The teacher prep regulations that the Obama administration pushed for years to establish in order to hold schools of education more accountable for the K-12 teachers they produce are now one presidential pen stroke away from becoming history.
Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, which supported the regulations, said that, by overturning the regulations, Congress is signaling to America’s teacher preparation programs “that they will not be held accountable for how well they educate aspiring teachers.”
“Nor will applicants be able to discover which programs provide the best preparation for teaching,” Walsh said. “This measure also robs education leaders of the necessary information to laud exemplary programs and intervene to help struggling programs succeed.”
However, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education praised Congress for scrapping the regulations.
“With the elimination of these onerous regulations, states and the profession will be able to continue directing time, energy and resources to supporting innovation, as well as strengthening programs to ensure that teacher candidates are profession-ready and able to meet the needs of our nation’s students,” AACTE said in a statement provided by Deborah Koolbeck, director of government relations for AACTE.
The regulations — if they had survived — would have required states that receive funds under the Higher Education Act to create a rating system for their teacher preparation programs, which would be rated at one of four levels: low performing, at risk, effective or exceptional. Programs would have been judged in part based on learning outcomes for K-12 students taught by their graduates.
