Good morning. I’d like to welcome each of you to our field hearing this morning as the Subcommittee continues its focus on teacher quality. This will be the fourth hearing since the opening of the 107^th Congress that we have met to learn about teacher preparation, credentials, and ways to ensure our students are learning from capable and competent teachers.

The purpose of today’s hearing is to discuss the importance of highly qualified teachers in improving academic achievement for all students – regardless of race, income, geography, English-fluency, or disability.

The success of education reform efforts is increasingly seen as directly dependent on the quality of classroom instruction, and ensuring the quality of America’s 3.2 million teachers is an essential part of providing an excellent education to all our children. A growing number of studies provide conclusive evidence that teacher quality is the primary school-related factor affecting student achievement. Students who are taught by effective and competent teachers excel quickly, while those who are assigned to the least effective teachers lag behind and often never catch up.

Especially troubling is the evidence that disadvantaged students, whose futures depend most on a positive school experience, are often assigned the least qualified teachers. For example, a report from the Education Trust – a nonprofit organization whose mission is to make schools and colleges work for all of the young people they serve – found that in every subject area, students in high-poverty schools were more likely than other students to be taught by teachers without even a minor in the subjects they teach.

The bipartisan No Child Left Behind law asks each state – in exchange for billions of dollars in federal teacher quality aid – to develop and implement a plan to place a highly qualified teacher in every public classroom by the close of the 2005-2006 school year. States have been given vast flexibility in defining what constitutes a highly qualified teacher. At a minimum, teachers must have full state certification, a Bachelor’s degree, and demonstrate competency in core academic subjects they teach. Individual states – not the federal government – design and implement measures to assess subject matter competency, which may include rigorous state academic tests; a Bachelor’s degree in a core academic subject; or the high, objective, uniform state standard of evaluation – or HOUSE procedure – for veteran teachers.

Since No Child Left Behind was enacted more than two years ago, Congress and President Bush have continued to provide record teacher quality aid to states and local school districts, at levels far higher than provided under the previous Administration. Federal teacher quality aid has been increased by more than 35 percent under President Bush, who requested nearly three billion dollars in annual teacher quality funding for states and teachers in his 2005 budget request to Congress – compared with just $787 million provided under President Clinton’s final budget.

In addition, President Bush and Congress have taken numerous steps since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act to help teachers, local educational agencies, and states meet the law’s highly qualified teacher provisions.

To provide incentives for good teachers to remain in the teaching profession, President Bush and congressional Republicans in 2002 enacted legislation allowing teachers to take a $250 tax deduction when they pay money out of their own pockets for classroom expenses, such as crayons and books. We are currently working to expand this so-called "Crayola Credit" to $400 or more.

During the 108^th Congress, the House passed legislation to more than triple the amount of federal student loan forgiveness available to highly qualified reading specialists and math, science, and special education teachers who commit to teaching in high-need schools for five years. The Teacher Recruitment and Retention Act would increase maximum federal loan forgiveness for such teachers from $5,000 to $17,500.

In 2003, the House also passed legislation to strengthen teacher-training programs at America’s colleges. The Ready to Teach Act would reauthorize and strengthen teacher-training programs under the Higher Education Act to ensure tomorrow’s highly qualified teachers are prepared to meet the needs of the nation’s students.

It is important to note that members of the Committee re-introduced these bills last week as part of a competitiveness package aimed at helping teachers receive quality training they need to improve student achievement.

Recognizing that outdated federal rules are pushing some good teachers out of the classroom, the House also passed legislation to revamp the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and reduce paperwork burdens for special education teachers, who are striving to meet No Child Left Behind’s high standards. This bill includes a proposal to reduce paperwork for special education teachers by allowing parents of children with special needs to select a three-year Individualized Education Program – or IEP – for their children instead of an annual one.

Earlier this year, the Department of Education provided states with new guidance on the highly qualified teacher requirements giving additional flexibility to teachers in rural school districts; streamlining procedures for veteran teachers to demonstrate subject matter competency; and clarifying state authority over requirements for science teachers. Also, the Department of Education has implemented a new outreach initiative to recognize teachers’ outstanding achievements. The four-part initiative includes teacher roundtables, teacher-to-teacher workshops, a research-to-practice summit, and updates on timely topics affecting teachers.

Today we are in Arizona to learn about state efforts to maintain and improve teacher quality. Last November, the U.S. Department of Education’s Teacher Assistance Corps visited Arizona to assist the State Department of Education in implementing No Child Left Behind’s highly qualified teacher requirements. The U.S. Department of Education found several positive aspects in Arizona’s efforts with regard to teacher quality and noted that Arizona is planning to use their HOUSE standards to drive content specific professional development in making teachers highly qualified and asks school districts to require that professional development be directly linked to student achievement.