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Welcome to the TQ Update, a quarterly newsletter dedicated to providing information and resources on teacher quality related issues.

Teaching Quality Policy Center News
At The 2003 National Forum on Education Policy Stanford University's Linda Darling-Hammond called for the creation of a NATIONAL EDUCATION MANPOWER PROGRAM. Darling-Hammond said such a program should be aimed at getting well-prepared teachers into high-need schools and at easing shortages in particular fields such as math, science, special education and bilingual education.
/html/meetingsEvents/NF2003/Highlights.asp?recID=29

New Center Publications
A new ECS database provides condensed summaries of STATE TEACHER PREPARATION POLICIES, links to the policies and other relevant sources of information. The database also allows users to easily compare and contrast state policies relative to undergraduate, graduate, post-baccalaureate and alternative teacher preparation programs.
http://www.tqsource.org/prep/policy/

ECS' Michael Allen recently discussed the implications of his report, "Eight Questions on TEACHER PREPARATION, What Does the Research Say?" on the Colorado affiliate of National Public Radio. A complete transcript of the interview is now available at /clearinghouse/47/08/4708.doc.

Listen to the Colorado Matters interview.

Visitors to the ECS Web site, can order a copy of the report ($20 plus postage) or view an interactive, online version at
http://www.ecs.org/html/educationIssues/teachingquality/tpreport/home/index.asp

What States Are Doing
The CALIFORNIA Commission on Teacher Credentialing has voted to phase out emergency teaching permits and credential waivers. The action was taken as a step to begin aligning the state's teacher certification process with a recently adopted state board of education plan and the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.
http://www.ctc.ca.gov/CCTC-NCLB.html

LOUISIANA has enacted legislation requiring graduates of elementary and secondary teacher preparation programs -- both traditional and alternative – to complete reading instruction coursework.
http://www.legis.state.la.us/leg_docs/03RS/CVT5/OUT/0000KHE2.PDF

NORTH CAROLINA's school systems are pairing veteran teachers with novices who are in their first three years on the job. The state department of public instruction is also developing a training packet to standardize mentoring programs for all school districts.
http://newsobserver.com/news/story/2796989p-2585891c.html

Following months of discussion, the TENNESSEE State Board of Education is expected to allow the use of student achievement test scores to establish a teacher's qualifications under the No Child Left Behind Act.
http://tennessean.com/education/archives/03/08/38076959.shtml?Element_ID=38076959

Good Reads
A recent report, “Coaching: A Strategy for Developing Instructional Capacity," finds that providing COACHES to teachers and school leaders shows great promise in producing targeted professional development that has a positive impact on the classroom.
http://www.annenberginstitute.org/images/Coaching.pdf

To comply with the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND Act's requirement to determine which teachers are "highly qualified," states need better access to data and more guidance from the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) has found. The GAO findings are based on surveys of all 50 states, the District of Columbia and a nationally representative sample of school districts.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03631.pdf

International Focus
A publication by the Educational Testing Service examines the policies which countries whose students scored well on an international math and science study use to shape the quality of their teaching force. Among the findings are that, unlike the United States, most of the other countries use high school GPA and scores on national secondary school exit exams to select students for TEACHER EDUCATION programs.
http://www.ets.org/research/pic/prepteach.pdf

TEACHING QUALITY

To read more about Teaching Quality, visit the ECS Issue Site on Teaching Quality.