By Michael Dannenberg, Director of Strategic Initiatives for Policy, Education Reform Now
Buzz is, and it’s a good bet, that the Obama administration is about to release a draft teacher preparation regulation. Why, and what will the draft regulation say?
Separately and together, there are three major pending Obama initiatives that advance “quality assurance” and “accountability for higher ed” as postsecondary education policy themes that could prove a significant part of this administration’s higher education legacy.
First, there’s the President’s proposed college ratings system. It’s designed to push institutions of higher education to improve their overall performance on access, affordability, and completion metrics.
Second, there’s the Obama administration’s pending gainful employment rule designed to protect students and families from for-profit and not-for-profit postsecondary training programs that charge too much and deliver too little in terms of individual economic gains.
Finally, there’s the Obama administration’s teacher preparation agenda designed to reward high-quality programs, get mid-range programs to improve, and either turn around or shut down persistently poor-performing programs. In the past, the administration has discussed teacher preparation program quality in terms of the skills with which graduates leave.
From a communications standpoint, it makes sense to release those three major initiatives back-to-back-to-back to reinforce the “quality assurance” and “accountability for higher ed” message.
The tea leaves suggest the time of release is upon us.
In October of last year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said we should expect from the Department of Education a fleshed out college ratings system for the President’s review this fall. This past Monday was the first day of fall.
In March of this year, the Secretary sent a draft gainful employment regulation to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. If the administration is to comply with its “master calendar,” the final gainful employment regulation must be released by November 1 to be effective the following school year (July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016). Miss November 1 and another year has to pass before the regulation kicks in, meaning July 2016. They surely don’t want that.
Finally, in early May of this year, the Administration sent a draft teacher preparation regulation to OMB for review. Granted, there are draft regulations that have sat at OMB for more than a year, so transmission is no assurance of imminent release. But given the other initiatives and high-profile events involving the White House associated with teacher preparation, it seems the Administration is not going to let this slip.
“This is something that the President has a real sense of urgency about,” according to Cecilia Muñoz, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.
So, what might the teacher preparation regulation in particular say? Well, no one who says knows, and no one who knows says – including me. (Disclosure: I helped craft the Obama administration’s teacher preparation strategy and helped draft an earlier version of the regulation.)
What I can tell you is that in repeated budgets, the administration has embraced this proposed policy. The key takeaway is that proposed was for teacher preparation programs to be evaluated based on multiple measures, of which impact on K-12 student achievement was but one.
Now that was some time ago and since there have been blips on higher ed accountability, but the Secretary repeatedly has expressed support for the principles underlying the administration’s original strategy.
So stay tuned. There may be fits and starts, but hopefully the higher ed policy zeitgeist of increased insistence on “quality assurance” and “accountability for results” is not changing. It’s has been a long time coming for students and teachers.
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