On December 3, the Federal Register published a long-awaited draft of regulations on teacher preparation from the U.S. Department of Education. The regulations are intended to improve the quality—and increase the accountability—of teacher preparation programs.
The regulations would require states to develop indicators of program outcomes, including the ability of graduates to produce gains in student learning, the graduates’ placement and retention rates, and survey data from past graduates and their employers.
These revised state report cards would be used to determine programs’ eligibility for Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) grants. The department has proposed definitions of four categories—high quality, effective, low-performing, and at-risk—for states to use in determining the effectiveness of their teacher preparation programs. Under the proposed regulations, programs deemed low-performing or at-risk would be ineligible for TEACH grants.
Comments on the proposed regulations are due February 2, 2015. They can be submitted through the regulations.gov portal.