In early December, the U.S. Department of Education announced new proposed regulations for collecting and reporting data on teacher preparation programs. Music teacher educators should take time now to get informed about these regulations and make your voice heard in the public comment period, ending February 2, 2015. These regulations fall under Title II of the Higher Education Act, and have the potential to greatly change the way teacher education programs are evaluated. In their current form, the proposed regulations include elements like using student performance data in a manner similar to value-added modeling to evaluate teachers’ impact and apply NCLB-style performance labeling to the teacher preparation programs from which those teachers graduated.
By participating in the public comment phase, you have the opportunity to shape the final regulations. As with many efforts at the Federal level, the quantity of public comments often speaks the loudest to policymakers. Here are some ways you might take action:
- Visit the Federal Register page for these new regulations and write your comments
- Share information and discussion with your colleagues on your own campus and neighboring institutions
- Share information via social media with teachers, teacher educators, future teachers and teacher educators, and anyone else interested in the future of teacher education
- Organize a commenting party with other teacher educators from all disciplines
- Communicate with your campus education units and leadership about how to respond to these proposed changes
- Communicate with your state education units and arts coordinators about the impact of these proposed changes
The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) has created a resource page to help stakeholders learn about these proposed regulations, including informative recorded webinars and links to analyses. Visit that resource page at:
http://aacte.org/resources/regulations
To view the rules and submit formal comments by February 2, 2015, visit:
http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/12/03/2014-28218/teacher-preparation-issues
See SMTE’s original post on these new regulations here.