Legislation Introduced by Congresswoman DeLauro

109th Congress | 108th Congress | 107th Congress | 106th Congress | Search for Legislation

Summary

Teacher Professional Development Institutes Act

The Teacher Professional Development Institutes Act which would create a partnership between institutions of higher education and local low-income school districts to enhance teacher skills and student achievement. The Act would provide for the establishment of eight new Teacher Professional Development Institutes each year over the next five years. These institutes would be modeled after the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, which has been in operation since 1978. Senator Lieberman and Dodd have introduce the counterpart bill in the Senate.

The Teacher Professional Development Institutes Act would establish Teacher Professional Development Institutes throughout the nation each year over five years. Teacher Professional Development Institutes build partnerships between institutions of higher education and local public schools with a significant portion of low-income students. The goal of the Institutes is to strengthen the present teacher workforce by giving participants the opportunity to gain more sophisticated content knowledge and a chance to develop curriculum units that can be directly applied in classrooms.

Through their work at the Institute, teachers have been found to gain confidence in their deeper understanding of the subject matter and enthusiastically deliver their new curriculum to the classroom. These qualities translate into higher expectations for their students and thus, student achievement rates increase. Current evaluations of the Institutes, and their methods, support the conclusion that virtually all teachers who participate leave feeling substantially strengthened in their mastery of content knowledge and increased expectations for what students could achieve. Because of their involvement in the course selection and curriculum development process, teacher participants have found these seminars to be especially relevant and useful in their classroom practices. Ninety-five percent of all participating teachers reported that the seminars were useful. These Institutes have also served to foster teacher leadership, to develop supportive teacher networks, to heighten university faculty commitments to improving K-12 public education, and to foster more positive partnerships between school districts and institutions of higher education.

	This is an official Website of the U.S. House of Representatives.
	Washington, DC Office 2262 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone: 202-225-3661 Send a message.	District Office 59 Elm Street New Haven, CT 06510 Phone: 203-562-3718