, rates of attrition can often reach fifty percent in the first five years of teaching, due in part to inadequate preparation and poor support --a "sink or swim" approach toward new teachers. Teachers in high-poverty settings face many daunting challenges for which they need to be prepared, such as the diversity of their students, inclusion of students with learning and physical disabilities, increasing numbers of students with limited English proficiency, and students in crisis because of their home situations.
Given these challenges, States, school districts, colleges and universities, and the Federal Government will have to work hard to achieve the President's goal of ensuring a talented, dedicated, and well-prepared teacher in every classroom. Title V of the Higher Education Act is one vehicle through which the Federal Government, for its part, can address teacher quality in America.
We began the development of our Title V proposal by examining teacher development across the continuum --beginning with recruitment and preparation, including the first critical years of teaching which educators call the induction period, and continuing through on-going professional development. We considered two questions: Where, in this continuum, can the Federal Government and Title V appropriately play a role? And how can Title V, through a targeted Federal investment, make a significant impact on teacher development in America?
In answering these questions, we have decided to focus Title V on three critical areas. Unlike the current Title V, which authorizes an array of disconnected programs, our proposal will focus on recruiting new teachers, preparing them well, and supporting them during the beginning stages of their career.
We chose this focus for several reasons. The Federal Government already makes a significant investment in on-going professional development for current teachers through programs such as the Eisenhower Professional Development program under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Those programs, however, are not adequate to promote the reforms that are needed to develop our future teaching force. The Federal Government's current efforts simply are not sufficient to address the teacher recruitment, preparation, and induction challenges that we face. In those areas, there is a critical gap in the Federal commitment to teacher development. Those are the arenas in which Title V can make a difference.
Furthermore, we have a window of opportunity now to make a difference in the development of our teaching force. Our Nation will be preparing more teachers than ever before to teach in increasingly challenging classrooms. By addressing the development of those teachers, we have a unique opportunity to make a substantial impact through the reauthorization of Title V.
We are considering a proposal that addresses the communities with the greatest needs --areas with high concentrations of low-income students. The proposal would encourage the recruitment of a diverse and excellent teaching force and support the highest-quality teacher preparation. Our proposal would also address induction, the first critical years when 30 percent of new teachers leave the field in part because of poor support.
Recruiting New Teachers
The Federal Government, by itself, cannot solve all of our Nation's recruitment challenges. It can, however, be a catalyst that stimulates the recruitment of teachers where they are most needed.
Therefore, we are considering a program whose objective is to increase the number of students, especially minority students, who complete high-quality teacher preparation programs and teach in high-poverty areas.
In developing our proposal, we are keeping in mind several guiding principles of effective recruitment programs. For example, it is important that institutions of higher education work in partnership with elementary and secondary school districts to determine the teaching needs of the districts. The partnership should then identify a pool of potential teachers fitting those needs, recruit individuals from this pool, and design high-quality preparation and induction programs tailored to those individuals. According to local needs, recruitment efforts could focus on minorities, paraprofessionals, teachers in targeted subjects, or individuals with disabilities. Paraprofessionals can be very strong candidates for teacher recruitment; they already have classroom experience, and generally reflect the communities in which they serve. Recruiting minorities is very important because they are seriously underrepresented in the teaching profession and can serve as important role models. Above all, however, teachers must be recruited for the areas where they are most needed.
While financial support can help teacher candidates afford their education, support services are also important, especially for individuals such as paraprofessionals for whom scholarships alone are often not enough.
A recruitment program based on those principles and targeted to communities with large concentrations of low-income students can help the nation to address its critical recruitment challenges.
Teacher Preparation
It is not enough to recruit new teachers. We must also ensure that they are well-prepared. However, we face major challenges in teacher preparation. Let me paint a picture for you of the diversity of teacher preparation programs in this country. There are 1,025 institutions that prepare teachers. They range in size from one graduate per year at Wagner College in New York State, to 1,933 graduates per year at Eastern Michigan University --our Nation's largest producer of teachers. In addition to this tremendous range in size, there is an equally large range in the quality of programs that prepare teachers.
Therefore, we face three critical needs in teacher preparation.
First, as a Nation, we must identify best practices in teacher education. There is no consensus in the nation about the best ways to prepare teachers. There is, however, little disagreement about what teachers need to know and be able to do in the classroom. Teachers must have in-depth content knowledge of the subject matter that they teach. They must understand how children learn and know the latest research on child development. Successful teachers must be able to use classroom management skills effectively. They must learn to work with diverse students and with parents. Teachers need to know a variety of approaches to working with students and then must be able to choose an appropriate strategy for different students and situations. Finally, prospective teachers need to be grounded in classroom practices that are based on the best available research, have records of demonstrated effectiveness in enabling students to achieve to high standards, and are replicable in diverse and challenging circumstances.
Even though we have all of this knowledge about what it takes to be an effective teacher, we do not have the research and evaluation of teacher preparation programs that would allow us to speak confidently about how best to prepare teachers. As a result, teacher preparation programs vary widely in approach and quality. In order to identify best practices for teacher education, we are proposing to focus on programs that prepare teachers for the most challenging settings --our schools with the highest concentration of low-income students. If we can identify, evaluate, and disseminate the most effective methods of preparing teachers for our most challenging classrooms, we know these practices will be adaptable for the preparation of teachers for any of our Nation's classrooms.
Second, when exemplary practices are demonstrated and identified, they must be disseminated and spread to other institutions. Too often in the past, excellent programs, once identified, have remained islands of excellence.
Third, because high-quality teacher preparation demands the strong involvement of elementary and secondary schools, school districts and institutions of higher education must work together as true partners in preparing teachers. Unfortunately, many elementary and secondary schools feel they are not on an equal footing in their relationships with institutions of higher education, because the schools are often asked to help train student teachers and to hire them, without being given sufficient resources or a voice in how these teachers are prepared.
Therefore, we are considering a targeted program to improve teacher preparation that would respond to these needs by identifying and spreading best practices in teacher education for high-poverty areas. It would encourage the evaluation of different approaches to teacher education and provide resources and technical assistance to those institutions committed to working collaboratively with elementary and secondary schools to improve their teacher preparation programs.
Conclusion
A limited Federal investment in teacher recruitment and preparation can make a substantial impact in the development of new teachers. I look forward to working with you to ensure that the reauthorized Title V is a focused and effective answer to our Nation's challenges in teaching.
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