[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 78 (Friday, May 23, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1072]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             INTRODUCTION OF THE READY TO TEACH ACT OF 2003

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                     HON. HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' McKEON

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 22, 2003

  Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Ready to Teach Act, 
a bill I am cosponsoring along with Mr. Gingrey, to help improve the 
quality of our nation's teacher preparation programs.
  There is widespread awareness that the subject matter knowledge and 
teaching skills of teachers play a central role in the success of 
elementary and secondary education reform. More than half of the 2.2 
million teachers that America's schools will need to hire over the next 
10 years will be first-time teachers, and they will need to be well-
prepared for the challenges of today's classrooms. For these reasons, 
the nation's attention has increasingly focused on the role that 
institutions of higher education and States play in ensuring that new 
teachers have the content knowledge and teaching skills they need to 
ensure that all students are held to higher standards.
  Accordingly, the Ready to Teach Act authorizes three types of teacher 
training grants that each play a unique, yet critical role in the 
education of tomorrow's teachers. State grant funds must be used to 
reform teacher preparation requirements and ensure that current and 
future teachers are highly qualified. Partnership grants allow 
effective partners to join together, combining strengths and resources 
to train highly qualified teachers and achieve success where it matters 
most--in the classroom. Teacher recruitment grants will help bring high 
quality individuals into teacher programs, and ultimately put more 
highly qualified teachers into classrooms. This legislation addresses 
key objectives to improve the quality of teacher preparation:
  1. Accountability: While current higher education law contains some 
annual reporting requirements, these reporting measures have proven 
ineffective in measuring the true quality of teacher preparation 
programs. In fact, the current requirements have often been 
manipulated, leaving data skewed and often irrelevant. The Ready to 
Teach Act includes accountability provisions that will strengthen 
reporting measures and hold teacher preparation programs accountable 
for providing accurate and useful information.
  2. Flexibility: The Ready to Teach Act recognizes that flexibility 
should exist in methods used for training highly qualified teachers, 
and for that reason, would allow funds to be used for innovative 
methods in teacher preparation programs, such as charter colleges of 
education, which can provide an alternative gateway for teachers to 
become highly qualified. Pioneering programs such as charter colleges 
of education would also implement systems to gauge a true measure of 
teacher effectiveness--the academic achievement of students.
  3. Effectiveness: In addition to strengthening accountability 
measures, the Ready to Teach Act increases the effectiveness and 
quality in teacher training programs by including provisions to focus 
training on the skills and knowledge needed to prepare highly qualified 
teachers. The bill places a renewed emphasis on a broad range of skills 
required for effective teaching, such as the use of advanced technology 
in the classroom, rigorous academic content knowledge, scientifically 
based research, and challenging state student academic content 
standards.
  Institutions of higher education have a great deal of responsibility 
in contributing to the preparation of our nation's teachers--this bill 
will make sure they're meeting their responsibilities. I commend 
Congressman Gingrey for introducing the Ready to Teach Act, I believe 
this bill will help to ensure that the best and the brightest teachers 
are teaching our children.

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