A newly released study from the Government Accountability Office found that federal law requiring states receiving federal funding to identify poor performing teacher preparation programs is not being adhered to.

"GAO investigators found that seven states, unnamed in the report, don’t have a process for identifying low-performing teacher preparation programs. Under federal law, states have discretion over the criteria for evaluating the programs, but they have to have a process for singling out the poor-performing ones," said InsideHigherEd.com.

The GAO's report found that the Department of Education should do a better job in ensuring that states adhere to the federal law and also work to share beneficial information about desired quality and successes of teacher prep programs.

"Education Department officials largely agreed with the findings and pointed out that the Obama administration has proposed new regulations aimed at boosting the quality of teacher preparation programs," the article said.

The proposed regulations were drafted last November but are controversial among educators because in its efforts to judge teacher preparation programs by student performance, there is a potential for test scores to be a defining criteria.

According to The Washington Post, the regulations stipulate that "states must begin assigning ratings to each program within the next two to three years, based on outcomes such as graduates’ 'value-added' to student test scores, their classroom observation scores, how long they stay in teaching, whether they teach in high-needs schools, and surveys of their principals’ satisfaction."

Read the full story here and comment with your thoughts below.

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

07/24/2015