Contact:
Kevin Kumashiro, (415) 422-2108, kkumashiro@usfca.edu
Daniel Quinn, (517) 203-2940, dquinn@greatlakescenter.org

Vital policy considerations in the 2015 Proposed Federal Teacher Preparation Regulations

EAST LANSING, Mich. (Jan. 12, 2015) – In early December, the U.S. Department of Education released proposed new Teacher Preparation Regulations under Title II of the Higher Education Act with a call for public comments through the Federal Register. The comment period closes February 2. The Department of Education claims that the proposed regulations will help ensure teacher-training programs are better preparing educators to succeed in the classroom by requiring states to measure outcomes of how graduates are doing in the classroom. An academic review of the proposed regulations considers the evidentiary support and identifies concerns.

Kevin K. Kumashiro, Dean and Professor of the School of Education at the University of San Francisco, reviewed the Proposed 2015 Federal Teacher Preparation Regulations for the Think Twice think tank review project of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), with funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice. Dr. Kumashiro is a leading expert on educational policy, school reform, teacher preparation, and educational equity. He is also an award-winning author of ten books on education and social justice, including “Bad Teacher!: How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture.”

The proposal would require states to assess and rate every teacher preparation program every year with four Performance Assessment Levels (exceptional, effective, at-risk, and low-performing), and states would be required to provide technical assistance to “low-performing” programs. Additionally, programs that do not show improvement could lose state approval, state funding, and federal student financial aid.

In his review Kumashiro has identified seven concerns with the proposed regulations. The proposed regulations:

1. will likely burden institutions with costs that are higher than estimated;
2. inaccurately conceptualize the impact and preparedness of teachers apart from systems;
3. mandate an improperly narrow definition of teacher classroom readiness;
4. require a reliance on scientifically discredited test-based accountability and value-added measures for data analysis;
5. disincentivize teachers to work in high-needs schools;
6. could restrict federal funding for students in financial need, and restrict access to the teaching profession for underrepresented groups; and
7. create a narrow view of the purposes of education.

Instead, Kumashiro suggests that the Department “should lead the country in imagining and building a public school system, a teaching profession, and the teacher preparation programs that serve them, in ways that truly improve education and society.”

Read the full review at:
http://www.greatlakescenter.org

Find information about the Proposed 2015 Federal Teacher Preparation Regulations on the web:
http://www.ed.gov/teacherprep

Readers can comment on the proposed regulations on the Federal Register website:
https://federalregister.gov/a/2014-28218

Think Twice, a project of the National Education Policy Center, provides the public, policymakers and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. The project is made possible by funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

The review can also be found on the NEPC website:
http://nepc.colorado.edu

- ### -