II 110th CONGRESS 1st Session S. 1339 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES May 8, 2007 Mr. Reid (for Mr. Kennedy) (for himself, Mr. Durbin, and Mr. Kerry) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance A BILL To amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the Higher Education Act of 1965, and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to improve recruitment, preparation, distribution, and retention of public elementary and secondary school teachers and principals, and for other purposes.

1.

Short title

This Act may be cited as the Teacher Excellence for All Children Act of 2007.

2.

Table of contents

The table of contents of this Act is as follows: Sec. 1. Short title. Sec. 2. Table of contents. Sec. 3. Findings. TITLE I—Recruiting talented new teachers Sec. 101. Amendments to the Higher Education Act of 1965. Sec. 102. Expanding teacher loan forgiveness. TITLE II—Closing the teacher distribution gap Sec. 201. Grants to local educational agencies to provide premium pay to teachers in high-need schools. TITLE III—Improving teacher preparation Sec. 301. Amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Sec. 302. Amendment to the Higher Education Act of 1965: Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants. Sec. 303. Enforcing NCLB’s teacher equity provision. TITLE IV—Equipping Teachers, Schools, Local Educational Agencies, and States with the 21st Century Data, Tools, and Assessments They Need Sec. 401. 21st Century Data, Tools, and Assessments. Sec. 402. Collecting national data on distribution of teachers. TITLE V—Retention: keeping our best teachers in the classroom Sec. 501. Amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Sec. 502. Exclusion from gross income of compensation of teachers and principals in certain high-need schools or teaching high-need subjects. Sec. 503. Above-the-line deduction for certain expenses of elementary and secondary school teachers increased and made permanent. TITLE VI—Miscellaneous provisions Sec. 601. Conforming amendments.

3.

Findings

Congress finds the following: (1)There are not enough qualified teachers in the Nation’s classrooms, and an unprecedented number of teachers will retire over the next 5 years. Over the next decade, the Nation will need to bring 2,000,000 new teachers into public schools. (2)Too many teachers and principals do not receive adequate preparation for their jobs. (3)More than one-third of children in grades 7 through 12 are taught by a teacher who lacks both a college major and certification in the subject being taught. Rates of “out-of-field teaching” are especially high in high-poverty schools. (4)Seventy percent of mathematics classes in high-poverty middle schools are assigned to teachers without even a minor in mathematics or a related field. (5)Teacher turnover is a serious problem, particularly in urban and rural areas. Over one-third of new teachers leave the profession within their first 3 years of teaching, and 14 percent of new teachers leave the field within the first year. After 5 years—the average time it takes for teachers to maximize students’ learning—half of all new teachers will have exited the profession. Rates of teacher attrition are highest in high-poverty schools. Between 2000 and 2001, 1 out of 5 teachers in the Nation’s high-poverty schools either left to teach in another school or dropped out of teaching altogether. (6)Fourth graders who are poor score dramatically lower on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) than their counterparts who are not poor. Over 85 percent of fourth graders who are poor failed to attain NAEP proficiency standards in 2003. (7)African-American, Latino, and low-income students are much less likely than other students to have highly-qualified teachers. (8)Research shows that individual teachers have a great impact on how well their students learn. The most effective teachers have been shown to be able to boost their pupils’ learning by a full grade level relative to students taught by less effective teachers. (9)Although nearly half (42 percent) of all teachers hold a master’s degree, fewer than 1 in 4 secondary teachers have a master’s degree in the subject they teach. (10)Young people with high SAT and ACT scores are much less likely to choose teaching as a career. Those teachers who have higher SAT or ACT scores are twice as likely to leave the profession after only a few years. (11)Only 16 States finance new teacher induction programs, and fewer still require inductees to be matched with mentors who teach the same subject.