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entitled 'Teacher Quality: Sustained Coordination among Key Federal 
Education Programs Could Enhance State Efforts to Improve Teacher 
Quality' which was released on August 7, 2009. 

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Report to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Higher Education, 
Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness, Committee on Education and 
Labor, House of Representatives: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

July 2009: 

Teacher Quality: 

Sustained Coordination among Key Federal Education Programs Could 
Enhance State Efforts to Improve Teacher Quality: 

GAO-09-593: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-09-593, a report to the Chairman of the Subcommittee 
on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness, Committee 
on Education and Labor, House of Representatives. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

Policymakers and researchers have focused on improving the quality of 
our nation’s 3 million teachers to raise the achievement of students in 
key academic areas, such as reading and mathematics. Given the 
importance of teacher quality to student achievement and the key role 
federal and state governments play in supporting teacher quality, GAO’s 
objectives included examining (1) the extent that the U.S. Department 
of Education (Education) funds and coordinates teacher quality 
programs, (2) studies that Education conducts on teacher quality and 
how it provides and coordinates research-related assistance to states 
and school districts, and (3) challenges to collaboration within states 
and how Education helps address those challenges. GAO interviewed 
experts and Education officials, administered surveys to officials at 
state educational agencies and state agencies for higher education in 
the fall of 2008, and conducted site visits to three states. 

What GAO Found: 

Education allocates billions of federal dollars for teacher quality 
improvement efforts through many statutorily authorized programs that 
nine offices administer. Education officials said these offices share 
information with one another as needed, and from time to time Education 
has established and completed broader collaborative efforts. Yet, GAO 
found little sustained coordination and no strategy for working 
systematically across program lines. Education also has not described 
how it will coordinate crosscutting teacher quality improvement 
activities intended to support its goal of improving student 
achievement in its annual performance plan. Our previous work has 
identified the use of strategic and annual plans as a practice that can 
help enhance and sustain collaboration. Without clear strategies for 
sustained coordination, Education may be missing key opportunities to 
leverage and align its resources, activities, and processes to assist 
states, school districts, and institutions of higher education improve 
teacher quality. 

Education has conducted evaluations for some of its teacher quality 
programs and has awarded grants to researchers for a variety of 
research on teacher quality interventions, which are intended to inform 
policymakers and educators about program operations and which programs 
or interventions are having an impact. While evaluations have been done 
or are under way for about two-fifths of these programs, little is 
known about whether most of the programs are achieving their desired 
results. Education provides information from evaluations and also from 
research through the Internet and a system of regional and national 
providers. These providers also either conduct or synthesize research 
and provide assistance mainly to states and school districts. These 
providers coordinate among themselves and with one another in various 
ways. 

State agency officials reported through our surveys that limited 
resources and incompatible data systems were the greatest challenges to 
their collaborative efforts to improve teacher quality. State officials 
reported that data systems could be used to inform teacher quality 
policy efforts by linking student and teacher data, or linking data 
from kindergarten through 12th grade and the postsecondary education 
systems. To help address these challenges, Education provides some 
financial support and other assistance. For example, one $65 million 
program that helps states develop statewide data systems also received 
another $250 million in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 
2009. Also, the act requires states to report on the progress they are 
making toward linking statewide data systems that allow matching of 
individual student achievement to individual teachers. This additional 
funding could help states defray costs associated with these efforts.  

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO recommends that the Secretary of Education implement a strategy for 
sustained coordination among program offices. A key purpose would be to 
aid information and resource sharing, and strengthen linkages among its 
efforts to help improve teacher quality. While Education will consider 
forming a cross-program group, it favors short-term, issue-specific 
coordination. We continue to believe sustained coordination is needed. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-593] or key 
components. For more information, contact Cornelia Ashby at (202) 512-
7215 or AshbyC@gao.gov. To view the e-supplement online, click on 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-594SP]. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Background: 

Education Funds a Wide Array of Programs Intended to Improve Teacher 
Quality and Has Taken Some Steps to Coordinate These Programs on 
Occasion: 

Offices Administering Education's Teacher Improvement Programs Use a 
Variety of Methods to Target Monitoring, and Education Is Beginning to 
Implement Mechanisms Intended to Improve and Coordinate These Efforts: 

Education Conducts a Variety of Teacher Quality Improvement Studies and 
Provides Assistance to States and Districts through Regional and 
National Service Providers, Which Coordinate in Various Ways: 

States Face Several Challenges in Collaborating Internally to Improve 
Teacher Quality; Education Provides Some Assistance to Help Address 
These Challenges: 

Conclusion: 

Recommendation for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Primary Programs: Twenty-three Programs Providing Funding 
Specifically to Improve the Quality of Teachers: 

Appendix III: Programs That Support Broad Objectives but Allow or 
Require Some Funds to Be Used for Teacher Quality: 

Appendix IV: Institute of Education Sciences' Sponsored Research on 
Teacher Quality, 2003-2009: 

Appendix V: Comments from the U.S. Department of Education: 

Appendix VI: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Tables: 

Table 1: Roles and Responsibilities of State and Local Education 
Institutions: 

Table 2: Principal and Program Offices within Education: 

Table 3: Activities Funded by Programs Specifically Focused on Teacher 
Quality: 

Table 4: Offices That Administer the 23 Programs Focused Primarily on 
Teacher Quality: 

Table 5: Evaluations of the 23 Programs Specifically Focused on Teacher 
Quality: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: Career Path of Teachers: 

Figure 2: Funding Levels of the 23 Programs Specifically Focused on 
Teacher Quality: 

Figure 3: SEA and SAHE Views of the Usefulness of Education Assistance 
Vary: 

Figure 4: Challenges to Collaborative Efforts within States to Improve 
Teacher Quality: 

Abbreviations: 

ESEA: Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965: 

GPRA: Government Performance and Results Act: 

HEA: Higher Education Act: 

IES: Institute of Education Sciences: 

IHE: Institution of higher education: 

K-12: Kindergarten through 12th grade: 

NCLBA: No Child Left Behind Act: 

OIG: Office of Inspector General: 

Recover Act: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: 

REL: Regional Educational Laboratories: 

SAHE: State agency for higher education: 

SEA: State education agency: 

STEM: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

July 6, 2009: 

The Honorable Rubén Hinojosa: 
Chairman: 
Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and 
Competitiveness: 
Committee on Education and Labor: 
House of Representatives: 

Dear Mr. Chairman: 

Nationwide there are about 3 million teachers employed in approximately 
14,000 public school districts with about 89,000 schools. Policymakers, 
researchers, and educators have focused on improving the quality of our 
nation's teachers in an attempt to raise the achievement of students in 
key academic areas, such as reading and mathematics. A variety of 
approaches have been taken to improve the quality of teachers, 
including focusing on instructional practices. Among these approaches, 
improving the qualifications of teachers is a focus of federal policy. 
Specifically, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLBA), which 
amended and reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 
1965 (ESEA), established federal requirements that all teachers of core 
academic subjects be "highly qualified." This means teachers must 
generally have a bachelor's degree, be fully certified, and demonstrate 
their knowledge of the subjects they teach. According to the U.S. 
Department of Education (Education), most teachers meet their states' 
requirements to be considered highly qualified under ESEA. However, the 
percentage of teachers who are not highly qualified is higher for 
certain populations of teachers, such as special education teachers and 
teachers in high-poverty and high-minority schools.[Footnote 1] 

ESEA as well as several other federal statutes, such as the Higher 
Education Act and the Education Sciences Reform Act, authorize various 
grant programs and other forms of assistance, like research, for 
states, school districts, and institutions of higher education to help 
individuals meet the teacher qualification requirements as well as 
other efforts aimed at improving teacher quality. This funding and 
assistance are administered by Education, either directly or indirectly 
through state and local entities. 

Student access to high-quality teachers may be affected, in part, by 
the extent to which the kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) and 
higher education systems work together at the federal, state, and local 
levels. However, it is unclear how conducive the current configuration 
of entities is to these complementary relationships. Given the 
importance of teacher quality to student achievement and the role that 
the federal and state governments play in this area, you asked us to 
address the following questions: (1) To what extent does Education fund 
and coordinate teacher quality programs? (2) How does Education target 
monitoring of its teacher quality program grantees and coordinate these 
efforts? (3) What evaluation and research does Education conduct on 
teacher quality, and how does it provide and coordinate research- 
related assistance to states and school districts? (4) What are the 
challenges to collaboration within states and how does Education 
address these challenges? 

To conduct our work, we used a variety of methods, including interviews 
with Education officials, surveys of states and the District of 
Columbia, and site visits in three states. To learn about the major 
federal programs supporting teacher quality efforts, we selected 
programs from the Guide to U.S. Department of Education Programs 2008 
and verified that these were the relevant programs with Education 
officials. For each grant program, we reviewed federal laws, 
nonregulatory guidance, policies, procedure manuals, and other 
documentation, and interviewed officials from a range of Education 
offices overseeing teacher quality programs to determine how they 
coordinate program efforts as well as how they monitor grantees. We 
also interviewed officials from a selection of relevant Education- 
funded research organizations and related assistance providers at the 
regional and national levels to understand how Education funds and 
supports efforts to improve teacher quality. To learn about the 
specific areas of teacher quality that state agencies are focusing on 
and the challenges to collaboration within their states,[Footnote 2] we 
administered two surveys between August and November 2008--one to heads 
of state educational agencies and another to heads of state agencies 
for higher education in states and the District of Columbia using self- 
administered, electronic questionnaires posted on the Internet. 
[Footnote 3] We received a 94 percent response rate for the state 
educational agency survey and a 96 percent response rate for the state 
agency for higher education survey. We also conducted site visits to 
three states--Louisiana, New Jersey, and Oregon--that were selected 
based on their having initiatives that focus on teacher quality, such 
as coordinating bodies that are intended to bridge the K-12 and higher 
education systems,[Footnote 4] and on diversity in terms of geographic 
location, population, and amount of federal teacher quality program 
funding. We met with state officials in each state and, to understand 
the local perspective, we met with officials in at least one school 
district and two universities in each state. A more detailed 
explanation of our scope and methodology can be found in appendix I. 
The surveys and a more complete tabulation of aggregated results can be 
viewed at GAO-09-594SP. 

We conducted our work from February 2008 through July 2009 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those 
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 
conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

Background: 

Research points to teacher quality as an important school-level factor 
influencing student learning and ultimately preparing children for 
their futures as citizens and workers in a knowledge-based economy. 
However, efforts to improve the quality of teachers face several 
challenges. One challenge is a lack of consensus about what makes 
teachers effective. Even though research demonstrates that some 
teachers affect their students' academic growth more than other 
teachers, research has not categorically identified the specific 
indicators of teacher quality, such as the characteristics, classroom 
practices, and qualifications that are most likely to improve student 
learning.[Footnote 5] Some researchers have shown that with the 
exception of a few factors, they cannot state, with a strong degree of 
certainty and consistency, which aspects of teacher quality matter most 
for student learning. Another challenge is the high attrition rates and 
shortages of teachers, especially in high-poverty areas. For example, 
almost half of teachers leave the profession in the first 5 years of 
teaching, and there is an anticipated surge in retirements of teachers 
from the baby boom generation. Moreover, research has shown that many 
students, especially those in high-poverty and high-minority schools, 
have teachers who have limited knowledge of the subjects they teach. In 
addition, there are concerns that graduates of teacher education 
programs are inadequately prepared to teach to high standards and that 
once teachers are in the classroom, training to help remedy this 
situation is sporadic and uncoordinated. 

While many teachers follow a traditional career path of preparation 
followed by ongoing professional development, there are also 
alternative career paths. Many prospective teachers receive their 
undergraduate degrees through teacher preparation programs administered 
by institutions of higher education. Traditional teaching preparation 
programs typically include field-based experience, courses in specific 
subject matter, and strategies of instruction or pedagogy. Within 
institutions of higher education, these prospective teachers generally 
learn subject matter content in schools of arts and sciences and learn 
pedagogy in schools of education. Under this traditional approach, 
prospective teachers must complete all their certification requirements 
before beginning to teach. Teachers may also gain certification through 
alternative routes designed for prospective teachers who have been out 
of the job market (e.g., stay-at-home mothers) or have a career in a 
different field and who hold at least an undergraduate degree. 
Alternative route candidates receive training needed to meet the 
certification requirements of other teachers while teaching in the 
classroom. Generally, after completing a traditional or alternative 
teacher preparation program, teachers in the classroom participate in 
ongoing training or professional development. Training for new and 
veteran teachers may differ, with some states and school districts 
providing mentoring or induction programs for new teachers. Induction 
for new teachers may include district-or school-level orientation 
sessions, special in-service training, mentoring by an experienced 
teacher, and classroom observation. See figure 1 for an illustration of 
the various steps in the career path for teachers. 

Figure 1: Career Path of Teachers: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

(1) Preparation of prospective teachers (preservice): 
* Recruiting prospective teachers into the field; 
* Traditional or alternative programs: 
– Training in pedagogy; 
– Acquisition of subject matter knowledge; 
– Field experiences, including student teaching; 
Service providers: Institutions of higher education and/or alternative 
route programs. 

(2) Certification and continuing training for new practicing teachers: 
* Initial license or professional license; 
* Mentoring or induction program during first years of teaching; 
Service providers: States, districts, and institutions of higher 
education. 

(3) Ongoing professional training for practicing teachers (in-service): 
* Professional development courses; 
* Advanced certification; 
* License renewal; 
Service providers: States, districts, institutions of higher education, 
and other providers. 

Source: GAO analysis, Art Explosion (images). 

[End of figure] 

Entities at the local, state, and federal levels each play a role in 
the preparation and ongoing professional development training of 
teachers. The roles and responsibilities of these entities sometimes 
overlap (see table 1). For example, about half of alternative teacher 
certification programs are administered by institutions of higher 
education, and school districts, state educational agencies (SEA), and 
other entities can also offer alternative routes to certification. 

Table 1: Roles and Responsibilities of State and Local Education 
Institutions: 

Responsible entity for each activity[A]: 

Education activity: Legal and administrative responsibility for state 
education system; 
State educational agency: [Check]; 
State agency for higher education[B]: [Check]; 
Institution of higher education: [Empty]; 
School district: [Check]; 
School: [Empty]. 

Education activity: Recruitment; 
State educational agency: [Check]; 
State agency for higher education[B]: [Empty]; 
Institution of higher education: [Check]; 
School district: [Check]; 
School: [Check]. 

Education activity: Hiring; 
State educational agency: [Empty]; 
State agency for higher education[B]: [Empty]; 
Institution of higher education: [Empty]; 
School district: [Check]; 
School: [Empty]. 

Education activity: Compensation; 
State educational agency: [Empty]; 
State agency for higher education[B]: [Empty]; 
Institution of higher education: [Empty]; 
School district: [Check]; 
School: [Empty]. 

Education activity: Retention; 
State educational agency: [Check]; 
State agency for higher education[B]: [Empty]; 
Institution of higher education: [Empty]; 
School district: [Check]; 
School: [Check]. 

Education activity: Certification; 
State educational agency: [Check]; 
State agency for higher education[B]: [Empty]; 
Institution of higher education: [Empty]; 
School district: [Empty]; 
School: [Empty]. 

Education activity: Classroom teacher training; 
State educational agency: [Check]; 
State agency for higher education[B]: [Check]; 
Institution of higher education: [Check]; 
School district: [Check]; 
School: [Check]. 

Education activity: Teacher assignments; 
State educational agency: [Empty]; 
State agency for higher education[B]: [Empty]; 
Institution of higher education: [Empty]; 
School district: [Check]; 
School: [Check]. 

Education activity: Teacher evaluations; 
State educational agency: [Empty]; 
State agency for higher education[B]: [Empty]; 
Institution of higher education: [Empty]; 
School district: [Empty]; 
School: [Check]. 

Education activity: Alternative routes to certification; 
State educational agency: [Check]; 
State agency for higher education[B]: [Empty]; 
Institution of higher education: [Check]; 
School district: [Check]; 
School: [Empty]. 

Education activity: Traditional routes to certification; 
State educational agency: [Check]; 
State agency for higher education[B]: [Empty]; 
Institution of higher education: [Check]; 
School district: [Empty]; 
School: [Empty]. 

Education activity: Mentoring or induction; 
State educational agency: [Check]; 
State agency for higher education[B]: [Empty]; 
Institution of higher education: [Empty]; 
School district: [Check]; 
School: [Check]. 

Education activity: Academic program approval at public institutions of 
higher education; 
State educational agency: [Empty]; 
State agency for higher education[B]: [Check]; 
Institution of higher education: [Empty]; 
School district: [Empty]; 
School: [Empty]. 

Sources: Education, Congressional Research Service, and state education 
sources. 

[A] The roles and responsibilities of each entity may vary from state 
to state depending on the school governance system; for example, some 
states delegate more control to the local level than others do. 

[B] State agencies for higher education have varied levels of formal 
authority, such as authority for academic programs and budget, over 
public institutions of higher education. 

[End of table] 

State agencies for higher education (SAHE)--also referred to as the 
board of regents or the department, commission, or council for 
postsecondary or higher education--can also play a role in teacher 
quality. These agencies oversee state institutions of higher education 
where most teachers are trained. SAHEs generally approve of new 
academic programs at institutions of higher education and some may have 
budgetary authority. 

School districts, institutions of higher education, and states collect 
and report data, which include tracking teachers' professional 
development hours, maintaining records of certified teachers, tracking 
student test scores and graduation rates, as well as producing teacher 
supply and demand studies. These and other data are intended to inform 
efforts such as improving schools, reducing student achievement gaps, 
and tracking the highly qualified status of all teachers. To make 
better use of these data, many states are putting in place longitudinal 
data systems that link data, such as student test scores and enrollment 
patterns, of individuals or groups of students over time. In addition, 
many states are using or have interest in using growth models--a term 
that refers to a variety of methods for tracking changes in a variable 
over time--to measure progress for schools and for student groups or 
individual students. For example, one type of model (known as a value- 
added model) measures students' gains from previous test scores. GAO 
has reported that states with a longitudinal data system will be better 
positioned to implement a growth model than they would have been 
without it.[Footnote 6] 

The federal government plays an important role in education. 
Education's mission is, among other things, to ensure equal access to 
education and promote educational excellence throughout the nation by 
supporting state and local educational improvement efforts, as well as 
improving coordination and management of federal education programs. 
For example, Education provides financial assistance through various 
formula and competitive grant programs. Formula grants allocate federal 
funds to states or school districts in accordance with a distribution 
formula prescribed by statute or administrative regulation. Competitive 
grants are awarded through a competitive process, whereby grant 
applications are reviewed according to published selection criteria and 
legislative and regulatory requirements established for the program. 
Education has discretion to determine which applications best address 
the program requirements and are thus worthy of funding. In addition, 
Education monitors and conducts activities related to the particular 
program and grantees receiving these funds. Education has eight 
principal offices responsible for specific program areas. These 
principal offices award and manage all grant programs for that program 
area. In addition, each principal office contains several program 
offices that administer the day-to-day activities of one or more grant 
programs, such as those authorized in Title I of ESEA (see table 2). 
Thirty-two program offices manage about 150 grant programs 
departmentwide. 

Table 2: Principal and Program Offices within Education: 

Principal office: Office of English Language Acquisition; 
Program offices: 
* Continuation and Professional Grants Division. 

Principal office: Institute of Education Sciences; 
Program offices: 
* National Center for Education Research;
* National Center for Special Education Research;
* National Center for Education Statistics. 

Principal office: Office of Elementary and Secondary Education; 
Program offices: 
* Academic Improvement and Teacher Quality Programs;
* School Support and Technology Programs;
* Impact Aid Programs;
* Student Achievement and School Accountability;
* Office of Migrant Education;
* Office of Indian Education. 

Principal office: Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools; 
Program offices: 
* Center for School Preparedness;
* Drug-Violence Prevention-State Programs;
* Drug-Violence Prevention-National Programs;
* Health, Mental Health, Environmental Health and Physical Education;
* Character and Civic Education;
* Policy and Cross-Cutting Programs. 

Principal office: Office of Innovation and Improvement; 
Program offices: 
* Improvement Programs;
* Fund for the Improvement in Education;
* Parental Options and Information;
* Teacher Quality Programs;
* Technology in Education Programs. 

Principal office: Office of Postsecondary Education; 
Program offices: 
* Higher Education Preparation and Support Service;
* Institutional Development and Undergraduate Education Service;
* International Education Programs Service;
* Teacher and Student Development Programs Service;
* Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. 

Principal office: Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative 
Services; 
Program offices: 
* National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research;
* Rehabilitation Services Administration;
* Office of Special Education Programs. 

Principal office: Office of Vocational and Adult Education; 
Program offices: 
* Adult Education and Literacy Division;
* Academic and Technical Education Division;
* Policy Research and Evaluation Staff. 

Source: Education. 

[End of table] 

A goal of ESEA is improving student achievement so that all students 
will be proficient in math and reading by 2014. To accomplish this 
goal, Education has established a series of strategic objectives that 
include improving teacher quality.[Footnote 7] To assess its progress 
in meeting this objective, Education has established performance 
measures in its strategic plan. These measures all relate to having 
highly qualified teachers in core academic classes at elementary and 
secondary schools, including low-and high-poverty schools. These 
measures are also included in Education's annual performance plan. 
These plans are intended to provide a direct linkage between an 
agency's longer-term goals (as defined in the strategic plan) and what 
its managers and staff are doing on a day-to-day basis. 

A number of federal laws govern teacher quality. With the 2001 
reauthorization of ESEA, which requires public school teachers to be 
highly qualified in every core academic subject they teach, the federal 
government established specific criteria for teachers.[Footnote 8] 
Title I of ESEA requires every state and school district receiving 
Title I funds to develop and submit a plan for how it intends to meet 
the teacher qualification requirements, which is part of a broader plan 
outlining how it will meet other requirements of the act such as those 
requiring challenging academic content and student achievement 
standards. In addition, the state plan must establish each district's 
and school's annual measurable objectives for increasing the number of 
teachers meeting qualification requirements and receiving high-quality 
professional development with the goal of ensuring that all teachers 
met the requirements by the end of the 2005-2006 school year. While 
there is evidence that most teachers meet their states' requirements to 
be considered highly qualified, schools and school districts with high 
student poverty rates have generally had particular difficulty 
attracting and retaining highly qualified teachers; as a result, their 
students are often assigned to teachers with less experience, 
education, and skills than those who teach other students. 

As GAO has reported, Title II of ESEA provides states and districts 
with funding to help them implement various initiatives for raising 
teacher and principal qualifications.[Footnote 9] In addition, other 
federal laws that authorize programs intended to influence teacher 
quality include the following: 

* The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is the primary 
federal law addressing the educational needs of students with 
disabilities. The act, as amended, cross-references the ESEA "highly 
qualified" teacher definition, but unlike ESEA, this act requires that 
all special education teachers--not just those teaching core subjects-
-must meet certain requirements. 

* The Higher Education Act (HEA), as amended by the Higher Education 
Opportunity Act, authorizes most of Education's programs targeted to 
postsecondary education. Specifically, the act established 
discretionary grants to prepare prospective teachers and accountability 
requirements for teacher preparation programs and states.[Footnote 10] 
For example, it requires annual reporting on the quality of traditional 
and alternative teacher preparation programs, including the efforts of 
institutions of higher education to increase the number of prospective 
teachers teaching in high-need areas and being responsive to the needs 
of school districts.[Footnote 11] 

* The Education Sciences Reform Act is intended to strengthen the 
principal education research, statistics, and evaluation activities of 
Education. Within Education, it established the Institute of Education 
Sciences, which has a mission to provide reliable information about the 
condition and progress of education in the United States, educational 
practices that support learning and improve achievement, and the 
effectiveness of federal and other education programs. 

Education Funds a Wide Array of Programs Intended to Improve Teacher 
Quality and Has Taken Some Steps to Coordinate These Programs on 
Occasion: 

Over a third of the programs that Education administers support efforts 
to improve teacher quality. Many of these statutorily authorized 
programs supporting teacher quality are intended to specifically 
support teacher quality activities, such as professional development 
training for teachers already serving in the classroom; the remaining 
programs support teacher quality activities but do so in pursuit of 
other program purposes or goals. Education officials said they have 
taken some steps to share information among the multiple offices 
administering these programs and have established and completed broader 
collaborative efforts on occasion. 

Education Administers 56 Programs Supporting Efforts to Improve Teacher 
Quality, Especially for Local Efforts to Train Existing Teachers: 

In fiscal year 2009, Education administered 56 statutorily authorized 
programs that support efforts to improve teacher quality. Of these 56 
programs, Education allocated about $4.1 billion to 23 programs that 
have, as a specific purpose, improving teacher quality, including 
increasing the number of highly qualified teachers in the classroom. 
The remaining 33 programs do not have the primary purpose of improving 
teacher quality and focus on other program goals or purposes, such as 
increasing student access to institutions of higher education. 
Nevertheless, these programs allow or require some portion of program 
funding to be used for teacher quality activities. Education officials 
said that they do not collect specific data on the amount of funding 
going to teacher quality activities for most of these programs. 
Appendixes II and III provide information about each of the programs. 

Twenty-three Programs Specifically Focus on Teacher Quality: 

Of the 23 programs that specifically focus on improving teacher 
quality, a majority of the funds (approximately $3 billion) are 
concentrated in one program, the Improving Teacher Quality State Grant 
program. This formula grant is allocated primarily to school districts 
and may be used for a wide variety of activities to improve teacher 
quality, such as providing funding for teacher preparation, training 
for teachers already in the classroom, and recruitment.[Footnote 12] In 
addition, states may retain approximately 5 percent of these program 
funds to support teacher quality efforts--generally split evenly 
between state educational agencies (to support state-level teacher 
initiatives) and state agencies for higher education (to support 
partnerships between institutions of higher education and high-need 
school districts that work to provide training to teachers already 
teaching in the classroom). 

As shown in figure 2, 16 of the 23 programs specifically focused on 
teacher quality each received less than $50 million. Nearly all of 
these programs are competitive grants, and each has its own policies, 
applications, award competitions, reporting requirements, and, in some 
cases, federal evaluations. Furthermore, these programs are focused to 
support specific activities, such as improving teachers' knowledge and 
understanding of American history, recruiting midcareer professionals 
to teaching, or training existing teachers in music, dance, and drama. 

Figure 2: Funding Levels of the 23 Programs Specifically Focused on 
Teacher Quality: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated vertical bar graph] 

Fiscal year 2009 program funding levels (Dollars in millions): 

Over $500 million (1): 
* Improving Teacher Quality State Grants; 
Total funding level: $2,948. 

Between $51 million and $500 million (6): 
* Enhancing Education Through Technology; 
* Mathematics and Science Partnership; 
* Teaching American History; 
* Early Reading First; 
* Teacher Incentive Fund; 
* Special Education–Personnel Development to Improve Services and 
Results for Children with Disabilities; 
Total funding level: $868. 

Between $15 million and $50 million (7): 
* Teacher Quality Partnership Grant; 
* Special Education–State Personnel Development Grant; 
* English Language Acquisition National Professional Development; 
* Transition to Teaching; 
* Striving Readers; 
* National Writing Project; 
* School Leadership Program; 
Total funding level: $262. 

Less than $15 million (9): 
* Troops-to-Teachers; 
* Ready-to-Teach; 
* Advanced Certification or Advanced Credentialing; 
* Indian Education Professional Development; 
* Professional Development for Arts Educators; 
* Territories and Freely Associated States Education; 
* Academies for American History and Civics; 
* Teachers for Competitive Tomorrow Program–Baccalaureate STEM and 
Foreign Language Teacher Training; 
* Teachers for Competitive Tomorrow Program–Masters STEM and Foreign 
Language Training; 
Total funding level: $60. 

Sources: GAO analysis of documents obtained from and discussions with 
Education. 

Note: Education's fiscal year 2010 budget request proposes eliminating 
2 of these 23 programs: the Ready-to-Teach program and the Academies 
for American History and Civics program. In fiscal year 2009, both 
programs are funded at less than $15 million. Education proposes 
eliminating the Ready-to-Teach program because it limits eligibility 
only to telecommunications providers and not additional professional 
development providers that utilize other delivery methods, such as the 
Internet and other digital media platforms. Education proposes 
eliminating the American History and Civics program because the program 
is considered too small to leverage funding effectively and Education 
has minimal evidence that the program has a positive impact on 
participating students and teachers. Further, Education states that 
school districts and other entities that wish to implement history and 
civics training programs can use funds provided under other federal 
programs, such as the Teaching American History program. 

[End of figure] 

As illustrated in table 3, most of the 23 programs allow funds to be 
used for professional development training for teachers already in the 
classroom, but many allow grantees to use funding for a range of 
activities throughout a teacher's career path, such as teacher 
preparation, teacher recruitment or retention, certification or 
licensure, and induction or mentoring. 

Table 3: Activities Funded by Programs Specifically Focused on Teacher 
Quality: 

Program: Improving Teacher Quality State Grants; 
Recruitment or retention: [Check]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Check]; 
Certification or licensure: [Check]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Check]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Check]. 

Program: Mathematics and Science Partnerships; 
Recruitment or retention: [Check]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Empty]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Enhancing Education Through Technology Program; 
Recruitment or retention: 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Empty]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: National Writing Project; 
Recruitment or retention: [Empty]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Empty]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Advanced Certification or Advanced Credentialing; 
Recruitment or retention: [Check]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Empty]; 
Certification or licensure: [Check]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Empty]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Troops-to-Teachers; 
Recruitment or retention: [Check]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Check]; 
Certification or licensure: [Check]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Empty]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Early Reading First; 
Recruitment or retention: [Empty]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Empty]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Striving Readers; 
Recruitment or retention: [Empty]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Empty]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Teacher Incentive Fund; 
Recruitment or retention: [Empty]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Empty]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Empty]; 
Compensation: [Check]. 

Program: Territories and Freely Associated States Education Grant 
Program; 
Recruitment or retention: [Empty]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Empty]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Indian Education Professional Development Grants[C]; 
Recruitment or retention: [Check]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Check]; 
Certification or licensure: [Check]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Check]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: School Leadership Program; 
Recruitment or retention: [Check]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Empty]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Check]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Check]. 

Program: Teaching American History; 
Recruitment or retention: [Empty]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Empty]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Transition to Teaching Program; 
Recruitment or retention: [Check]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Check]; 
Certification or licensure: [Check]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Check]; 
Professional development: [Empty]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Professional Development for Arts Educators; 
Recruitment or retention: [Empty]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Empty]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Ready-to-Teach Grant Program; 
Recruitment or retention: [Empty]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Empty]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Academies for American History and Civics; 
Recruitment or retention: [Empty]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Empty]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: English Language Acquisition Professional Development Program; 
Recruitment or retention: [Empty]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Empty]; 
Certification or licensure: [Check]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Special Education–Personnel Development to Improve Services 
and Results for Children with Disabilities; 
Recruitment or retention: [Check]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Check]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Check]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Special Education–State Personnel Development Grant Program; 
Recruitment or retention: [Empty]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Check]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Teacher Quality Partnership Grants; 
Recruitment or retention: [Check]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Check]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Check]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Teachers for a Competitive Tomorrow Program: Masters STEM and 
Foreign Language Teacher Training; 
Recruitment or retention: [Empty]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Check]; 
Certification or licensure: [Empty]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Empty]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Program: Teachers for a Competitive Tomorrow Program: Baccalaureate 
STEM and Foreign Language Teacher Training; 
Recruitment or retention: [Empty]; 
Teacher preparation[A]: [Check]; 
Certification or licensure: [Check]; 
Induction or mentoring[B]: [Check]; 
Professional development: [Check]; 
Compensation: [Empty]. 

Source: Analysis of statutes authorizing these programs and Education 
documents. 

[A] The category "teacher preparation" may include teaching residency 
programs. A teaching residency program for prospective teachers is a 
school-based teacher preparation program for recent college graduates 
and midcareer professional s who are not teaching. These prospective 
teachers teach alongside a mentor teacher and receive concurrent 
instruction in the teaching of a content area in which the teacher will 
become certified. 

[B] Induction for new teachers might include district-or school-level 
orientation sessions, special in-service training, mentoring by an 
experienced teacher, classroom observation, and formative assessment. 

[C] Although one of the purposes stated in the statute authorizing the 
Indian Education Professional Development Grants program is to provide 
professional development, the focus of the fiscal year 2009 grant 
competition is on preservice or teacher preparation. 

[End of table] 

Thirty-three Programs Allow or Require Portions of Funds to Be Used for 
Teacher Quality Activities but Have Other Program Goals or Purposes: 

The remaining 33 programs allow or require portions of their funds to 
be used for teacher quality activities, but their primary focus is not 
on improving the quality of teachers. Education does not routinely 
track spending on teacher quality activities for nearly all of these 
programs[Footnote 13]. Specifically, only 3 of these 33 programs have 
collected information about the portion of funds spent on teacher- 
related activities. For example, according to Education, ESEA Title I, 
Part A, which provides support to programs designed to address the 
needs of educationally disadvantaged children, also provided 
approximately $1.9 billion (or about 8 percent of Title I, Part A 
funds) for spending on training for existing teachers in fiscal year 
200[Footnote 14]9. According to Education, between fiscal years 2000 
and 2008, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education- 
Comprehensive Program--a program supporting innovative reform projects 
for improving the quality of postsecondary education and increasing 
student access--awarded about $82 million in grants for teacher quality-
related activities. For example, in fiscal year 2007 Western Oregon 
University received a grant totaling $685,685 to support a statewide 
collaboration of institutions of higher education to build the capacity 
of elementary grades math and science instruction. Education officials 
said the department does not collect data on expenditures for most 
other programs in this category. 

In addition to the funds provided through the regular fiscal year 2009 
appropriations for Education, the American Recovery and Reinvestment 
Act of 2009 (the Recovery Act) provides additional funds to several of 
these 56 teacher quality programs for fiscal year 2009. For example, 
$200 million in Recovery Act funds was provided to the Teacher 
Incentive Fund, which is a competitive grant program intended to help 
states and school districts design performance-based teacher 
compensation systems that incorporate student performance as a factor 
in assessing the effectiveness of practicing teachers.[Footnote 15] 
Moreover, the Recovery Act requires that the Secretary of Education set 
aside $5 billion for State Incentive Grants, referred to by Education 
as the Reach for the Top program, and the establishment of an 
Innovation Fund. Education is providing most of this $5 billion of 
funding to states for efforts that could include making improvements in 
evaluating teacher effectiveness as well as ensuring that all students 
have access to highly qualified and effective teachers. Appendix II 
contains information on the 23 programs receiving Recovery Act funds. 

Education Has Taken Some Steps to Coordinate These Programs and 
Completed Broader Collaborative Efforts on Occasion: 

According to Education officials, the multiple offices administering 
the 23 programs specifically focused on teacher quality coordinate with 
one another, and on occasion the department has established and 
completed broader collaborative efforts. Federal support for teacher 
quality is dispersed across a wide array of grant programs in 
Education, with nine program offices responsible for administering them 
(see table 4). Education's program office officials said their offices 
take some steps to coordinate with one another, such as participating 
in informal discussions to share ideas, attending and presenting at one 
another's conferences, and reviewing one another's draft grant 
announcements. In addition, officials said that they have formed task 
groups to address broader issues and phase them out once their tasks 
are complete. For example, in early 2003, Education formed a teacher 
quality policy group under the auspices of the Office of the 
Undersecretary of Education to coordinate multiple offices' efforts 
related to ESEA implementation of the highly qualified teacher 
requirements. Nevertheless, in the past, GAO's and Education's 
Inspector General's findings have shown that Education's programs could 
better plan and coordinate to, among other things, leverage expertise 
and resources as well as guide consideration of different options for 
addressing potential problems among the current configuration of 
programs.[Footnote 16] While Education's collaborative efforts have 
occurred intermittently, several Education officials told us that they 
see value in routinely working together to exchange information across 
the program offices. Officials we spoke with noted that this type of 
sustained coordination required support and attention from senior 
departmental officials, such as formalizing the responsibilities and 
roles of a working group and its members. Given that the Recovery Act 
provides funds to improve teacher effectiveness, Education officials 
said that this presents an opportunity to coordinate Education's 
resources to improve teacher quality. Specifically, Education officials 
said that they recently have initiated coordination efforts to address 
the Recovery Act requirements related to teachers by forming a team 
made up of representatives from several program offices and led by the 
Secretary's advisors. 

Table 4: Offices That Administer the 23 Programs Focused Primarily on 
Teacher Quality: 

Principal offices[A]: Office of Elementary and Secondary Education; 
Program offices: School Support and Technology Programs; 
Teacher quality programs: 
* Territories and Freely Associated States Education Grant Program; 
* Enhancing Education Through Technology Program. 

Principal offices[A]: Office of Elementary and Secondary Education; 
Program offices: Academic Improvement and Teacher Quality; 
Teacher quality programs: 
* Striving Readers; 
* Improving Teacher Quality State Grants; 
* Mathematics and Science Partnerships; 
* Teacher Incentive Fund; 
* Early Reading First. 

Principal offices[A]: Office of Elementary and Secondary Education; 
Program offices: Office of Indian Education; 
Teacher quality programs: 
* Indian Education Professional Development Grants. 

Principal offices[A]: Office of Innovation and Improvement; 
Program offices: Teacher Quality Programs; 
Teacher quality programs: 
* Advanced Certification or Advanced Credentialing; 
* School Leadership Program; 
* Teaching American History; 
* National Writing Project; 
* Transition to Teaching Program; 
* Troops-to-Teachers; 
* Academies for American History and Civics; 
* Teacher Quality Partnership Grants[B]. 

Principal offices[A]: Office of Innovation and Improvement; 
Program offices: Improvement Programs; 
Teacher quality programs: 
* Professional Development for Arts Educators. 

Principal offices[A]: Office of Innovation and Improvement; 
Program offices: Technology in Education Programs; 
Teacher quality programs: 
* Ready-to-Teach Grant Program. 

Principal offices[A]: Office of Postsecondary Education; 
Program offices: Teacher and Student Development Programs Service; 
Teacher quality programs: 
* Teachers for a Competitive Tomorrow Program: Baccalaureate STEM and 
Foreign Language Teacher Training; 
* Teachers for a Competitive Tomorrow Program: Masters STEM and Foreign 
Language Teacher Training. 

Principal offices[A]: Office of English Language Acquisition; 
Program offices: Continuation and Professional Grants Division; 
Teacher quality programs: 
* English Language Acquisition Professional Development Program. 

Principal offices[A]: Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative 
Services; 
Program offices: Office of Special Education Programs; 
Teacher quality programs: 
* Special Education-State Personnel Development Grant Program; 
* Special Education-Personnel Development to Improve Services and 
Results for Children with Disabilities. 

Source: GAO analysis of Education documentation. 

[A] A principal office is an organizational unit of Education 
responsible for administering grant programs. A program office is a 
subunit of a principal office that conducts the daily work of 
administering grant programs. 

[B] As of fiscal year 2009, the Teacher Quality Partnership Program was 
moved from the Office of Postsecondary Education to the Office of 
Innovation and Improvement. However, the Office of Postsecondary 
Education will continue overseeing all grants awarded prior to fiscal 
year 2009. 

[End of table] 

Education officials said that although several teacher quality programs 
support similar activities, differing statutory requirements can hamper 
coordination among the programs. Specifically, some officials said that 
statutory barriers, such as programs with differing definitions for 
similar populations of grantees, create an impediment to coordination. 
For example, Education officials told us that the Mathematics and 
Science Partnerships grant and the Improving Teacher Quality State 
(Title II, Part A) Grant to institutions of higher education both 
require partnerships that include a "high-need" school district. 
However, while the Title II, Part A program's authorizing legislation 
contains a specific statutory definition of a high-need school 
district, the Mathematics and Science Partnerships program allows 
states to define this term. This may hinder states' ability to 
coordinate resources among these initiatives because in most states far 
fewer school districts meet the Title II, Part A definition than meet 
the definition that the state develops for the Mathematics and Science 
Partnerships program. 

Education has not described in its annual performance plan how it will 
coordinate various crosscutting teacher quality activities supporting 
its goal of improving student achievement. Our previous work has 
identified using strategic and annual plans as a practice that can help 
enhance and sustain collaboration[Footnote 17]. As indicated in 
Education's strategic plan required by the Government Performance and 
Results Act (GPRA), one of Education's primary goals is improving 
student achievement so that all students will be proficient in math and 
reading by 2014. To accomplish this goal, it has established improving 
teacher quality as a strategic objective. However, the annual 
performance plan neither describes how Education coordinates or will 
coordinate its teacher quality efforts nor identifies barriers to such 
coordination. GPRA offers a structured means for identifying multiple 
programs--within and outside the agency--that are to contribute to the 
same or similar goals and for describing coordination efforts to ensure 
that goals are consistent and program efforts are mutually reinforcing. 
As GAO has previously reported, agencies can strengthen their 
commitment to work collaboratively by articulating their efforts in 
formal documents, such as in a planning document.[Footnote 18] We have 
also reported that uncoordinated program efforts can waste scarce 
funds, confuse and frustrate program customers, and limit the overall 
effectiveness of the federal effort.[Footnote 19] 

Offices Administering Education's Teacher Improvement Programs Use a 
Variety of Methods to Target Monitoring, and Education Is Beginning to 
Implement Mechanisms Intended to Improve and Coordinate These Efforts: 

Officials we spoke with in four principal offices overseeing some of 
the teacher quality improvement programs said that they use a variety 
of methods and sources of information throughout the life of the grant 
process to gain insight into the performance of grantees and to target 
monitoring assistance accordingly. To help ensure grantee 
accountability for using teacher quality program resources, monitoring 
begins with pre-award planning, training, and guidance to potential 
grantees and continues through all phases of the award and postaward 
processes (i.e., a so-called cradle-to-grave approach). For example, 
for the Teaching American History program, program officials said they 
provide guidance to applicants and grantees about how to develop 
performance measures related to program goals so that Education can 
obtain credible information on funded project outcomes from grantees. 
For competitive grant programs, officials in the relevant principal 
offices we spoke with said they review grantees' annual performance 
reports to assess whether grantees' activities are consistent with 
planned objectives, with Office of Innovation and Improvement officials 
saying they use a standard form to guide their review. 

Furthermore, staff from the Office of Elementary and Secondary 
Education visit each state at least once every 3 years to monitor state 
efforts to meet the teacher qualification requirements and states' 
administration of ESEA Title II, Part A Improving Teacher Quality State 
Grants. In 2008, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education 
conducted monitoring visits to 18 states and Puerto Rico, including 2 
of our 3 site visit states and provided written monitoring reports on 
Education's Web site about these states' implementation of the ESEA 
teacher qualification requirements. For example, Education found 
instances in 2 of our site visit states of grants being awarded by 
state agencies for higher education that included an ineligible 
partnership. In 2009 Education officials said they plan to conduct 
monitoring visits to 15 other states through June as part of the 
department's goal to monitor each state every 3 years. In addition, 
Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services officials said 
they use the results of telephone conversations with grantees, 
technical assistance meetings, and conferences to understand grantee 
activities. 

In addition to these methods of targeting teacher quality program 
grantees, senior Education officials said that Education is beginning 
to implement risk management mechanisms to help program offices, 
including those administering teacher quality programs, better identify 
and target grantees not in compliance with grant requirements or not 
meeting performance goals. Senior Education officials said that 
applying risk management in Education is a relatively new endeavor and 
that responsibility rests with individual program offices for 
identifying risks confronting each program and for using risk 
indicators. These officials said Education's risk management approaches 
will continue to evolve as processes mature and lessons are learned. 

Given that this endeavor is relatively new and that principal and 
program offices tailor their monitoring to the particular teacher 
quality program or grantee involved, we found that some of the program 
offices are further along in developing risk indicators than others. 
For example, the Office of Postsecondary Education has developed an 
electronic grants monitoring system using risk-based criteria for its 
competitive grants. Officials we spoke with in some of the other 
program offices that administer teacher quality programs had not 
developed formal risk-based criteria or electronic systems; however, as 
described previously, they have a means for identifying and targeting 
grantees that may be at risk of noncompliance with grant requirements 
or not meeting performance goals. 

Education is beginning to implement mechanisms intended to enhance as 
well as coordinate these efforts, such as sharing information about 
grantees. To coordinate a departmentwide risk-based management 
strategy, as well as assist program offices with their monitoring 
efforts, Education created the Risk Management Service. This office 
provides services to program offices, such as responding to their 
inquiries about policy interpretations and monitoring grants. Some 
program office officials we spoke with said that the Risk Management 
Service alerts them about grantees that are having problems managing 
other Education grants. 

As part of this effort, senior Education officials described plans for 
standardizing departmentwide systems for sharing information about 
grantees' management of federal funds and performance. For example, 
Education is developing an automated process for enhancing its review 
of the findings of financial audits, called single audits, within their 
programs.[Footnote 20] As has been done in the past, this information 
is shared with teacher quality program managers and others in the 
department. Education officials we spoke with who are in several of the 
offices overseeing teacher quality programs said they review single- 
audit results, as required, to determine whether entities receiving an 
Education grant may have compliance or financial management issues. In 
addition, officials also said that Education is in the process of 
developing a departmentwide electronic tool to help program offices 
improve efforts to quantify, evaluate, and report on grantee risk. 

Education Conducts a Variety of Teacher Quality Improvement Studies and 
Provides Assistance to States and Districts through Regional and 
National Service Providers, Which Coordinate in Various Ways: 

In addition to providing grants for teacher quality, Education has 
conducted evaluations for some of its 23 teacher quality programs, 
although little is known about the effectiveness of these programs. 
Moreover, Education awards grants to researchers for original research 
on teacher quality programs and interventions. Information from the 
evaluation and research is provided mainly through various vehicles on 
the Internet, and Education directs research and assistance to states 
and school districts through a system of regional and national 
providers. Education officials reported that these regional and 
national providers coordinate to provide this assistance to states and 
school districts. 

Education Conducts a Variety of Evaluations of Program Operations and 
Their Outcomes, but Evaluations Have Been Done or Are Under Way for 
about Two-fifths of the Teacher Quality Programs: 

Education conducts various types of evaluations, such as process or 
implementation, outcome, and impact, which are intended to inform 
policymakers, program managers, and educators about program operations, 
how well programs are working, and which programs or interventions are 
having the greatest impact.[Footnote 21] Officials said that these 
evaluations are done in response to congressional mandates, requests 
from Education's program offices or management, or proposals developed 
by the Institute of Education Sciences. 

While evaluations have been done or are under way for about two-fifths 
of the teacher quality programs, little is known about the extent to 
which most programs are achieving their desired results. Among the 23 
programs focusing specifically on teacher quality, Education reported 
that it has awarded contracts, totaling about $36.5 million, to 
evaluate 9 federal programs, of which 6 have been completed (see table 
5). Three of the completed evaluations--those for the Early Reading 
First program, Teacher Quality Partnership Grants, and one of two 
evaluations of the Mathematics and Science Partnerships program-- 
provide information about how a program focused on teacher quality is 
directly affecting student achievement or how program outcomes could be 
indirectly affecting student achievement through their effect on 
teacher quality. For example, the impact evaluation of the Early 
Reading First program found that providing scientifically based 
materials and professional development to teachers had a statistically 
significant impact on children's ability to recognize letters of the 
alphabet and to associate letters with their sounds, but it did not 
have a statistically discernable impact on other aspects of children's 
reading or listening skills.[Footnote 22] The outcome evaluation of the 
Teacher Quality Partnership Grants found that funded partnerships that 
included colleges of education, schools of arts and sciences, and 
school districts led to changes in teacher preparation programs and the 
development of professional development programs for veteran 
teachers.[Footnote 23] The three remaining completed evaluations, which 
include a second evaluation for the Mathematics and Science 
Partnerships program, are process evaluations that provide information 
about program operations, but they do not directly address how the 
program is affecting student achievement through improved teacher 
quality. 

The three evaluations under way are impact or outcome evaluations. 
Education officials said that for the remaining 14 programs that do not 
have an evaluation under way, evaluations are not planned over the next 
3 years. Of these 14 programs, 2 were initially funded in fiscal year 
2008 and another 1 in 2005, but the other 11 have been operating for at 
least 7 years and have never been evaluated. 

According to Education officials, some programs may be difficult to 
evaluate. In some cases federal funds are combined with state and local 
funds, such as under the Improving Teacher Quality State Grants (Title 
II, Part A) program, making it difficult to isolate the impact of 
federal funds. While the Improving Teacher Quality State Grants program 
has not been evaluated, Education has examined the implementation of 
teacher quality provisions in the ESEA, primarily those related to the 
teacher qualification requirements. Moreover, Education officials said 
that several of the teacher quality programs are small in terms of 
their funding levels and as a result, have few program-associated funds 
for evaluation. However, as we have reported in the past, evaluations 
can be designed to consider the size of the program and the costs 
associated with measuring outcomes and collecting data.[Footnote 24] 

Table 5: Evaluations of the 23 Programs Specifically Focused on Teacher 
Quality: 

Programs that have a completed evaluation: Teaching American 
History[A]; 
Focus of evaluation: To identify (1) the types of activities that 
grantees implemented; (2) the content of the activities, including 
specific subjects and areas of American history on which projects 
focused; and (3) the characteristics and qualifications of teachers 
participating in the activities for the first 2 years of the program. 

Programs that have a completed evaluation: Transition to Teaching[B]; 
Focus of evaluation: Interim report examines whether grantees are (1) 
increasing the pool of highly qualified teachers by recruiting 
nontraditional candidates into teaching; (2) bringing increased 
flexibility to the teacher preparation system by encouraging the 
creation and expansion of alternative routes or pathways to teacher 
certification and lowering barriers of time and cost of preparations 
while raising standards and program rigor; and (3) improving the 
retention rate of new teachers by supporting mentoring and induction 
programs, including a 3-year commitment to high-need schools in high- 
need districts. 

Programs that have a completed evaluation: Teacher Quality Partnership 
Grants; 
Focus of evaluation: To determine if partnerships encouraged colleges 
and universities to (1) partner with and address the teacher 
preparation needs of high-need districts, (2) implement activities to 
improve the academic content knowledge of new or veteran teachers, (3) 
change student internship component associated with a partnership 
effort to improve teacher preparation, and (4) institute accountability 
for teacher preparation programs. 

Programs that have a completed evaluation: Enhancing Education Through 
Technology; 
Focus of evaluation: To determine the role that the Enhancing Education 
Through Technology program plays, the state priorities and programs 
that it supports, and the relationship between state programs that the 
program supports, and the relationship between state educational 
technology activities and the goals and the purposes of ESEA. 

Programs that have a completed evaluation: Early Reading First; 
Focus of evaluation: To determine the effects of providing preschools 
with funds to provide teachers with focused professional development 
and scientifically based methods and materials on children's language 
development and emergent literacy. 

Programs that have a completed evaluation: Mathematics and Science 
Partnerships; 
Focus of evaluation: This evaluation describes the participants and 
activities of the Mathematics and Science Partnerships projects for 
2003-2004 as they began the initial year of program implementation. 

Programs currently being evaluated: Striving Readers; 
Focus of evaluation: To examine the extent that (1) targeted 
interventions improve reading proficiency among struggling adolescent 
readers, and (2) schoolwide literacy-throughout-the-curriculum 
interventions to improve reading proficiency among secondary students. 

Programs currently being evaluated: Special Education-Personnel 
Development to Improve Services and Results for Children with 
Disabilities; 
Focus of evaluation: This evaluation will (1) examine the quality of 
materials developed and the services provided by national centers with 
funds provided by the program, and (2) examine the use of the grant 
funds, qualifications of the faculty hired, and the quality of the 
study materials created using the funds. Also it will estimate how many 
new students enrolled and how many completed the course. 

Programs currently being evaluated: Teacher Incentive Fund; 
Focus of evaluation: To determine the degree of success and challenges 
to implementing the variety of pay-for-performance systems in the 
program and, given adequate implementation, any increases in effective 
principal and teacher recruitment and retention in high-need schools 
and hard-to-staff subjects. 

Programs that have not been evaluated: 
* English Language Acquisition National Professional Development 
Project; 
* Troops-to-Teachers; 
* Ready-to-Teach; 
* Territories and Freely Associated States Education Grant Program; 
* Special Education-State Personnel Development Grant Program; 
* Teachers for a Competitive Tomorrow: Baccalaureate STEM and Foreign 
Language Teacher Training; 
* Professional Development for Arts Educators; 
* School Leadership Program; 
* Indian Education Professional Development Grants; 
* Advanced Certification or Advanced Credentialing; 
* National Writing Project; 
* Academies for American History and Civics; 
* Teachers for a Competitive Tomorrow Program: Masters STEM and Foreign 
Language Teacher Training; 
* Improving Teacher Quality State Grants. 

Source: GAO analysis of Education data. 

[A] Another evaluation of Teaching American History is currently under 
way. 

[B] Transition to Teaching is an interim evaluation. 

[End of table] 

In addition to the federal program evaluations shown in table 5, 
Education evaluates specific interventions intended to improve teacher 
quality. For example, Education has conducted or has under way 
evaluations on teacher induction programs, teacher preparation 
programs, and reading and mathematics professional development and 
software programs. Specifically, Education completed studies on the 
impact of professional development on teacher practices and student 
achievement in early reading as well as on teachers trained through 
different routes to certification.[Footnote 25] Moreover, Education and 
the National Academy of Sciences completed another study on the 
National Board for Professional Standards, which offers advanced-level 
certification to teachers.[Footnote 26] Further, Education officials 
said that they have 5 other studies under way, such as a study on 
moving high-performing teachers to low-performing schools. 
Interventions such as teacher induction programs and professional 
development are funded under a broad array of teacher quality programs, 
such as the Improving Teacher Quality State Grants, the Teacher Quality 
Partnership Grants, the Transition to Teaching program, and Mathematics 
and Science Partnerships. Education officials overseeing evaluations 
said that to inform staff in program offices working on related issues, 
they provide briefings on the results of pertinent evaluations. These 
briefings include discussions about how the evaluation might be useful 
for program improvement. 

Education Awards Grants to Researchers to Study Interventions Related 
to Teacher Quality to Inform Policymakers and Educators about Their 
Impact: 

In addition to evaluating federal programs, Education also awards 
grants to researchers to conduct studies related to teacher quality 
ranging from assessing the effectiveness of reading and mathematics 
programs to measuring the relationship between teacher content 
knowledge and student achievement. For example, Education sponsors 
scientifically rigorous research on strategies for improving the 
performance of classroom teachers, 1 of 13 research areas established 
by Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES).[Footnote 27] 
Between 2003 and 2009, Education awarded almost $160 million in grants 
to research institutions for 69 studies focused on teacher quality. 
(See appendix IV more information about these studies.) 

Education Provides Research and Related Assistance to States and School 
Districts through the Internet and a System of Regional and National 
Providers: 

Education disseminates results from its research to educators and 
policymakers mainly through the Internet and a system of regional and 
national providers. Overall, while SEAs reported that the assistance 
was more useful than SAHEs reported, the results of our survey and 
discussions with state officials suggest that most of these services 
are targeted to SEAs and school districts rather than higher education 
entities. For example, one of the primary Internet vehicles for 
disseminating research--the What Works Clearinghouse--was identified by 
officials in 24 of the 48 SEAs as moderately to extremely useful, but 
only by officials in 15 of the 47 SAHEs that responded to our survey as 
moderately to extremely useful, as shown in figure 3. Overseen by IES, 
the What Works Clearinghouse provides educators, policymakers, 
researchers, and other users with information on what IES considers the 
best evidence on the effectiveness of specific interventions. For 
example, IES officials told us that the results of research are 
synthesized into Practice Guides to make them more usable to 
practitioners. Current Practice Guides provide information in areas 
such as reducing behavior problems in the classroom and encouraging 
girls in math and science.[Footnote 28] 

Figure 3: SEA and SAHE Views of the Usefulness of Education Assistance 
Vary: 

[Refer to PDF for image: horizontal bar graph] 

What Works Clearinghouse: 
* Extremely/very/moderately useful: 
SEA: 24; 
SAHE: 15; 
* Slightly/not useful: 
SEA: 7; 
SAHE: 3; 
*Not applicable/or no basis to judge: 
SEA: 17; 
SAHE: 28. 

Doing What Works: 
* Extremely/very/moderately useful: 
SEA: 16; 
SAHE: 10; 
* Slightly/not useful: 
SEA: 6; 
SAHE: 2; 
*Not applicable/or no basis to judge: 
SEA: 24; 
SAHE: 34. 

Regional Educational Laboratories: 
* Extremely/very/moderately useful: 
SEA: 30; 
SAHE: 17; 
* Slightly/not useful: 
SEA: 4; 
SAHE: 2; 
*Not applicable/or no basis to judge: 
SEA: 13; 
SAHE: 27. 

Regional Comprehensive Centers: 
* Extremely/very/moderately useful: 
SEA: 33; 
SAHE: 6; 
* Slightly/not useful: 
SEA: 5; 
SAHE: 4; 
*Not applicable/or no basis to judge: 
SEA: 10; 
SAHE: 36. 

Teacher Quality Content Center
* Extremely/very/moderately useful: 
SEA: 21; 
SAHE: 5; 
* Slightly/not useful: 
SEA: 7; 
SAHE: 3; 
*Not applicable/or no basis to judge: 
SEA: 20; 
SAHE: 37. 

Institute of Education Sciences Studies: 
* Extremely/very/moderately useful: 
SEA: 17; 
SAHE: 14; 
* Slightly/not useful: 
SEA: 7; 
SAHE: 3; 
*Not applicable/or no basis to judge: 
SEA: 23; 
SAHE: 29. 

Source: GAO surveys. 

Note: In some cases, respondents do not total 48 for the SEAs and 47 
for the SAHEs because not all SEA and SAHE officials responding to the 
surveys answered every question. 

[End of figure] 

Education also disseminates research through another Internet vehicle, 
the Doing What Works Web site, which is intended to help teachers make 
use of effective teaching practices. Most of the content of Doing What 
Works is based on information provided through the What Works 
Clearinghouse, such as classroom practices that are distilled from 
research contained in the Practice Guides; the site is overseen by the 
Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development. Only 16 of the 
48 SEA and 10 of 47 SAHE officials who responded to our respective 
surveys identified the Doing What Works Internet site as moderately to 
extremely useful. According to an Education official, these views may 
reflect the fact that the site is relatively new, and Education has not 
widely publicized it. 

Education provides research and research-related assistance on teacher 
quality through regional and national service providers, which work 
directly with states and school districts. Regional services are 
provided through the 10 Regional Educational Laboratories (REL) and 16 
Regional Comprehensive Centers; national services are provided through 
the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality. The RELs provide 
policymakers and educators with technical assistance, training, and 
research that are based on findings from scientifically valid research. 
The RELs distill and explain research as well as conduct research to 
identify effective programs and to address classroom issues facing the 
states, school districts, schools, and policymakers within their 
respective regions.[Footnote 29] Among the 48 SEA officials who 
responded to our survey, 30 reported that the RELs are moderately to 
extremely useful, and 17 of the 47 SAHE officials who responded to our 
survey reported that the RELs are moderately to extremely useful. 

Education's 16 Regional Comprehensive Centers assist SEAs within their 
regions to implement ESEA and to build SEA capacity to help their 
districts and schools meet student achievement goals. Unlike the RELs, 
the Regional Comprehensive Centers do not conduct research, but they do 
identify and synthesize existing research to help SEA officials 
understand what information is available to improve their schools and 
student achievement, according to Education officials. Among the 48 SEA 
officials who responded to our survey, 33 reported Regional 
Comprehensive Centers' assistance as moderately to extremely useful, 
while only 6 of the 47 SAHE officials who responded to our survey said 
that the Regional Comprehensive Centers were moderately to extremely 
useful. 

The National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (one of five 
National Content Centers supported by the Office of Elementary and 
Secondary Education) assists the 16 Regional Comprehensive Centers by 
providing technical assistance in conjunction with their work with the 
states.[Footnote 30] Like the Regional Comprehensive Centers, the 
National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality does not conduct 
original research but provides technical assistance as well as 
synthesizes and disseminates scientifically based research on effective 
practice and research-based products on teacher quality. 

Regional and National Providers Coordinate in Various Ways to Assist 
States and Districts: 

Regional and national providers coordinate among themselves and with 
each other to assist states and districts to improve teacher quality. 
For example, REL officials said that RELs coordinate among themselves 
to prevent unnecessary duplication of activities among the regions, as 
required by their funding agreements with Education. The REL Mid- 
Atlantic is responsible for ensuring that there is coordination among 
the 10 RELs. In this role, it manages a REL Web site, which includes 
information on past and ongoing projects, and it holds regular meetings 
among the RELs. Regional Comprehensive Center officials also reported 
that they share information among themselves but on a more informal 
basis than the RELs.[Footnote 31] One comprehensive center director 
reported that the comprehensive center network has several mechanisms 
for discussing work with states, including semiannual director meetings 
and conferences that are attended by the staff and directors from the 
various Regional Comprehensive Centers. 

RELs, Regional Comprehensive Centers, and the National Comprehensive 
Center on Teacher Quality also coordinate with each other as needed. 
For example, an official with the National Comprehensive Center on 
Teacher Quality told us that officials often coordinate with the 
Regional Comprehensive Centers and the SEAs to provide expertise on 
teacher quality issues. In addition, Education officials said that RELs 
and the Regional Comprehensive Centers coordinate as needed to address 
common concerns as well. For example, in one region the Regional 
Comprehensive Center brought together the REL and the National 
Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality to conduct a study of the 
distribution of highly qualified teachers in one state, as well as the 
policies, practices, and conditions that affect that distribution. In 
this effort, the REL used its expertise in research to provide support 
on research design and data analysis; the National Comprehensive Center 
for Teacher Quality, while not involved directly with the research, 
developed surveys and interview protocols for the study; and the 
Regional Comprehensive Center coordinated the project and piloted the 
data collection instruments. 

States Face Several Challenges in Collaborating Internally to Improve 
Teacher Quality; Education Provides Some Assistance to Help Address 
These Challenges: 

State agency officials cited limited resources and incompatible data 
systems as the greatest challenges to their collaborative efforts 
within the state to improve teacher quality. Resistance to change, 
sustained commitment, and state governance structure also affected 
their efforts to collaborate. While state officials reported some 
challenges, they also reported successes in their efforts to 
collaborate within their states across a wide array of teacher quality 
areas. Nevertheless, they also cite a need for more collaboration, 
specifically to address training for existing teachers. To help address 
some of these challenges, Education provides financial support and 
other forms of assistance to some states. 

State Officials Cite Limited Funding, Available Staff and Time, as well 
as Incompatible K-12 and Postsecondary Data Systems, as the Greatest 
Challenges, among Other Factors: 

State officials reported through our surveys (see figure 4) and state 
site visits that state budget cuts and reduced staff levels at their 
agencies inhibit teacher quality collaborative efforts. Collaborative 
efforts require a commitment of resources, staff, and time, and state 
officials report that reduced staffing levels have limited the 
available time that they can commit to collaborating, and it is 
difficult to be continuously involved. One state official told us that 
staff are focused on fulfilling state and federal requirements and have 
little time to address other teacher quality initiatives. 

Figure 4: Challenges to Collaborative Efforts within States to Improve 
Teacher Quality: 

[Refer to PDF for image: horizontal bar graph] 

Level of funding: 
* Very great or great challenge: 
SEA: 28; 
SAHE: 31; 
* Moderate or some challenge: 
SEA: 17; 
SAHE: 11; 
* No challenge at all: 
SEA: 2; 
SAHE: 2. 

Amount of time allotted given other priorities: 
* Very great or great challenge: 
SEA: 30; 
SAHE: 33; 
* Moderate or some challenge: 
SEA: 16; 
SAHE: 10; 
* No challenge at all: 
SEA: 1; 
SAHE: 0. 

Level of staffing or allocation of human resources: 
* Very great or great challenge: 
SEA: 31; 
SAHE: 31; 
* Moderate or some challenge: 
SEA: 16; 
SAHE: 12; 
* No challenge at all: 
SEA: 0; 
SAHE: 1. 

Separate data systems that do not communicate with each other: 
* Very great or great challenge: 
SEA: 30; 
SAHE: 28; 
* Moderate or some challenge: 
SEA: 15; 
SAHE: 13; 
* No challenge at all: 
SEA: 1; 
SAHE: 3. 

Level of resistance to change shown by stakeholders: 
* Very great or great challenge: 
SEA: 13; 
SAHE: 13; 
* Moderate or some challenge: 
SEA: 33; 
SAHE: 23; 
* No challenge at all: 
SEA: 1; 
SAHE: 5. 

Level of sustained interest or commitment on the part of institutional 
partners: 
* Very great or great challenge: 
SEA: 8; 
SAHE: 8; 
* Moderate or some challenge: 
SEA: 32; 
SAHE: 23; 
* No challenge at all: 
SEA: 6; 
SAHE: 11. 

Separate PK-12 and higher education state governance systems: 
* Very great or great challenge: 
SEA: 9; 
SAHE: 17; 
* Moderate or some challenge: 
SEA: 32; 
SAHE: 21; 
* No challenge at all: 
SEA: 5; 
SAHE: 7. 

Source: GAO survey. 

Note: In some cases, respondents do not total 48 for the SEAs and 47 
for the SAHEs because not all SEA and SAHE officials responding to the 
surveys answered every question. 

[End of figure] 

State officials also reported that incompatible data systems across the 
educational information system, such as those containing student-level, 
teacher-level, and postsecondary data, pose challenges to collaboration 
on teacher quality efforts. State officials said that some of their 
objectives for data systems are to link student and teacher data, or to 
link data from the K-12 education system and the postsecondary 
education system, to inform and measure teacher quality policy efforts. 
For example, state officials and experts we spoke with said 
longitudinal data systems can be used to measure teacher effectiveness 
through value-added models that estimate existing teachers' 
contributions to student learning, and that these models may also allow 
states to determine which teacher preparation programs produce 
graduates whose students have the strongest academic growth. For 
example, Louisiana officials said that although it has taken several 
years, they have developed a value-added model, based on longitudinal 
data, that allows them to evaluate the extent to which graduates from 
teacher preparation programs improve student learning in the classroom. 
However, experts, a state official, and an Education report cautioned 
about using student and teacher data in value-added models for reasons 
such as methodological concerns and an overemphasis on student test 
scores to the exclusion of other teacher factors that may positively 
affect students and schools. Moreover, senior officials from Education 
and state agencies we spoke with said that some key education 
stakeholders have reservations about linking student and teacher data 
to measure teacher effectiveness and/or the implications for privacy. 
Nevertheless, several states reported that statewide longitudinal data 
for the K-12 through higher education systems can increase 
collaboration by enhancing feedback loops between the K-12 and higher 
education systems. This information could, for example, help state 
agencies address professional development for teachers in the classroom 
as well as the effectiveness of teacher preparation programs for 
prospective teachers. 

In addition to citing limited resources and incompatible data systems, 
state agency officials reported that several other factors, such as 
resistance to change, sustaining commitment, and state governance 
structures pose challenges to their collaborative efforts to improve 
teacher quality in their states. For example, state officials reported 
that different agencies and institutions are resistant to change as a 
result of long-held beliefs or difficulty in valuing new approaches to 
improving teacher quality. In one instance, state officials also told 
us that it is hard to maintain a sustained commitment to address 
teacher preparation issues because of the volume of state initiatives 
focused on improving student achievement. Another state official 
reported that the K-12 and postsecondary systems have separate 
governance systems, a factor that, given the different missions of each 
agency, limits how the two interact on education policy. Other state 
officials said the number of entities playing a role in teacher quality 
policy limits the state agencies' ability to collaborate on statewide 
teacher quality initiatives because the state agency must facilitate 
feedback from a multitude of stakeholders, which can be a time 
consuming process. 

Although states face challenges to collaboration, state officials 
responding to our surveys and during site visits stressed the 
importance of these efforts and said that more collaboration is needed, 
especially to improve professional development training for existing 
teachers. Our survey results illustrate that states' teacher quality 
policy efforts cut across many interrelated areas within the K-12 and 
postsecondary systems, such as preservice preparation, recruitment, 
mentoring and induction, teacher assessments for licensure/ 
certification, and continued learning for veteran teachers. State 
officials reported that improving teacher quality is best achieved 
through several interrelated initiatives that involve the various 
stakeholders within the two systems. In our survey, 22 of 48 SEA 
officials and 34 of 47 SAHE officials cited a great to very great need 
for more collaboration on teacher quality issues. Although state 
officials who provided written responses cited a range of teacher 
quality issues for which more collaboration was needed, including 
teacher preparation and retention, 16 SEA officials and 21 SAHE 
officials specifically cited training for existing teachers as a need. 

In an effort to further enhance collaboration within the education 
system, several states have established coordinating bodies to address 
state education issues, including teacher quality improvement. 
According to our survey results, these coordinating bodies (often 
referred to as P-16 or P-20 bodies)--which are intended to create a 
seamless education system from prekindergarten through the 
postsecondary system through comprehensive education initiatives--have 
been generally effective at fostering an integrated approach to teacher 
quality within states that reported having a coordinating body. For 
example, one state official reported that the state coordinating body 
facilitates open communication among state agencies. Nevertheless, 
state officials reported through our surveys that these coordinating 
bodies also face challenges to enhancing collaboration, including 
having limited resources and needing to set priorities and allocate 
roles and responsibilities. In their review of state coordinating 
bodies, the Education Commission of the States reported that for these 
coordinating bodies to be successful, they must commit to long-term 
reform, include representatives from key stakeholder groups, coordinate 
initiatives at the state level, and integrate reform into other ongoing 
efforts.[Footnote 32] 

Education Provides Some Financial Support and Other Assistance That May 
Help Address State-Reported Challenges as well as Enhance Other 
Collaborative Efforts, Especially for Local-Level Activities: 

Education administers a grant program designed to help states develop 
longitudinal data systems and provides some assistance related to these 
efforts.[Footnote 33] The State Longitudinal Data Systems grant program 
is aimed at enhancing SEAs' ability to develop statewide longitudinal 
data systems. These systems are intended to efficiently manage and 
analyze education data (including individual student records) to 
address federal reporting, accountability, and other requirements such 
as those related to ESEA. One of the program's allowable activities is 
to expand existing data systems to include teacher data and to link K- 
12 and higher education data systems. (As shown in appendix III, the 
State Longitudinal Data Systems grant program is 1 of 33 programs that 
allow or require portions of funding to be used for teacher quality 
activities, but does so in pursuit of other program purposes or goals.) 
In our review of applications of states that received grant awards in 
2006 or 2007, we found that most states are seeking to link student and 
teacher data or to link the K-12 and higher education data systems. For 
fiscal years 2006, 2007, and 2009, 41 states and the District of 
Columbia were awarded at least one grant ranging from about $1.5 
million to $9.0 million.[Footnote 34] In fiscal year 2009, Congress 
appropriated $65 million to support the State Longitudinal Data Systems 
grant program, about a $17 million increase over the fiscal year 2008 
level. 

Establishing a longitudinal data system that links prekindergarten 
through 12th grade and higher education data systems is one of the 
assurances that states must make to be eligible to receive their 
portion of the Recovery Act's State Fiscal Stabilization Fund.[Footnote 
35] Specifically, Education is asking states to report their progress 
toward implementing a statewide data system that includes the 12 
elements described in the America COMPETES Act (Pub. L. No. 110-69), 
one of which is the matching of student data with individual teacher 
data. Education has provided preliminary guidance on the specific 
information that states must provide in their applications for funding 
through the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund.[Footnote 36] Another $250 
million is provided for the State Longitudinal Data Systems grant 
program in the Recovery Act that could help states defray costs 
associated with these efforts. 

Education also facilitates information sharing and provides assistance 
with and research results on state data systems to state officials 
through technical assistance related to the State Longitudinal Data 
Systems grant program as well as through a network of regional and 
national providers that we described previously. Education's Web site 
contains information on a variety of topics related to data system 
development and management. Further, Education has hosted grantee 
conferences that have included panels on topics ranging from data 
privacy to how states can leverage one another's experiences with these 
data systems. In addition, a 2007 REL Midwest report outlined how 
states within its region use data systems and the promising practices 
of and challenges confronting these states, concluding that 
opportunities exist to capitalize on states' commitment to developing 
longitudinal data systems by thinking about these issues more 
comprehensively and systematically.[Footnote 37] In March 2009, the REL 
Midwest and National Comprehensive Center on Teacher Quality 
cosponsored a live webcast to discuss and disseminate ongoing research 
on utilizing data systems in teacher evaluation models. In addition to 
grant funds provided by the State Longitudinal Data System Grant 
program, state officials told us that conferences, training, and 
technical assistance from the REL network would assist states in 
addressing their data system challenges. 

In addition to providing the specific funding and assistance for data 
systems, Education also provides funding to support partnerships within 
states to address teacher quality. Some of these programs are intended 
to support accountability for teacher preparation programs at 
institutions of higher education or to improve teacher preparation 
programs by requiring partnerships, mainly between school districts and 
institutions of higher education. Of the 23 programs directed at 
improving teacher quality that we discussed previously, 8 fund projects 
specifically requiring partnerships. For example, according to state 
and university officials in New Jersey, Teacher Quality Enhancement 
grants have funded efforts to recruit high school students who are 
interested in pursing teaching in high-need school districts and 
designing teacher preparation programs for middle school students based 
on strong content knowledge. These types of efforts are accomplished 
through consortia, such as partnerships among universities and their 
respective teacher preparation programs and liberal arts and sciences 
departments as well as school districts. State and university officials 
in our site visit states said that these partnership grants generally 
facilitate useful collaboration among the grant partners. However, one 
state official told us that outside of federal-and state-funded 
partnerships between some school districts and institutions of higher 
education, there are limited opportunities for collaboration between K- 
12 and higher education. These officials also said the partnerships are 
sometimes difficult to sustain after the grants have expired. Moreover, 
another state official and an expert we spoke with explained that these 
partnership grants do not support a systemic collaboration between the 
K-12 and higher education systems because the grants involve only a 
select few institutions in partnerships. 

Conclusion: 

Providing all children with qualified teachers is a focus of federal 
policy, and this goal is reflected in Education's strategic and annual 
performance plans. To help accomplish this goal, Education distributes 
billions of federal dollars and provides research and other assistance 
for teacher quality activities through multiple offices and statutorily 
authorized programs. While Education has engaged in some coordination 
to share information and expertise within the department, and from time 
to time has established and completed broader collaborative efforts, 
coordination among all the relevant offices does not occur on a regular 
basis. 

The success of Education's mission and the achievement of its goals for 
improving teacher quality and ultimately for increasing student 
achievement depend in part on how well it manages its wide array of 
programs and initiatives with regard to funding, assistance, and other 
priorities, as well as its evaluation and research efforts. Also, the 
Recovery Act, with its large infusion of onetime funds, as well as its 
provisions encouraging states, school districts, and institutions of 
higher education to make improvements in assessing teacher 
effectiveness and in distributing qualified and effective teachers 
equitably, creates an opportunity for the department to leverage new 
resources with existing structures in a way to improve teacher quality 
and effectiveness. However, this wide array of programs, initiatives, 
and structures also creates a challenge for the department. In the 
absence of a written departmentwide strategy for integrating its wide 
array of teacher quality programs and efforts, Education's offices may 
not be aligned in their actions to achieve Education's long-term goal 
of improving teacher quality. A departmental strategy for collaboration 
could help states overcome their barriers to improving teacher quality 
through facilitating compatible data systems as well as encouraging 
systemic collaboration between state K-12 and higher education 
institutions and detailing the role each plays in the success of the 
other. Without clearly articulated strategies and sustained 
collaborative activities, Education may be missing important 
opportunities to leverage its financial and other resources, align its 
activities and processes, as well as develop joint strategies to assist 
states, districts, and institutions of higher education in improving 
teacher quality. 

Recommendation for Executive Action: 

To ensure that departmental goals to improve teacher quality are 
achieved and that the department's many related efforts are mutually 
reinforcing, we recommend that the Secretary of Education establish and 
implement a strategy for sustained coordination among existing 
departmental offices and programs. A key purpose of this coordination 
would be to facilitate information and resource sharing as well as 
strengthening linkages among teacher quality improvement efforts to 
help states, school districts, and institutions of higher education in 
their initiatives to improve teacher quality. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We provided a draft of this report to Education for review and comment. 
Education's comments are reproduced in appendix V. In its comments, 
Education agreed that coordination is beneficial, but it favors short- 
term coordination focused on discrete issues or problems. Education 
will review the advisability of forming a cross-program committee, but 
it would first want to ensure that such a group would lead to 
improvements in the way Education coordinates its approach to teacher 
quality and the way states and school districts promote teacher 
quality. Education officials pointed out that these efforts do not 
always prove useful and said that efforts to coordinate program 
implementation cannot fully eliminate barriers to program alignment. 

While we agree with Education that these efforts have not always been 
useful and they face numerous barriers and challenges, we nonetheless 
believe that it is important for the department to develop a strategy 
for sustained coordination. As it develops a coordination strategy, 
Education should use its knowledge of past efforts and existing 
barriers to put in place the conditions necessary for addressing these 
and other challenges. For example, in their comments Education 
officials highlighted a barrier from this report of some teacher 
quality programs having inconsistent legislative definitions and 
requirements. As part of establishing and implementing a strategy for 
sustained coordination, Education could consider identifying these 
specific definitional barriers and others and develop a strategy for 
addressing them. Successful strategic and annual planning involve 
identifying goals and challenges facing an agency and detailing how an 
agency intends to achieve these goals and address these challenges. As 
we mention in the report, these efforts should include information on 
how program officials will coordinate and plan crosscutting efforts 
with other related programs. We encourage Education to formalize its 
coordination efforts by incorporating them into its planning efforts. 
Because responsibilities for improving teacher quality are shared among 
multiple offices, we believe taking a more systematic approach than 
what has occurred will ensure that different offices routinely become 
involved in sharing information and resources as well as facilitating 
linkages among teacher quality improvement efforts. 

We acknowledged Education's effort to bring together different offices 
to work together on discrete issues or problems related to teacher 
quality and we modified the report to reflect Education's recent 
coordination effort to address the Recovery Act requirements related to 
teachers. Education also provided technical comments that we 
incorporated into the report as appropriate. 

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce its contents 
earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days 
after its issue date. At that time we will send copies of this report 
to the Secretary of Education, relevant congressional committees, and 
other interested parties. In addition, this report will also be 
available at no charge on GAO's Web site at [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/]. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional 
Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this 
report. Major contributors to this report are listed in appendix VI. 

Sincerely yours, 

Signed by: 

Cornelia M. Ashby: 
Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology: 

To address the objectives of this study, we used a variety of methods. 
To document the extent to which Education funds and coordinates teacher 
quality programs, we interviewed Education officials as well as 
reviewed Education documents and relevant laws. To understand how 
Education funds and supports research efforts to improve teacher 
quality, we interviewed officials from a selection of relevant 
Education-funded research and related assistance providers and at the 
regional and national levels. To understand the challenges to 
collaboration within states, we conducted two national surveys--one was 
sent to state educational agency (SEA) officials in the 50 states and 
the District of Columbia and a separate survey was sent to state agency 
for higher education (SAHE) officials in 48 states plus the District of 
Columbia.[Footnote 38] We did not send a SAHE survey to New York or 
Michigan because (1) in New York the executive official of higher 
education is also responsible for directing kindergarten through 12th 
grade education and (2) in Michigan there is no state agency or officer 
with governance authority over higher education. In addition, we 
conducted site visits in 3 states to understand further the state 
perspective as well as that of school districts and institutions of 
higher education. In addition, we interviewed national experts on the 
various areas of teacher quality. We conducted our work between 
February 2008 and July 2009 in accordance with generally accepted 
government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and 
perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide 
a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit 
objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable 
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

Objectives 1 and 2: Extent of Education Funding and Coordination of 
Teacher Quality Programs as well as Education's Monitoring of these 
Programs: 

To determine the extent that Education funds and coordinates teacher 
quality programs, we first identified relevant programs from the Guide 
to U.S. Department of Education Programs 2008 and classified these 
programs into two groups based on these differences:[Footnote 39] (1) 
programs designed to support teacher quality improvement, and (2) 
programs that may support teacher quality improvement but do so in 
pursuit of other goals or purposes. For the first group, or "primary 
programs," we reviewed the program description for each program, 
identifying those with a purpose of improving teaching in the classroom 
for elementary and secondary schools. The description statement of 
these programs included terms such as professional development, teacher 
training, teacher preparation, teacher retention, teacher 
certification, improving teaching through scientifically based research 
and curriculum development. In addition, we identified the second group 
of programs--which have a purpose other than improving teacher quality--
through a review of the descriptions of the types of projects funded in 
Education's Program Guide to determine that training teachers or 
improving instructional programs was an allowable activity. After 
identifying the respective group of programs, Education officials 
reviewed the list of programs to verify that we had identified the 
relevant programs and categorized each program correctly. To understand 
Education's efforts and requirements for coordinating the 23 programs 
that we identified as primarily focusing on teacher quality, we 
reviewed relevant federal laws, performance and accountability reports, 
and other documentation to identify requirements for coordinating its 
programs. In addition, we interviewed officials for the offices that 
oversee these programs to determine whether and how they coordinate 
their programs to improve teacher quality. These interviews included 
officials from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, the 
Office of Innovation and Improvement, the Office of Postsecondary 
Education, the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, 
and the Office of English Language Acquisition. We also interviewed 
officials in Education's Office of Inspector General (OIG) and reviewed 
relevant OIG reports on Education's efforts to coordinate programs. 

To understand how Education monitors states and districts that receive 
formula and discretionary grants on teacher quality we reviewed 
relevant federal laws, nonregulatory guidance, policy and procedure 
manuals, monitoring checklists, and monitoring reports or letters to 
grantees, as well as outside evaluations or audits such as OIG and GAO 
reports. In addition, to determine the process and procedures for 
monitoring these programs, we conducted interviews with the relevant 
officials from each of the five program offices overseeing each of 
these programs, including officials from the Office of Elementary and 
Secondary Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement, Office of 
Postsecondary Education, and Office of Special Education and 
Rehabilitation Services as well as OIG, and the Office of Risk 
Management Service in the Secretary of Education's office. Finally, to 
gather information about Education's monitoring, we interviewed state 
and district officials during our site visits. 

Objective 3: Evaluation and Research as well as Related Assistance 
Pertaining to Teacher Quality: 

To gather information on Education's evaluation of federal programs, 
research on teacher quality, and research-related assistance provided 
to states and districts, we interviewed relevant Education officials as 
well as state and district officials during our site visits, and 
reviewed documents and responses to questions on research-related 
assistance in the survey. To obtain information on Education's 
evaluation and research efforts as well as dissemination practices, we 
interviewed relevant officials from Education's Institute of Education 
Sciences, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the 
Office of Planning Evaluation and Policy Development, as well as 
submitted written follow-up questions to these offices. In addition, we 
reviewed documented information available on the evaluations conducted 
on federal programs on teacher quality and on completed and ongoing 
research on teacher quality practices and interventions. To learn about 
the research-related assistance provided directly to states, we 
interviewed officials from the three Regional Educational Laboratories 
and Regional Comprehensive Centers that provide assistance to our three 
site visit states.[Footnote 40] We also interviewed officials from the 
National Comprehensive Center on Teacher Quality. In addition, during 
our site visits we asked state and district officials about the kinds 
of assistance that they receive directly from Education, the Regional 
Educational Laboratories, Regional Comprehensive Centers, and the 
National Comprehensive Center on Teacher Quality. Finally, in our 
surveys, we asked state respondents about the usefulness of the 
Regional Educational Laboratories, the Regional Comprehensive Centers, 
the National Comprehensive Center on Teacher Quality, the Institute of 
Education Sciences studies, as well as the What Works Clearinghouse and 
Doing What Works Internet sites. 

Objective 4: Challenges to Collaboration within States and Education 
Efforts to Address these Challenges: 

To understand the challenges facing state agencies' in their efforts to 
collaborate within their states on efforts to improve teacher quality, 
we used two approaches--two state surveys and site visits to three 
states. First we designed and administered two identical Web-based 
surveys--one that was sent to SEA officials in all 50 states and the 
District of Columbia and a second to SAHE officials in 48 states and 
the District of Columbia. We did not send a SAHE survey to New York or 
Michigan because (1) in New York the executive official of higher 
education is also responsible for directing kindergarten through 12th 
grade education and (2) in Michigan there is no state agency or officer 
with governance authority over higher education. The surveys were 
conducted between August and November 2008. Questionnaires were 
completed by SEA officials in 48 states for a response rate of 94 
percent, and SAHE officials in 47 states for a response rate of 96 
percent. 

The surveys posed a combination of questions that allowed for open- 
ended and closed-ended responses. They included questions about state 
efforts including (1) state agency initiatives across a wide range of 
teacher quality areas, (2) state agencies' collaborative activities 
within their state, (3) the role of a state coordinating body (where 
applicable) in teacher quality initiatives, and (4) the usefulness of 
grant funds and technical assistance provided by Education. 

The surveys were conducted using self-administered electronic 
questionnaires posted on the World Wide Web. We sent e-mail 
notifications to all 51 SEA officials and 49 SAHE officials beginning 
on September 15, 2008. To encourage respondents to complete the 
questionnaire, we sent an e-mail message to prompt each nonrespondent 
each week after the initial e-mail, on September 22, 2008, and October 
1, 2008. We also contacted officials by telephone to further increase 
our response rate. We closed both surveys on November 23, 2008. 

Some of the survey questions were open-ended, allowing respondents an 
opportunity to provide thoughts and opinions in their own words. To 
categorize and summarize these responses, we performed a systematic 
content analysis of a select number of open-ended questions. Two GAO 
staff independently coded the responses. All initial disagreements 
regarding placement into categories were discussed and reconciled. 
Agreement regarding each placement was reached again between at least 
two analysts. The numbers of responses in each content category were 
then summarized and tallied. 

Because this was not a sample survey, there are no sampling errors. 
However, the practical difficulties of conducting any survey may 
introduce nonsampling errors, such as variations in how respondents 
interpret questions and their willingness to offer accurate responses. 
We took a number of steps to minimize nonsampling errors. For example, 
a social science survey specialist designed the questionnaires in 
collaboration with GAO staff with subject matter expertise. During 
survey development, we received feedback from three external peer 
reviewers and Education officials. The questionnaires also underwent a 
peer review by a second GAO survey specialist. Each draft instrument 
was then pretested two times with appropriate officials in New Mexico, 
Wisconsin, and West Virginia to ensure that the questions and 
information provided to respondents were relevant, clearly stated, and 
easy to comprehend. The pretesting took place during July and August 
2008. Since these were Web-based surveys, respondents entered their 
answers directly into electronic questionnaires. This eliminated the 
need to have data keyed into databases, thus removing an additional 
source of error. Finally, to further minimize errors, computer programs 
used to analyze the survey data were independently verified by a second 
GAO data analyst to ensure the accuracy of this work. 

While we did not fully validate specific information that states 
reported through our survey, we took several steps to ensure that the 
information was sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report. 
For example, we contacted state officials via phone and e-mail to 
follow up on obvious inconsistencies, errors, or incomplete answers. We 
also performed computer analyses to identify inconsistencies in 
responses and other indications of error. On the basis of our checks, 
we believe our survey data are sufficient for the purposes of this 
report. The surveys and a complete tabulation of aggregated results can 
be viewed at GAO-09-594SP. 

We also conducted site visits to three states--Louisiana, New Jersey, 
and Oregon. These states were selected based on their having 
initiatives that focus on teacher quality, such as coordinating bodies 
that are intended to bridge the K-12 and higher education 
systems,[Footnote 41] and on diversity in terms of geographic location, 
population, and amount of federal teacher quality program funding. In 
each state we met with SEA and SAHE officials, and to understand the 
local perspective, we met with officials in at least one school 
district and two universities. In addition, we interviewed experts on 
teacher quality, including those at the American Institutes for 
Research, Education Trust, Congressional Research Service, and the 
University of Pennsylvania. We also reviewed several studies on teacher 
quality funding and activities. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Primary Programs: Twenty-three Programs Providing Funding 
Specifically to Improve the Quality of Teachers: 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: Improving Teacher Quality State Grants (also known as 
Title II, Part A); 
Grant design: Formula; 
Eligible recipients: Awards made to state educational agencies (SEA) 
that, in turn, make formula subgrants to school districts. State 
agencies for higher education (SAHE) also receive a formula grant that, 
in turn, is awarded competitively to partnerships that must include at 
least one institution of higher education (IHE) and its division that 
prepares teachers and principals, a school of arts and sciences, and a 
high-need school district; 
Purpose: To increase academic achievement by improving teacher and 
principal quality; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $2,947,749. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: Enhancing Education Through Technology Program; 
Grant design: Formula; 
Eligible recipients: SEAs; 
Purpose: To improve student achievement through use of technology in 
elementary and secondary schools and to help all students become 
technologically literate by the end of the eighth grade and, through 
the integration of technology with both teacher training and curriculum 
development, establishing research-based instructional methods that can 
be widely implemented; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $269,872. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: Mathematics and Science Partnerships; 
Grant design: Formula; 
Eligible recipients: Awards are made to SEAs. Partnerships of school 
districts and IHEs may apply to states for subgrants. Partnership must 
include, at a minimum, an engineering, mathematics, or science 
department of an IHE, and a high-need school district; 
Purpose: To increase the academic achievement of students in 
mathematics and science by enhancing the content knowledge, teaching 
skills, and instruction practices of classroom teachers; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $178,978. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: Teaching American History; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: School districts applying in partnership with one 
or more of the following: IHEs, nonprofit history or humanities 
organizations, libraries, or museums; 
Purpose: To raise student achievement by improving teachers' knowledge 
and understanding of and appreciation for traditional U.S. history; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $118,952. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: Early Reading First; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: School districts eligible for a Reading First 
subgrant and public or private organizations or agencies located in a 
community served by an eligible district may apply; 
Purpose: Supports local efforts to enhance the early language, 
literacy, and prereading development of preschool-age children, 
particularly those from low-income families, through strategies and 
professional development that are based on scientifically based reading 
research; Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): 
$112,549. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: Teacher Incentive Fund; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: School districts, including charter schools that 
are districts in their state, SEAs, or partnerships of (1) a district, 
SEA, or both, and (2) at least one nonprofit organization may apply; 
Purpose: To support efforts to develop and implement performance-based 
teacher and principal compensation systems in high-need schools; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $97,270[A]. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: Transition to Teaching; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: High-need school districts, SEAs, for-profit or 
nonprofit organizations, IHEs, regional consortia of SEAs, or consortia 
of high-need districts may apply. IHEs, for-profits, and nonprofits 
must be in partnership with a high-need district or an SEA; 
Purpose: To support the recruitment and retention of highly qualified 
mid-career professionals, including qualified paraprofessionals, and 
recent college graduates who have not majored in education to teach in 
high-need schools and districts through the development of new or 
enhanced alternative routes to certification; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $43,707. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: English Language Acquisition National Professional 
Development Project; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: IHEs as well as consortia of these institutions 
and SEAs or school districts; 
Purpose: To support professional development activities for education 
personnel working with English language learners; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $41,800. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: Striving Readers; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: (1) School district that (a) are eligible to 
receive funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), 
Title I, Part A, pursuant to Sec. 1113 of ESEA and (b) serve students 
in one or more of grades 6 through 12. Eligible districts may apply 
individually, with other eligible districts, or in partnership with one 
or more of the following entities: SEAs; intermediate service agencies; 
public or private IHEs; and public or private organizations with 
expertise in adolescent literacy, rigorous evaluation, or both. (2) 
SEAs on behalf of one or more districts that meet the requirements 
above. SEAs must apply on behalf of one or more eligible districts and 
also may partner with one or more of the following entities: 
intermediate service agencies; public or private IHEs; and public or 
private organizations with expertise in adolescent literacy, rigorous 
evaluation, or both. For any application, the fiscal agent must be an 
eligible district or an SEA; 
Purpose: To raise student achievement in middle-and high-school-aged 
students who are reading below grade level, and serve schools by 
improving the literacy skills of struggling adolescent readers and to 
help build a strong, scientific research base around specific 
strategies that improve adolescent literacy skills; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $35,371. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: School Leadership Program; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: High-need school districts, consortia of high-need 
districts, or partnerships that consist of at least one high-need 
school district and at least one nonprofit organization (which may be a 
community-or faith-based organization) or institutions of higher 
education may apply; 
Purpose: To support the development, enhancement, or expansion of 
innovative programs to recruit, train, and mentor principals (including 
assistant principals) for high-need districts; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $19,220. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: Troops-to-Teachers; 
Grant design: Noncompetitive; 
Eligible recipients: Current and former members of the U.S. armed 
forces, including members of the Armed Forces Reserves; 
Purpose: Provides financial assistance and counseling to help military 
personnel obtain their teacher licenses, especially in shortage areas, 
such as math, science, and special education, and find employment in 
high-need districts and schools, as well as charter schools; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $14,389. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: Indian Education Professional Development Grants; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: (1) IHEs, including Indian IHEs; (2) SEAs or 
school districts, in consortium with these institutions; (3) Indian 
tribes or organizations, in consortium with IHEs; and (4) the U.S. 
Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Education-funded schools 
in consortium with IHEs; 
Purpose: To prepare and train Indian individuals to serve as teachers 
and education professionals. Professional development grants are 
awarded to increase the number of qualified Indian individuals in 
professions that serve Indians; provide training to qualified Indians 
to become teachers, administrators, teacher aides, social workers, and 
ancillary education personnel; and improve the skills of those 
qualified Indians who serve currently in those capacities; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $8,211. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: Ready-to-Teach; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: For National Telecommunications Grants, nonprofit 
telecommunication entities or a partnership of such entities may apply; 
Purpose: Supports two types of grants to nonprofit telecommunications 
entities: (1) grants to carry out a national telecommunications-based 
program to improve teaching in core curriculum areas and (2) digital 
educational programming grants that enable eligible entities to 
develop, produce, and distribute educational and instructional video 
programming; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $10,700. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: Advanced Certification or Advanced Credentialing; 
Grant design: Noncompetitive; 
Eligible recipients: SEAs; school districts; the National Board for 
Professional Teaching Standards, in partnership with a high-need school 
district or SEA; the National Council on Teacher Quality, in 
partnership with a high-need SEA or district; or another recognized 
entity, including another recognized certification or credentialing 
organization, in partnership with a high-need SEA or district; 
Purpose: Supports activities to encourage and support teachers seeking 
advanced certification or advanced credentialing through high-quality 
professional teacher enhancement programs designed to improve teaching 
and learning; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $10,649. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: Professional Development for Arts Educators; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: (1) A school district acting on behalf of a school 
or schools where at least 50 percent of the children are from low-
income families; and (2) must work in partnership with at least one of 
the following: a state or local nonprofit or governmental arts 
organization; an institution of higher education; a SEA or regional 
education service agency; a public or private agency, institution, or 
organization including a museum, arts education association, library, 
theater, or community-or faith-based organization; 
Purpose: Supports the implementation of high-quality professional 
development model programs in elementary and secondary education in 
music, dance, drama, media arts, and visual arts for arts educators and 
other instructional staff of K-12 students in high-poverty schools; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $7,464. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: Territories and Freely Associated States Education Grant 
Program; 
Grant design: Competitive, but limited to outlying areas; 
Eligible recipients: School districts in the outlying areas (American 
Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. 
Virgin Islands) and the Republic of Palau; 
Purpose: To support teacher training, curriculum development, 
instructional materials or general school improvement and reform, and 
direct educational services. The Pacific Regional Educational 
Laboratory provides technical assistance and makes recommendations for 
funding to the Secretary of Education, who conducts a grants 
competition; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $5,000. 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act: 
Program name: National Writing Project;
Grant design: Noncompetitive; 
Eligible recipients: Only the National Writing Project is eligible; 
Purpose: The National Writing Project is a nationwide nonprofit 
education organization that promotes K-16 teacher training programs in 
the effective teaching of writing; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $24,291. 

Higher Education Act: 
Program name: Teacher Quality Partnership Grants; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: Partnership of institution of higher education, 
including a teacher preparation program and a school or department of 
arts and science, at least one high-need school district, and either a 
high-need school or a consortium of high-need schools served by the 
high-need school district; or as applicable, a high-need early 
childhood education program; 
Purpose: Through collaborative efforts, to support the prebaccalaureate 
preparation of teachers or a teaching residency program, or a 
combination of such programs. Grants may also be used to carry out a 
leadership development program; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $50,000[B]. 

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: 
Program name: Special Education--Personnel Development to Improve 
Services and Results for Children with Disabilities; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: Institutions of higher education, school 
districts, nonprofit organizations, and other organizations and/or 
SEAs; 
Purpose: To improve the quality of K-12 special education teacher 
preparation programs to ensure that program graduates are able to meet 
the highly qualified teacher requirements and are well prepared to 
serve children with a high incidence of disabilities; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $90,653. 

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: 
Program name: Special Education--State Personnel Development Grant 
Program; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: SEA; 
Purpose: To assist SEAs in reforming and improving their systems for 
personnel preparation and professional development in early 
intervention, education, and transition services in order to improve 
results for children with disabilities; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $48,000. 

America Competes Act: 
Program name: Teachers for a Competitive Tomorrow Program: 
Baccalaureate Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) 
and Foreign Language Teacher Training; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: Institutions of higher education; 
Purpose: To develop and implement programs providing courses of study 
in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields or critical 
foreign languages that are integrated with teacher education. Graduates 
receive baccalaureate degrees in STEM fields or critical foreign 
languages, concurrent with teacher certification; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $1,092. 

America Competes Act: 
Program name: Teachers for a Competitive Tomorrow Program: Masters STEM 
and Foreign Language Teacher Training; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: Institutions of higher education; 
Purpose: To offer a master's degree in a STEM field or critical foreign 
language content areas to current teachers and to enable professionals 
in these fields to pursue a 1-year master's degree that leads to 
teacher certification; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $1,092. 

American History and Civics Education Act of 2004: 
Program name: Academies for American History and Civics; 
Grant design: Competitive; 
Eligible recipients: IHEs, museums, libraries, and other public and 
private agencies, organizations, and institutions (including for-profit 
organizations) or a consortium of such agencies, organizations, and 
institutions may apply. Applicants must demonstrate expertise in 
historical methodology or the teaching of history; 
Purpose: Supports the establishment of Presidential Academies for 
Teachers of American History and Civics that offer workshops for both 
veteran and new teachers of American history and civics to strengthen 
their knowledge and preparation for teaching these subjects. The 
program also supports establishment of Congressional Academies for 
Students of American History and Civics for high school students to 
develop a broader and deeper understanding of these subjects; 
Fiscal year 2009 appropriations (Dollars in thousands): $1,945. 

Source: GAO analysis of Department of Education data. 

[A] The Teacher Incentive Fund also received $200 million in funding 
through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery 
Act). 

[B] The Teacher Quality Enhancement grant received an additional $100 
million through the Recovery Act. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: Programs That Support Broad Objectives but Allow or 
Require Some Funds to Be Used for Teacher Quality: 

Grant design: formula grants: 
Program: Improving Basic Academic Achievement Programs for the 
Disadvantaged; 
Purpose: To ensure that all children have a fair, equal opportunity to 
obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on 
challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic 
assessments; 
Grant recipient: SEAs and school districts. 

Grant design: formula grants: 
Program: Tech Prep Education; 
Purpose: Program provides assistance to states to award grants to 
consortia of school districts and postsecondary education institutions 
for the development and operation of programs consisting of the last 2 
years of secondary education and at least 2 years of postsecondary 
education, designed to provide Tech Prep education to the student 
leading to an associate degree or a 2-year certificate; 
Grant recipient: Awards are made to eligible state agencies for career 
and technical education, which award funds on the basis of a formula or 
competition to consortia. Eligible consortia must include at least one 
member in each of the two following categories: (1) A school district, 
an intermediate education agency, education service agency, or an area 
career and technical education school serving secondary school 
students, or a secondary school funded by Bureau of Indian Affairs; or 
(2) either (a) a nonprofit institution of higher education (IHE) that 
offers a 2-year associate degree, 2-year certificate, or 2-year 
postsecondary apprenticeship program, or (b) a proprietary institution 
of higher education that offers a 2-year associate degree program. 

Grant design: formula grants: 
Program: Career and Technical Education--Basic Grants to States; 
Purpose: To develop the academic, career, and technical skills of 
secondary and postsecondary students who enroll in career and technical 
programs. This program provides states with support for leadership 
activities, administration of the state plan for career and technical 
education, and subgrants to eligible recipients to improve career and 
technical education programs; 
Grant recipient: State agencies for career and technical education. 

Grant design: formula grants: 
Program: Indian Education--Formula Grants to Local Education Agencies; 
Purpose: Program designed to address the unique education and 
culturally related academic needs of American Indian and Alaska Native 
students, including preschool children, so that these students can 
achieve the same challenging state performance standards expected of 
all students. This is Education's principal vehicle for addressing the 
particular needs of Indian children. Grant funds supplement the regular 
school programs and support such activities as after-school programs, 
early childhood education, tutoring, and dropout prevention; 
Grant recipient: Districts that enroll a threshold number of eligible 
Indian children and certain schools funded by the Bureau of Indian 
Affairs; Indian tribes, and under certain conditions, may also apply. 

Grant design: formula grants: 
Program: Migrant Education--Basic State Formula Grants; 
Purpose: Supports high-quality education programs for migratory 
children and helps ensure that migratory children who move among the 
states are not penalized by disparities among states in curriculum, 
graduation requirements, or state academic content and student academic 
achievement standards. States use program funds to identify eligible 
children and provide education and support services. These may include 
academic instruction, bilingual and multicultural instruction, career 
education services, advocacy services, counseling and testing services, 
health services, and preschool services; 
Grant recipient: SEAs, which in turn make subgrants to local operating 
agencies that serve migrant students. Local operating agencies may be 
school districts, institutions of higher education, and other public 
and nonprofit agencies. 

Grant design: formula grants: 
Program: Even Start; 
Purpose: Program offers grants to support local family literacy 
projects that integrate early childhood education, and adult literacy. 
Five percent of funds are is aside for family literacy grants for 
migratory worker families, the outlying areas, and Indian tribes and 
tribal organizations; one grant must be awarded to a women's prison and 
up to 3 percent is for evaluation activities. Remaining funds are 
allocated to SEAs based on their Title I, Part A allocation and SEAs 
make competitive subgrants to partnerships of school districts and 
other organizations. Projects include providing staff training and 
support services; 
Grant recipient: SEAs and subgrants to school district partnerships. 

Grant design: formula grants: 
Program: Small Rural School Achievement; 
Purpose: To provide financial assistance to rural school districts to 
assist them in meeting their state's definition of adequate yearly 
progress. Note: a school district that is eligible for this program is 
not eligible for the Rural and Low-Income Schools program (see below); 
Grant recipient: Primarily to districts that (1) have a total average 
daily attendance of fewer than 600 students or only serve schools 
located in counties of fewer than 10 persons per square mile, and (2) 
serve schools with Education's National Center for Education Sciences 
locale code of 7 or 8 or located in an area defined as rural by state. 

Grant design: formula grants: 
Program: Rural and Low-Income Schools; 
Purpose: To provide financial assistance to rural districts to assist 
them in meeting their state's definition of adequate yearly progress. 
This program provides grant funds to rural districts that serve 
concentrations of children from low-income families; 
Grant recipient: SEAs receive grants and provide subgrants to school 
districts in which (1) 20 percent or more of the children age 5-17 
served by the school district are from families with incomes below the 
poverty line, (2) all schools served by the district have a school 
locale code of 6,7, or 8; and are (3) not eligible to participate in 
the Small Rural School Achievement program. 

Grant design: formula grants: 
Program: Preschool Grants for Children with Disabilities; 
Purpose: To provide special education services to children with 
disabilities, ages 3-5. Permitted expenditures include the salaries of 
special education teachers and costs associated with related services; 
Grant recipient: SEAs. 

Grant design: formula grants: 
Program: Special Education Grants to States; 
Purpose: Assists states including the District of Columbia and Puerto 
Rico in meeting the costs of providing special education and related 
services to children with disabilities. States may use funds to provide 
a free appropriate public education to children with disabilities. 
Permitted expenditures include the salaries of special education 
teachers and costs associated with related services personnel, such as 
speech therapists and psychologists; 
Grant recipient: SEAs and school districts. 

Grant design: formula grants: 
Program: English Language Acquisition State Grants; 
Purpose: To improve the education of limited English proficient 
children and youths by helping them to learn English and meet state 
academic content and student academic achievement standards; 
Grant recipient: SEAs and subgrants to school districts. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Career and Technical Education--Grants to Native Americans and 
Alaska Natives; 
Purpose: To improve the career and technical education skills of Native 
Americans and Alaska Natives. Projects make improvements in career and 
technical education programs for Native American and Alaska Native 
youths; 
Grant recipient: Federally recognized Indian tribes, tribal 
organizations, Alaska Native entities, and consortia of any of the 
previously mentioned entities may apply. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Career and Technical Education--Native Hawaiians; 
Purpose: Provides assistance to plan, conduct, and administer programs 
or portions of programs that provide career and technical training and 
related activities to Native Hawaiians. Program supports career and 
technical education and training projects for the benefit of Native 
Hawaiians; 
Grant recipient: Community-based organizations primarily serving and 
representing Native Hawaiians. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Advanced Placement Incentive Program; 
Purpose: Enables grantees to increase the participation of low-income 
students in both pre-advanced placement and advanced placement courses 
and tests. Allowable activities include professional development for 
teachers, curriculum development, the purchase of books and supplies, 
and other activities directly related to expanding access to and 
participation in advanced placement courses and tests for low-income 
students; 
Grant recipient: School districts, SEAs, and nonprofit organizations. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Improving Literacy Through School Libraries; 
Purpose: Program helps school districts improve reading achievement by 
providing students with increased access to up-to-date school library 
materials; well-equipped, technologically advanced school library media 
centers; and professionally certified school library media specialists. 
School districts may use funds for a variety of activities such as 
providing professional development for school library media specialists 
and providing activities that foster increased collaboration among 
library specialists, teachers, and administrators; 
Grant recipient: School districts in which at least 20 percent of 
students served are from families with incomes below the poverty line. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Indian Education Demonstration Grants for Indian Children; 
Purpose: Designed to improve the education opportunities and 
achievement of preschool, elementary, and secondary Indian children by 
developing, testing, and demonstrating effective services and programs. 
Funding priorities in 2008 were for (1) school readiness projects that 
provide age-appropriate educational programs and language skills to 3-
and 4-year-old Indian students to prepare them for successful entry 
into school at the kindergarten level and (2) college preparatory 
programs for secondary school students designed to increase competency 
and skills in challenging subject matter, such as mathematics and 
science; 
Grant recipient: SEAs, school districts, Indian tribes, Indian 
organizations, federally supported elementary and secondary schools for 
Indian students, and Indian institutions, including Indian institutions 
of higher education, or consortia of such entities. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Migrant Education Program--Even Start; 
Purpose: Designed to help break the cycle of poverty and improve the 
literacy of participating migrant families by integrating early 
childhood education, adult literacy or adult basic education, and 
parenting education into a unified family literacy program. Funds 
support projects such as early childhood education, adult education; 
Head Start programs, training for staff, and support services; 
Grant recipient: Institutions of higher education, school districts, 
SEAs, and nonprofit and other organizations and agencies. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Carol M. White Physical Education Program; 
Purpose: Provides grants to initiate, expand, and improve physical 
education programs for K-12 students to help them make progress toward 
meeting state standards for physical education. Funds may be used to 
provide equipment and support and to enable students to participate 
actively in physical education activities. Funds also may support staff 
and teacher training and education; 
Grant recipient: School districts and community-based organizations. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Magnet Schools Assistance;
Purpose: Grants assist in the desegregation of public schools by 
supporting the elimination, reduction, and prevention of minority group 
isolation in elementary and secondary schools with substantial numbers 
of minority group students. Projects must support the development and 
implementation of magnet schools that assist in the achievement of 
systemic reforms and provide all students with the opportunity to meet 
challenging academic content and achievement standards. Projects 
support the development and design of innovative education methods and 
practices that promote diversity and increase choices in public 
education programs. The program supports capacity development through 
professional development and other activities, such as the 
implementation of courses of instruction in magnet schools that 
strengthen students' knowledge of core academic subjects. Program 
supports the implementation of courses of instruction in magnet schools 
that strengthen students' knowledge of core academic subjects; 
Grant recipient: School districts or consortia of districts that are 
implementing court-ordered or federally approved voluntary 
desegregation plans that include magnet schools are eligible to apply. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Arts in Education--Model Development and Dissemination Grants 
Program; 
Purpose: Supports the enhancement, expansion, documentation, 
evaluation, and dissemination of innovative, cohesive models that 
demonstrate effectiveness in (1) integrating into and strengthening 
arts in the core elementary and middle school curricula, (2) 
strengthening arts instruction, and (3) improving students' academic 
performance, including their skills in creating, performing, and 
responding to the arts. Funds must be used to (1) further the 
development of programs designed to improve or expand the integration 
of arts education, (2) develop materials designed to help replicate or 
adapt arts programs, (3) document and assess the results and benefits 
of arts programs, and (4) develop products and services that can be 
used to replicate arts programs in other settings; 
Grant recipient: School districts and nonprofit organizations. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Women's Educational Equity; 
Purpose: Promotes education equity for women and girls through 
competitive grants. Allowable activities include training for teachers 
and other school personnel to encourage gender equity in the classroom, 
evaluating exemplary model programs, school-to-work transition 
programs, guidance and counseling activities to increase opportunities 
for women in technologically demanding workplaces, and developing 
strategies to assist districts in evaluating, disseminating, and 
replicating gender-equity programs; 
Grant recipient: Institutions of higher education, school districts, 
SEAs, nonprofit organizations, other organizations and agencies. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Native American and Alaska Native Children in School; 
Purpose: Provides grants to support language instruction education 
projects for Limited English Proficient children from Native American, 
Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander backgrounds to 
ensure that they meet the same rigorous standards for academic 
achievement that all children are expected to meet; 
Grant recipient: Indian tribes; tribally sanctioned education 
authorities; Native Hawaiian or Native American Pacific Islander native 
language education organizations; and elementary, secondary, or 
postsecondary schools operated or funded by the Bureau of Indian 
Affairs Education, or a consortium of such schools and an institution 
of higher education. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Fund for the Improvement of Education--Programs of National 
Significance; 
Purpose: This program provides authority for the Secretary of Education 
to support nationally significant programs to improve the quality of 
elementary and secondary education at the state and local levels and to 
help all students meet challenging state academic standards; 
Grant recipient: Institutions of higher education, school districts, 
SEAs, and nonprofit and other organizations and agencies. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Student Education; 
Purpose: To carry out a coordinated program of scientifically based 
research, demonstration projects, innovative strategies, and similar 
activities designed to enhance the ability of K-12 schools to meet the 
education needs of gifted and talented students; 
Grant recipient: Institutions of higher education, school districts, 
SEAs, nonprofit organizations, other organizations and agencies. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Foreign Language Assistance Program (Districts); 
Purpose: Provides grants to establish, improve, or expand innovative 
foreign language programs for elementary and secondary school students. 
In awarding grants under this program, the Secretary of Education 
supports projects that (1) show the promise of being continued beyond 
their project period and (2) demonstrate approaches that can be 
disseminated and duplicated by other school districts; 
Grant recipient: School districts. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Foreign Language Assistance Program (SEAs); 
Purpose: Provides grants to establish, improve, or expand innovative 
foreign language programs for elementary and secondary school students. 
In awarding grants under this program, the Secretary of Education 
supports projects that promote systemic approaches to improving foreign 
language learning in the state; 
Grant recipient: SEAs. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Native Hawaiian Education Program; 
Purpose: To develop innovative educational programs to assist Native 
Hawaiians and to supplement and expand programs and authorities in the 
area of education; 
Grant recipient: School districts, SEAs, and IHEs with experience in 
developing or operating Native Hawaiian programs or programs of 
instruction in the Native Hawaiian language, and Native Hawaiian 
education organizations; public and private nonprofit organizations, 
agencies, and institutions; and consortia thereof. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Alaska Native Education Equity; 
Purpose: To meet the unique education needs of Alaska Natives and 
support supplemental programs to benefit Alaska Natives. Activities 
include, but are not limited to, the development of curricula and 
education programs that address student needs and the development and 
operation of student enrichment programs in science and mathematics. 
Eligible activities also include professional development for 
educators, activities carried out through Even Start and Head Start 
programs, family literacy services, and dropout prevention programs; 
Grant recipient: An SEA or school district may apply as part of a 
consortium involving an Alaska Native organization. Also Alaska Native 
organizations, education entities with experience in developing or 
operating Alaska Native programs or programs of instruction conducted 
in Alaska Native languages, cultural and community-based organizations 
with experience in developing or operating programs to benefit Alaska 
Natives, and consortia or organizations. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Special Education--National Activities-Technology and Media 
Services; 
Purpose: To (1) improve results for children with disabilities by 
promoting the development, demonstration, and use of technology; (2) 
support educational media services activities designed to be of value 
in the classroom setting for children with disabilities; and (3) 
provide support for captioning and video description that and 
appropriate for use in the classroom setting. Program supports 
technology development, demonstration, and utilization. Educational 
media activities, such as video descriptions and captioning of 
educational materials, also are supported; 
Grant recipient: Institutions of higher education, school districts, 
SEAs, nonprofit organizations, or other organizations. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Special Education--National Activities--Technical Assistance 
and Dissemination; 
Purpose: To promote academic achievement and improve results for 
children with disabilities by providing technical assistance, model 
demonstration projects, dissemination of useful information, and 
implementation activities that are supported by scientifically based 
research; 
Grant recipient: Institutions of higher education, school districts, 
SEAs, nonprofit organizations, and other organizations and/or agencies. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Excellence in Economic Education; 
Purpose: This program promotes economic and financial literacy among 
all students in kindergarten through grade 12 through the award of one 
grant to a national nonprofit education organization that has as its 
primary purpose the improvement of the quality of student understanding 
of personal finance and economics; 
Grant recipient: The National Council on Economic Education, SEAs, 
school districts. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education-- 
Comprehensive Program; 
Purpose: A program supporting innovative reform projects for improving 
the quality of postsecondary education and increasing student access; 
Grant recipient: Institutions of higher education, and other 
organizations and agencies. 

Grant design: competitive grants: 
Program: Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems; 
Purpose: To enable SEAs to design, develop, and implement statewide 
longitudinal data systems to efficiently and accurately manage, 
analyze, disaggregate, and use individual student data, consistent with 
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended (20 
U.S.C. 6301 et seq.); 
Grant recipient: SEAs. 

Source: GAO analysis of Department of Education data. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix IV: Institute of Education Sciences' Sponsored Research on 
Teacher Quality, 2003-2009: 

Year: 2009; 
Research recipient: University of California, Berkeley; Teacher quality 
project: 
Teacher Quality: The Role of Teacher Study Groups as a Model of 
Professional Development in Early Literacy for Preschool Teachers; 
Grant award: $1,339,403. 

Year: 2009; 
Research recipient: Education Development Center, Inc.; 
Teacher quality project: Assessing the Efficacy of a Comprehensive 
Intervention in Physical Science on Head Start Teachers and Children; 
Grant award: $2,999,841. 

Year: 2009; Research recipient: University of Texas Health Science 
Center at Houston; 
Teacher quality project: Improving School Readiness of High Risk 
Preschoolers: Combining High Quality Instructional Strategies with 
Responsive Training for Teachers; 
Grant award: $2,653,503. 

Year: 2009; Research recipient: University of Cincinnati; 
Teacher quality project: INSPIRE Urban Teaching Fellows Program; 
Grant award: $1,500,000. 

Year: 2009; Research recipient: The Pennsylvania State University; 
Teacher quality project: Improving Classroom Learning Environments by 
Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education; 
Grant award: $932,424. 

Year: 2009; Research recipient: University of Illinois at Chicago; 
Teacher quality project: Enhancing Effectiveness and Connectedness 
Among Early Career Teachers in Urban Schools; 
Grant award: $1,012,701. 

Year: 2008; Research recipient: University of California, San Diego; 
Teacher quality project: Education Research: BioBridge Teacher Quality--
The BioBridge Teacher Professional Development; 
Grant award: $948,447. 

Year: 2008; Research recipient: University of South Florida; 
Teacher quality project: Leadership for Integrated Middle-School 
Science; 
Grant award: $1,444,403. 

Year: 2008; Research recipient: University of Michigan; 
Teacher quality project: Development of an Interactive, Multimedia 
Assessment of Teachers' Knowledge of Early Reading; 
Grant award: $1,770,582. 

Year: 2008; Research recipient: National Bureau of Economic Research; 
Teacher quality project: Value-Added Models and the Measurement of 
Teacher Quality: Tracking or Causal Effects; 
Grant award: $294,295. 

Year: 2008; Research recipient: University of Pittsburgh; 
Teacher quality project: The Iterative Design of Modules to Support 
Reading Comprehension Instruction; 
Grant award: $1,386,901. 

Year: 2008; Research recipient: Ohio State University; 
Teacher quality project: Efficacy of Read It Again! In Rural Preschool 
Settings; 
Grant award: $3,073,485. 

Year: 2008; Research recipient: Rutgers, the State University of New 
Jersey; 
Teacher quality project: Development and Validation of a Teacher 
Progress Monitoring Scale for Elementary School Teachers; 
Grant award: $1,438,905. 

Year: 2008; Research recipient: Iris Media Inc.; 
Teacher quality project: Online Teacher Training: Promoting Student 
Social Competence to Improve Academic and Behavioral Outcomes in Grades 
K-3; 
Grant award: $2,293,415. 

Year: 2008; Research recipient: Mid-Continent Regional Educational 
Laboratory; 
Teacher quality project: Visualizing Science with Adapted Curriculum 
Enhancements; 
Grant award: $1,489,399. 

Year: 2007; Research recipient: Mills College; 
Teacher quality project: Improving the Mathematical Content Base of 
Lesson Study Design and Test of a Research-Based Toolkit; 
Grant award: $1,997,590. 

Year: 2007; Research recipient: WestEd; 
Teacher quality project: Understanding Science: Improving Achievement 
of Middle School Students in Science; 
Grant award: $1,990,754. 

Year: 2007; Research recipient: University of Virginia; 
Teacher quality project: The Efficacy of the Responsive Classroom 
Approach for Improving Teacher Quality and Children's Academic 
Performance; 
Grant award: $2,814,668. 

Year: 2007; Research recipient: Milwaukee School of Engineering; 
Teacher quality project: Effect of the SUN Teacher Workshop on Student 
Achievement; 
Grant award: $1,262,083. 

Year: 2007; Research recipient: Purdue University; 
Teacher quality project: Classroom Links to Vocabulary and Phonological 
Sensitivity Skills; 
Grant award: $1,738,508. 

Year: 2007; Research recipient: University of Virginia; 
Teacher quality project: Pre-K Mathematics and Science for At-Risk 
Children: Outcomes-Focused Curricula and Support for Teaching Quality; 
Grant award: $1,949,854. 

Year: 2007; Research recipient: University of Oregon; 
Teacher quality project: Reading Intervention with Spanish Speaking 
Students: Maximizing Instructional Effectiveness in English and 
Spanish; 
Grant award: $3,498,216. 

Year: 2007; Research recipient: University of Michigan; 
Teacher quality project: Modeling Situation Awareness in Teachers; 
Grant award: $816,936. 

Year: 2007; Research recipient: University of Illinois, Chicago; 
Teacher quality project: Collaborative Teacher Network; 
Grant award: $1,207,516. 

Year: 2007; Research recipient: University of Kansas; 
Teacher quality project: Improving Instruction Through Implementation 
of the Partnership Instructional Coaching Model; 
Grant award: $1,919,577. 

Year: 2007; Research recipient: Florida State University; 
Teacher quality project: The Effects of Teacher Preparation and 
Professional Development on Special Education Teacher Quality; 
Grant award: $640,044. 

Year: 2007; Research recipient: University of Florida; 
Teacher quality project: The Influence of Collaborative Professional 
Development Groups & Coaching on the Literacy Instruction of Upper 
Elementary Special Education Teachers; 
Grant award: $2,293,415. 

Year: 2007; Research recipient: University of Florida; 
Teacher quality project: Impact of Professional Development on 
Preschool Teachers' Use of Embedded-Instruction Practices; 
Grant award: $1,288,510. 

Year: 2006; Research recipient: University of California, Berkeley; 
Teacher quality project: Integrating Science and Diversity Education: A 
Model of Pre-Service Elementary Teacher Preparation; 
Grant award: $1,473,522. 

Year: 2006; Research recipient: LessonLab, Inc.; 
Teacher quality project: Using Video Clips of Classroom Instruction as 
Item Prompts to Measure Teacher Knowledge of Teaching Mathematics: 
Instrument Development and Validation; 
Grant award: $1,413,121. 

Year: 2006; Research recipient: California State University, Long 
Beach; 
Teacher quality project: Standards-Based Differentiated ELD Instruction 
to Improve English Language Arts Achievement for English Language 
Learners; 
Grant award: $991,630. 

Year: 2006; Research recipient: University at Albany, State University 
of New York; 
Teacher quality project: Enhancing Knowledge Related to Research-Based 
Early Literacy Instruction Among Pre-Service Teachers; 
Grant award: $1,440,551. 

Year: 2006; Research recipient: University of California, Irvine; 
Teacher quality project: The Pathway Project: A Cognitive Strategies 
Approach to Reading and Writing Instruction for Teachers of Secondary 
English Language Learners; 
Grant award: $2,942,842. 

Year: 2006; Research recipient: University of Pittsburgh; 
Teacher quality project: Content-Focused Coaching for High Quality 
Reading Instruction; 
Grant award: $5,946,864. 

Year: 2006; Research recipient: Research Foundation of the State 
University of New York; 
Teacher quality project: Do Lower Barriers to Entry Affect Achievement 
and Teacher Retention: The Case of New York City Math Immersion; 
Grant award: $429,500. 

Year: 2006; Research recipient: Miami Museum of Science; 
Teacher quality project: Early Childhood Hands-On Science Curriculum 
Development and Demonstration Project; 
Grant award: $1,415,652. 

Year: 2006; Research recipient: University of Virginia; 
Teacher quality project: National Center for Research on Early 
Childhood Education (NCRECE): Preschool Teacher Professional 
Development Study; 
Grant award: $11,016,009. 

Year: 2006; Research recipient: Vanderbilt University; 
Teacher quality project: National Center for Performance Incentives; 
Grant award: $10,835,509. 

Year: 2006; Research recipient: Urban Institute; 
Teacher quality project: Center for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data 
in Education Research (CALDER); 
Grant award: $10,000,000. 

Year: 2006; Research recipient: University of Hawaii; 
Teacher quality project: I in the IEP [IEP is the acronym for 
Individual Education Program.]; 
Grant award: $1,500,000. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: Allegheny Singer Research Institute; 
Teacher quality project: Mentoring Teachers Through Pedagogical Content 
Knowledge Development; 
Grant award: $957,825. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: Education Development Center, Inc.; 
Teacher quality project: Assessing the Potential Impact of a 
Professional Development Program in Science on Head Start Teachers and 
Children; 
Grant award: $1,367,500. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: University of Nebraska-Lincoln; 
Teacher quality project: Evolving Inquiry: An Experimental Test of a 
Science Instruction Model for Teachers in Rural, Culturally Diverse 
Schools; 
Grant award: $1,261,684. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: University of Toledo; 
Teacher quality project: Utah's Improving Science Teacher Quality 
Initiative; 
Grant award: $913,620. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: South Carolina Department of Education; 
Teacher quality project: Investigating the Efficacy of a Professional 
Development Program in Classroom Assessment for Middle School Reading 
and Mathematics; 
Grant award: $1,680,625. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: SRI International; 
Teacher quality project: Comparing the Efficacy of Three Approaches to 
Improving Teaching Quality in Science Education: Curriculum 
Implementation, Design, and Adaptation; 
Grant award: $1,864,415. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: University of South Florida; 
Teacher quality project: Replication and Outcomes of the Teaching SMART 
Program in Elementary Science Classrooms; 
Grant award: $2,408,168. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: Florida State University; 
Teacher quality project: Identifying the Conditions Under Which Large 
Scale Professional Development Policy Initiatives are Related to 
Teacher Knowledge Instructional Practices, and Student Reading 
Outcomes; 
Grant award: $500,000. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: Success for All Foundation; 
Teacher quality project: Embedded Classroom Multimedia: Improving 
Implementation Quality and Student Achievement in a Cooperative Writing 
Program; 
Grant award: $1,498,045. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: Texas A&M University; 
Teacher quality project: Enhancing the Quality of Expository Text 
Instruction Through Content and Case-Situated Professional Development; 
Grant award: $1,498,530. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: University of Texas at San Antonio; 
Teacher quality project: Teaching Teachers to Teach Critical Reading 
Strategies (CREST) Through an Intensive Professional Development Model; 
Grant award: $926,814. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: Education Development Center Inc.; 
Teacher quality project: Examining the Efficacy of Two Models of 
Preschool Professional Development in Language and Literacy; 
Grant award: $2,834,272. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: WestEd; 
Teacher quality project: A Randomized Controlled Study of the Efficacy 
of Reading Apprenticeship Professional Development for High School 
History and Science Teaching and Learning; 
Grant award: $2,997,972. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: University of Michigan; 
Teacher quality project: Assessment of Pedagogical Knowledge of 
Teachers of Reading; 
Grant award: $1,677,575. 

Year: 2005; Research recipient: Utah State University; 
Teacher quality project: Connecting Primary Grade Teacher Knowledge to 
Primary Grade Student Achievement: Developing the Evidence-Based 
Reading/Writing Teacher Knowledge Assessment System; 
Grant award: $926,814. 

Year: 2004; Research recipient: DePaul University; 
Teacher quality project: Algebra Connections: Teacher Education in 
Clear Instruction and Responsive Assessment of Algebra Patterns and 
Problem Solving; 
Grant award: $1,052,822. 

Year: 2004; Research recipient: Educational Testing Service; 
Teacher quality project: The Relationship Between Mathematics Teachers' 
Content Knowledge and Students' Mathematics Achievement: Exploring the 
Predictive Validity of the Praxis Series Middle School Mathematics 
Test; 
Grant award: $1,573,623. 

Year: 2004; Research recipient: Purdue University; 
Teacher quality project: Professional Development in Early Reading; 
Grant award: $1,418,091. 

Year: 2004; Research recipient: University of North Carolina at Chapel 
Hill; 
Teacher quality project: Improving Teacher Quality to Address the 
Language and Literacy Skills of Latino Children in Pre-Kindergarten 
Programs; 
Grant award: $1,467,046. 

Year: 2004; Research recipient: University of Chicago; 
Teacher quality project: Can Literacy Professional Development be 
Improved With Web-Based Collaborative Learning Tools? A Randomized 
Field Trial; 
Grant award: $3,046,054. 

Year: 2004; Research recipient: Florida State University; 
Teacher quality project: Assessing Teacher Effectiveness: How Can We 
Predict Who Will Be a High Quality Teacher?; 
Grant award: $978,698. 

Year: 2004; Research recipient: RAND Corporation; 
Teacher quality project: Teacher Licensure Tests and Student 
Achievement; 
Grant award: $1,590,967. 

Year: 2004; Research recipient: Vanderbilt University; 
Teacher quality project: Opening the Black Box in Choice and Regular 
Public Schools (a research project within the National Research & 
Development Center on School Choice); 
Grant award: $3,262,563. 

Year: 2004; Research recipient: University of North Carolina at Chapel 
Hill; 
Teacher quality project: National Research Center on Rural Education 
Support (estimated amount of total award devoted to teacher quality 
research); 
Grant award: $11,200,000. 

Year: 2004; Research recipient: Vanderbilt University; 
Teacher quality project: Scaling Up Peer Assisted Learning Strategies 
to Strengthen Reading Achievement; 
Grant award: $5,618,237. 

Year: 2003; Research recipient: LessonLab Inc.; 
Teacher quality project: Improving Achievement by Maintaining the 
Learning Potential of Rich Mathematics Problems: An Experimental Study 
of a Video-and Internet-Based Professional Development Program; 
Grant award: $1,594,021. 

Year: 2003; Research recipient: Haskins Laboratories; 
Teacher quality project: Mastering Reading Instruction: A Professional 
Development Project for First Grade Teachers; 
Grant award: $2,912,063. 

Year: 2003; Research recipient: Instructional Research Group; 
Teacher quality project: Teacher Quality Study: An Investigation of the 
Impact of Teacher Study Groups as a Means to Enhance The Quality of 
Reading Instruction for First Graders in High Poverty Schools in Two 
States; 
Grant award: $2,820,670. 

Year: 2003; Research recipient: University of Michigan; 
Teacher quality project: Identifying Key Components of Effective 
Professional Development in Reading for First Grade Teachers and Their 
Students; 
Grant award: $1,677,575. 

Year: Total grants; 
Grant award: $159,393,859. 

Source: GAO analysis of IES research projects. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix V: Comments from the U.S. Department of Education: 

United States Department Of Education: 
Washington, D.C. 20202: 
"Our mission is to ensure equal access to education and to promote 
educational excellence throughout the Nation" 

June 9, 2009: 

Ms. Cornelia M. Ashby: 
Director: 
Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, NW: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Ms. Ashby: 

I am writing in response to the recommendation made in the Government 
Accountability Office (GAO) report, "Teacher Quality: Sustained 
Coordination among Key Federal Education Programs Could Enhance State 
Efforts to Improve Teacher Quality" (GAO-09-593). 

This report had one recommendation for the Secretary of Education. 
Following is the Department's response. 

Recommendation: To ensure that departmental goals to improve teacher 
quality are achieved and that its many related efforts are mutually 
reinforcing, we recommend that the Secretary of Education establish and 
implement a strategy for sustained coordination among existing 
departmental offices and programs. A key purpose of this coordination 
would be to facilitate information and resource sharing as well as to 
strengthen linkages among teacher quality improvement efforts to help 
states, school districts, and institutions of higher education in their 
initiatives to improve teacher quality. 

Response: While the Department agrees that coordination is beneficial, 
the Department's experience indicates that creating interdepartmental 
committees solely for the purpose of coordinating agency activities or 
sharing information across offices is not always a useful exercise. 
While the Department will review the advisability of forming a cross-
program committee, it would first want to ensure that such a group 
would truly lead to improvements in the way the Department coordinates 
its approach to teacher quality and the way States and school districts 
promote teacher quality. 

The Department has effectively brought together individuals from 
different offices to work together on discrete issues or problems 
related to teacher quality when such action is needed. Good examples 
are the coordination that occurred on the implementation of the highly 
qualified teacher (HQ l) requirements of the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act, as amended, (ESEA) and on the development of common 
performance measures for teacher professional development programs. 

In recent months, the Department has taken additional actions to 
coordinate activities in response to new demands and needs. The 
Department has initiated a number of coordination efforts to address 
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) requirements. 
One team, which is led by the Secretary's advisors on teacher issues 
and made up of representatives from several program off -ices, focuses 
on teachers and school leadership. As additional needs arise, such as 
those that may emanate from the implementation of the ARRA or the 
development of proposals for the reauthorization of the ESEA or other 
legislation, the Department can create additional inter-office working 
groups or coordinating bodies to address them. 

Efforts to coordinate program implementation cannot fully eliminate 
harriers to program alignment. Individual programs have unique, and 
often inconsistent, legislative definitions and requirements. While 
increased internal coordination may alleviate some problems, it is 
unlikely to completely resolve them. The draft report identifies a 
cogent example: on page 19, the authors note that the Improving Teacher 
Quality State Grants (ITQ) program has a statutory definition of "high-
need local educational agency," while the Mathematics and Science 
Partnerships program does not have a statutory definition of that term. 
The authors claim that this inconsistency may hinder States' ability to 
coordinate their implementation of the two programs, but intra-agency 
coordination could not eliminate this inconsistency. 

The enclosed document includes the Department's suggested technical 
changes to the report. 

We appreciate the opportunity to share our comments on the draft 
report. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Joseph C. Conaty: 
Delegated Authority to Perform the Functions and Duties of the 
Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education: 

Enclosure: 

[End of section] 

Appendix VI: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Cornelia M. Ashby, (202) 512-7215, ashbyc@gao.gov: 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] U.S. Department of Education, Office of Policy and Program Studies 
Services, State and Local Implementation of the No Child Left Behind 
Act: Volume VII--Teacher Quality Under NCLB: Final Report (U.S. 
Department of Education, 2009). High-poverty and low-poverty schools 
are respectively those in the top and bottom quartiles when schools in 
a state are ranked by level of poverty in descending order; most states 
based level of poverty on the percentage of students eligible for free 
or reduced lunch in the school. 

[2] "Collaboration" is a broad term that can include activities that 
others have variously defined as "cooperation," "coordination," and 
"integration," and previous GAO work has identified various practices 
that can enhance collaboration, such as establishing compatible 
policies and procedures to operate across organizational boundaries. 
See GAO, Results Oriented Government: Practices that Can Help Enhance 
and Sustain Collaboration among Federal Agencies, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15] (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21, 
2005). 

[3] Because of differences in higher education governance among states, 
state agencies for higher education include offices, commissions, 
boards, committees, departments, or organizations with governing 
authority over higher education in the state. 

[4] Coordinating bodies work to integrate a student's education from 
kindergarten through a 4-year college degree by coordinating statewide 
education initiatives and reforms. Examples of such coordinating bodies 
include what are commonly referred to as P-16/20 councils, or 
prekindergarten through college/master's, though some states refer to 
them differently (e.g., commission, roundtable, committee, initiative, 
etc.). On the basis of our review of the literature, we found that a 
large number of these bodies address some aspect of teacher quality. 

[5] Laura Goe and Leslie M. Stickler, Teacher Quality and Student 
Achievement: Making the Most of Recent Research (Washington, D.C.: 
National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, 2008). 

[6] GAO, No Child Left Behind: States Face Challenges in Measuring 
Academic Growth that Education's Initiatives May Help Address, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-661] (Washington, D.C.: 
July 17, 2006). 

[7] Under the Government Performance and Results Act (Pub. L. No. 103- 
62 (1993)), federal agencies are required to develop strategic plans, 
performance plans, and performance reports. The plans are to include 
long-term and annual goals, respectively, along with the means for 
accomplishing the goals. The performance report is to include the 
extent to which the goals have been achieved. 

[8] Core subjects include English, reading or language arts, 
mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, 
economics, arts, history, and geography. 

[9] GAO, No Child Left Behind Act: Improved Accessibility to 
Education's Information Could Help States Further Implement Teacher 
Qualification Requirements, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-25] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 21, 
2005). 

[10] GAO has reported that in general, HEA provisions tend to focus on 
the preparation of prospective teachers, while ESEA provisions tend to 
focus on training for teachers already in the classroom and are funded 
at a higher level than HEA programs. See GAO, Teacher Quality: 
Approaches, Implementation, and Evaluations of Key Federal Efforts, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-861T] (Washington, D.C.: 
May 17, 2007). 

[11] Title II, section 205 of the HEA, as amended by the Higher 
Education Opportunity Act, Pub. L. No. 110-315, requires the annual 
preparation and submission of reports on teacher preparation and 
qualifications from institutions of higher education that conduct a 
traditional teacher preparation program or alternative route to state 
certification or licensure. Section 206 requires these institutions of 
higher education to set annual quantifiable goals for increasing the 
number of prospective teachers trained in teacher shortage areas and to 
provide specific assurances to the Secretary of Education that include 
being responsive to the needs of school districts in which the 
institution's graduates are likely to teach. 

[12] According to Education, during the 2007-2008 school year, 
districts used most of the funding for hiring highly qualified teachers 
to reduce classroom size and professional development training for 
teachers already teaching in the classroom. 

[13] These 33 programs have other primary goals or purposes, such as 
providing assistance to rural school districts to help them meet state 
academic goals, supporting career and technical skills of secondary or 
postsecondary students, or paying the salaries of teachers serving 
certain student populations. 

[14] This total includes an estimated $1.15 billion from the fiscal 
year 2009 appropriation and about $800 million from the American 
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Pub. L. No. 111-5). 

[15] Other teacher quality programs that received Recovery Act funds 
and that are specifically focused on teacher quality include the 
Enhancing Education Through Technology Program and the Teacher Quality 
Partnership Grant Program. 

[16] GAO, Troops to Teachers: Program Brings More Men and Minorities 
into Teaching Workforce, but Education Could Improve Management to 
Enhance Results, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-265] 
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 1, 2006); Special Education: Additional 
Assistance and Better Coordination Needed among Education Offices to 
Help States Meet the NCLBA Teacher Requirements, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-659] (Washington, D.C.: July 15, 
2004); and U.S. Department of Education, Office of the Inspector 
General, Overlapping Services in the Department of Education's Office 
of Postsecondary Education Programs, Audit Report No. ED-OIG/X07F0002 
(Washington, D.C.: Feb. 27, 2006). 

[17] GAO, Results Oriented Government: Practices that Can Help Enhance 
and Sustain Collaboration among Federal Agencies, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15] (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21, 
2005). 

[18] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15]. 

[19] GAO, Managing for Results: Building on Agencies' Strategic Plans 
to Improve Federal Management, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/T-GGD/AIMD-98-29] (Washington, D.C.: 
Oct. 30, 1997). 

[20] All nonfederal entities that expend $500,000 or more in federal 
awards in a year are required to obtain an annual audit in accordance 
with the Single Audit Act, as amended, and Office of Management and 
Budget Circular A-133, "Audits of States, Local Governments and Non- 
Profit Organizations." 

[21] Process studies are conducted to evaluate the extent to which a 
program is operating as it was intended. These studies typically use 
methodologies such as case studies and surveys to assess whether 
program activities conform to statutory and regulatory requirements, 
program design, and professional standards or customer expectations. 
Outcome evaluations assess the extent to which a program achieves its 
outcome-oriented objectives, but may also assess program processes to 
understand how outcomes are produced. Impact evaluations use scientific 
research methods to assess the net effect of a program by comparing 
program outcomes with an estimate of what would have happened in the 
absence of the program. 

[22] U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, 
National Evaluation of Early Reading First, Final Report to Congress 
(Washington, D.C.: May 2007). 

[23] U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation, and 
Policy Development, Partnerships for Reform: Changing Teacher 
Preparation Through the Title II HEA Partnership Program: Final Report 
(Washington, D.C.: May 2006). 

[24] GAO, Higher Education: Federal Science, Technology, Engineering, 
and Mathematics Programs and Related Trends, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-114] (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 12, 
2005). 

[25] U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, The 
Impact of Professional Development Models and Strategies on Teacher 
Practice and Student Achievement in Early Reading (Washington, D.C.: 
September 2008); and An Evaluation of Teachers Trained Through 
Different Routes to Certification (Washington, D.C.: February 2009). 

[26] National Research Council, Assessing Accomplished Teaching: 
Advanced-Level Certification Programs (Washington, D.C.: 2008). 

[27] IES also includes the National Center for Education Statistics, 
which is the primary federal entity for collecting, analyzing, and 
reporting data on the condition of education in the United States and 
other nations. IES maintains large data sets, such as the Schools and 
Staffing Survey, which are available to the public and researchers. 

[28] Research information is also provided in other products, including 
Topic Reports, which compile information from intervention reports in 
specific topics such as reading and mathematics, and Intervention 
Reports, which examine all studies for a specific intervention within a 
topic area, rating each study based on evidence standards. 

[29] REL research that meet IES standards is presented on the What 
Works Clearinghouse. 

[30] Each of the five National Content Centers focuses on and provides 
expertise, analysis, and research in one of the following areas: 
accountability, instruction, teacher quality, innovation and 
improvement, or high schools. 

[31] The Educational Technical Assistance Act of 2002 (Pub. L. No. 107- 
279, Title II) requires that each comprehensive center coordinate its 
activities, collaborate, and regularly exchange information with the 
REL in the region in which the center is located as well as with other 
technical assistance providers in the region. 

[32] Carl Krueger, The Progress of P-16 Collaboration in the States 
(Denver, Colo.: Education Commission of the States, April 2006). 

[33] Education also provides some funding for the Center for Analysis 
of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER), housed at the 
Urban Institute. CALDER's mission is to inform education policy 
development through analyses of data on individual students and 
teachers over time. 

[34] According to Education, new grant awards were not made in fiscal 
year 2008. Most of the funding available in fiscal year 2008 supported 
13 continuation awards; the remainder was combined with fiscal year 
2009 funding for a new competition. In fiscal year 2009, the 12 states 
that were awarded a second grant were Arkansas, California, 
Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, 
Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. 

[35] The State Fiscal Stabilization Fund is designed, in part, to help 
stabilize state and local budgets to minimize and avoid reductions in 
education and other essential services. 

[36] Included in this guidance is information on specific data metrics 
that states would use to make transparent their status in the education 
reform areas. The data metrics include teacher effectiveness and 
ensuring that all schools have highly qualified teachers, higher 
standards and rigorous assessments that will improve both teaching and 
learning, and better information to educators and the public to address 
the individual needs of students and improve teacher performance. For 
each metric, a state would need to demonstrate that it collects the 
required data and that it will make the data easily accessible to the 
public. 

[37] Sarah-Kathryn McDonald, Jolynne Andal, Kevin Brown, and Barbara 
Schneider, Getting the Evidence for Evidence-based Initiatives: How the 
Midwest States Use Data Systems to Improve Education Processes and 
Outcomes (Washington, D.C.: REL Midwest, 2007). 

[38] Because of differences in higher education governance among 
states, state agencies for higher education include offices, 
commissions, boards, committees, departments, or organizations with 
governing authority over higher education in the state. 

[39] This guide is a subset of the Catalog of Federal Domestic 
Assistance, which includes the federal programs from all federal 
agencies. We updated fiscal year 2008 funding levels with fiscal year 
2009 funding levels based on information in the fiscal year 2009 
Omnibus Appropriations Act, Education budget documents, and a review of 
these figures by Education officials. 

[40] The Regional Educational Laboratories included the Northwest 
Regional Educational Laboratory, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Educational 
Laboratory, and the Southwest Regional Educational Laboratory; the 
Regional Comprehensive Centers included the Northwest Regional 
Comprehensive Center, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Comprehensive Center, 
and the Southeast Regional Comprehensive Center. 

[41] Coordinating bodies work to integrate a student's education from 
kindergarten through a four-year college degree by coordinating 
statewide education initiatives and reforms. Examples of such 
coordinating bodies include what are commonly referred to as P-16/20 
councils, though some states refer to them differently (e.g., 
commissions, roundtables, committees, initiatives, etc.). On the basis 
of our review of the literature, we found that a large number of these 
bodies address some aspect of teacher quality. 

[End of section] 

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