A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Part II:

Using Department Programs to Support Excellence and Accountability in Teaching

The following charts identify U.S. Department of Education programs that can contribute to efforts to meet each of five key challenges for promoting excellence and accountability in teaching. These challenges (and their abbreviations used on the charts) are --

• Recruit the most talented people into teaching ("Recruit Talent");
• Prepare future teachers to meet high licensing and certification standards ("Prepare for Cert");
• Help support tougher licensing and certification requirements for teachers ("Stronger Stnds");
• Provide ongoing training to help teachers meet high standards, including support for and restoring the enthusiasm of teachers who are most in need of assistance ("Ongoing Training"); and
• Help create accountability systems to identify and reward good teachers and remove incompetent teachers quickly, fairly, and less expensively, or counsel them out of teaching ("Accountability").

The Department's programs generally fall into two categories. "Formula grant" programs make funding available to all eligible recipients; "competitive grant" programs provide funding only to those winning a grant competition. The charts separately identify those programs in each category that, depending upon a state or community's own goals and strategies, can most readily be used in efforts to meet these challenges.

As states and communities are developing goals and strategies for promoting a high-quality teaching force, some may be unsure where to begin looking among the Department's programs for help. For those in this situation, we suggest starting with the following programs.

The programs and resources identified in the following materials can support efforts to create a truly high quality and diverse teaching force. But how can one actually use these programs? And, more important, how can they be used most effectively?

The U.S. Department of Education is committed to helping educators find answers to these questions. Given the Department's mission to promote excellence and equity in education, many of its programs focus on needs of particular populations or aspects of the school environment that are crucial to teaching and learning. Therefore, understanding how each Department program can contribute to improving teacher quality requires knowledge of: (1) the program's requirements; and (2) the particular role that the program can play, notwithstanding its particular focus, in helping all prospective and current teachers acquire the knowledge and skills they need to enable all children to succeed.

States and school districts will find some of the programs identified in the charts easier than others to use in their efforts to address the five challenges. Given program funding levels, the Department does not conduct competitions each year for all of its competitive grant programs. Moreover, in some cases, such as a school district's use of funds provided under Title I, Part A of the ESEA to help establish tougher local certification requirements, only those local-level recipients that want to establish their own special requirements for teachers of certain students (or who will teach in certain schools) will be able to exercise the flexibility and creativity needed to use a particular program's funds. Still, the charts confirm the breadth of Department programs that recipients can consider using as they endeavor to address the five challenges in ways that will most improve the quality of teaching and the achievement of all students.

However, effective use of these programs requires much more. Classroom teachers do not have students with a single set of needs or learning styles. Indeed, any given classroom -- indeed, any given student -- may need a teacher highly skilled not only in teaching content that reflects the school district's and state's standards, but teaching it in ways that address challenges resulting from lack of English proficiency, disabilities, migrancy, and a school environment marred by drugs and violence. Helping that teacher or prospective teacher to acquire the knowledge and skills he or she needs requires knowing how to coordinate the various federal programs that would be used to promote teacher excellence and accountability and how to integrate them into the professional development strategies and activities carried out with state and local funds.

• Availability of Waivers. While ESEA and other programs are very flexible, there may be situations in which a program's requirements seem to impede a school's, school district's, or state's ability to develop an integrated plan for promoting excellence and accountability in teaching. The ESEA now authorizes the Secretary to waive most program statutes and regulations (including general administrative regulation) that a school, district, or state demonstrates are hampering its efforts to improve teaching and learning, including funding for and implementation of high-quality professional development activities. This waiver authority extends to all ESEA formula and competitive programs identified in the charts. In addition, both the Goals 2000 and School-to-Work statutes extend the Secretary's waiver authority to most provisions of the Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Act. Under Ed-Flex (the Education Flexibility Partnership Demonstration Program), the Secretary of Education has granted nine states their own authority to waive provisions of certain ESEA programs and the Perkins formula grant program. These states are Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Vermont.

• Consolidated State and Local Plans. The ESEA also invites districts and states to revamp the very ways in which they plan the use of federal program funds. Districts and states are no longer required, as a condition of receiving federal formula grant funds, to develop and submit separate and detailed plans or applications for each federal program in which it wants to participate. Instead, for most formula grant programs, the ESEA now permits the use of a single consolidated plan that focuses specifically on what the district will do to promote cross-program coordination, integration of service provided under those programs with state and local-sponsored activities, and improved service delivery. Use of a consolidated plan does not eliminate federal program requirements and does not authorize commingling of program funds. Consolidated planning does, however, encourage thinking about how all of the individual federal programs included in the plan, notwithstanding their distinct purposes and different beneficiaries, can fit together and support the district's own program to improve teaching and learning.

• Schoolwide Programs. The ESEA authorizes schools in high poverty areas to use Title I, Part A funds along with funds provided by most other federal programs, to upgrade the entire education program of a school. As a schoolwide program, a school can use the funds it receives under nearly all federal programs (except the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)) as a common pool of resources. Federal funds used in the schoolwide program are required to supplement resources that the school otherwise would have available from non-federal funds. But instead of tracking all the funds, the school has to ensure only that where a particular federal program contributes to the schoolwide program, the school's activities meet the intent and purposes of that program (rather than the individual requirements of the program).

• Consolidated Administrative Funds. The ESEA also authorizes states and school districts to consolidate administrative funds provided under the ESEA state formula grant programs and Goals 2000 into a common pool, thereby eliminating the need for tracking how a particular program's administrative funds are spent. The ESEA also authorizes this pool of funds to be used for a broad range of activities, including coordination of the federal programs with other federal and non-federal programs.

A Few Reminders

Many of the Department's programs are intended to provide additional support with which to address needs of a particular population of students (e.g., students with disabilities or limited-English proficiency), or improvements in particular aspects of the learning environment (e.g., safe-and drug-free schools, and enhanced use of technology). These programs can help fill important gaps in an overall plan for promoting excellence and accountability in teaching. For example, a school district that has decided to strengthen its efforts to recruit, train, or retain high-quality teachers of limited-English proficient students may want also to examine how Titles I and II of the ESEA and the bilingual education competitive grant programs can help it do so.

Each Department program has its own set of requirements and purposes, which need to be considered in order to use the programs properly to promote excellence and accountability of all teachers. Except for funds of those programs that a school uses in a schoolwide program established under Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), program funds can help to support these challenges only if the use of those funds (a) supports activities that meet the program's statutory purposes, (b) benefits those students (or teachers of those students) whom the program serves, and (c) otherwise complies with all applicable program requirements and any approved or amended program plans or applications. For certain programs, these requirements include the need for program funds to "supplement, and not supplant" funds that, in the absence of program funds, would be available from state and local sources to support activities. Using program funds to support tougher licensing and certification requirements for teachers where those programs benefit particular populations or focus on particular subject areas (e.g., technology and violence-free and drug-free schools) will make sense where those populations or subject areas are one focus of licensing and certification requirements.

The charts contain a number of notes that are intended to remind the reader of these important considerations.

Keys to Understanding the Charts

1. A filled circle () indicates not only that program funds can be used to address this challenge, but also that this use of funds is a primary focus of the program. A circle () in a column indicates that program funds can be used to address this challenge, but that addressing the challenge, or improved professional development in general, is not at the heart of the program's purpose.

2. Superscript notes highlight the existence of a supplement, not supplant requirement, or basic program requirements that affect how recipients may use funds to support a particular challenge.

3. The charts use the following abbreviations:
   ESEA : Elementary and Secondary Education Act
   IDEA : Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
   HEA : Higher Education Act
   STWOA: School-to-Work Opportunities Act

   For simplicity, the charts use the term "States" to identify grantees that are state departments of education (more formally known as "state educational agencies" and, in the case of the Title II, ESEA, Eisenhower Professional Development Program, "state agencies for higher education").

4. Italics are used in the charts to designate those subgrantees for which funds are available only on a competitive, rather than on a formula, grant basis. In addition, those "grantees" designated as "direct" are Department grantees (e.g., state departments of education), while those designated as "indirect" receive subgrants from Department grantees (e.g., school districts that receive ESEA Title I, Part A funds from their respective state department of education).

5. Section III of this Guide contains brief descriptions of each of the identified formula grant programs (Part A) and information about competitive grant programs for which the public can now apply (including application due dates) or for which the Department plans to hold competitions in the near future (Part B). This information also includes information on how those with Internet access can access further information about these competitions from the Department's Home Page. Section III also includes information about the Comprehensive Technical Assistance Centers, which are designed to assist states, school districts, and schools to use resources provided under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act -- including resources that are available to promote excellence and accountability in teaching -- in the most effective ways possible.

6. In addition to the Comprehensive Centers, the Department funds a number of more specialized centers, information clearinghouses, and other service providers that may be able to provide technical assistance, although not funds, to help other entities address the five challenges. These service providers are identified and described in the Appendix to this Guide. In addition, the Department is conducting new competitions for service providers identified at the beginning of this section. While all other resources identified in this section are selected competitively, the Department does not anticipate new competitions for them in the near future.

CHART KEY

CIRCLES: Primary focus of the program. Not a primary focus of the program.
ITALICS: Funds for subgrantees are awarded on a competitive basis only.

U.S. Department of Education Programs That Promote Excellence and Accountability in Teaching
Program	Recruit Talent	Prepare for Cert	Stronger Stnds.	Ongoing Training	Account- ability
FORMULA GRANT PROGRAMS
Goals 2000: High Standards and Education Reform (Goals 2000: Educate America Act, Title III) Grantees: States (direct); School districts (indirect)
Dwight D. Eisenhower Professional Dev. Program - State & Local Grants (ESEA, Title ll, Part B) Grantees: States, (direct); School districts, Higher ed institutions, Non-profit orgs. (indirect)
Helping Disadvantaged Children Meet High Standards: Improving Basic Programs Operated by School District 1 (ESEA, Title I, Part A) Grantees: States (direct); School districts (indirect)	2	2	2	2	2
Even Start (Family Literacy) (ESEA, Title I, Part B) Grantees: States (direct); School districts (with Public agencies, Higher ed institutions, or Private non-profit orgs.) (indirect)	2	2		2
Migrant Education 1 (ESEA, Title I, Part C) Grantees: States (direct); School districts and other local operating agencies (indirect)	2	2	2	2	2
Technology Literacy Challenge Fund 1 (ESEA,Title III, Part A, subpart 2) Grantees: States (direct); School districts (indirect)				2
Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities (ESEA, Title IV) Grantees: States, Governors (direct); School districts, Community agencies (indirect)				2
Innovative Education Program Strategies 1 (ESEA, Title VI) Grantees: States, (direct); School districts, Higher ed institutions, Libraries, Museums, Non-profit orgs. (at the State's or School district's discretion) (indirect)
Impact Aid (ESEA, Title VIII) Grantees: School districts
Indian Education - Formula Grants to School Districts (ESEA, Title IX, Part A, subpart 1) Grantees: School districts, and Schools funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs under certain conditions				2
SPECIAL EDUCATION
Individuals With Disabilities Education Act -Assistance to States1 (IDEA, Part B) Grantees: States (direct); School districts (indirect)	2	2	2	2	2
Training Personnel for Education of Individuals with Disabilities1 (IDEA, Part D) Grantees: States	2	2	2	2	2
Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities (IDEA, Part H)1 Grantees: State Part H lead agencies (State educational agencies or other state agencies)	2	2	2	2	2
ADULT AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
Adult Education Special Demonstration and Teacher Training1 (Adult Ed Act, sec. 353) Grantees: States (direct); School districts, Higher ed institutions and other Non-profit orgs. (indirect)	2	2		2
Vocational Educational - Basic Grants State Programs/State Leadership1 (Carl D. Perkins Voc and Applied Tech Ed Act, Title II, Part A) Grantees: State boards of vocational ed	2	2	2	2	2
Local Activities 1 (Carl D. Perkins Voc and Applied Tech Ed Act, Title II, Part C) Grantees: State boards of vocational ed (direct); School districts, Area voc ed schools, Other interm. ed agencies, Higher ed institutions (indirect)	2	2	2	2	O2
Tech-Prep Education (Carl D. Perkins Voc and Applied Tech Ed Act, Title lll, Part E) Grantees: State boards of vocational ed (direct); Consortia of secondary entities (e.g., School districts and Higher ed institutions) (indirect) (formula or competitive grant at the State board's discretion)				O2
SCHOOL-TO-WORK OPPORTUNITIES
State Implementation Grants -- State and Local Partnerships (STWOA, Title II and Title III) Grantees: State and local partnerships	O	O	O	O

CHART KEY

CIRCLES: Primary focus of the program. Not a primary focus of the program.
ITALICS: Funds for subgrantees are awarded on a competitive basis only.

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[Part I: Improving Schools: The Critical Role of Good Teachers and Good Teaching]

[Part III: U.S. Department of Education Programs and Resources (Index)]