National Induction Push

Senator Edward Kennedy and Congressman George Miller have sponsored The Teacher Excellence for All Children (TEACH) Act. This Act has been incorporated into early drafts of a reauthorized NCLB by the House Committee on Education and Labor. It includes:

1. A $200 million career ladder program to augment the salaries of teachers in high-need schools who accept new professional and leadership roles;
   
2. A $300 million grant program to allow states and high-need local educational agencies to develop state-of-the-art teacher induction programs; and
   
3. A $100 million principal training and induction grant program for 10 states to develop, implement, and evaluate pilot programs for performance-based certification and training of exemplary principals.

In addition, Senator Jack Reed from Rhode Island introduced legislation to amend Title II of NCLB to create a new $500 million funding stream of targeted assistance to low-performing, high-poverty school to help develop effective teachers and principals. The School Improvement through Teacher Quality Act includes two forms of implementation:

1. comprehensive, high-quality multi-year induction and mentoring programs for beginning teachers; and
   
2. systematic, sustained, team-based, job-embedded professional development for experienced teachers.

These pieces of legislation piggyback on recent research from The New Teacher Center (NTC) at UC Santa Cruz demonstrating that high-quality induction programs provide a positive return on investment both because beginning teachers stay in greater numbers and because those who stay are more effective.

To learn more by reading the policy brief from NTC please go to http://www.newteachercenter.org/pdfs/NTC_Policy_Brief-Hill_Briefing.pdf

Senator Barack Obama has proposed S.114, The Innovation Districts for School Improvement Act, which would authorize a $1.5 billion annual grant program for local educational agencies to support a number of allowable reforms, including teacher mentoring and career ladders for mentor teacher. This bill would require the educational agencies to establish Teacher Academies based on models of successful induction programs and residency-based teaching. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

To read the entire bill or keep an eye on its progress please go to

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.114: