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Lieberman, Dodd Introduce Bill to Create Teacher Professional Development Institutes
For Immediate Release
May 11, 2005
Senators' plan modeled after Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
Senators Joe Lieberman and Chris Dodd today introduced legislation that would create a partnership between institutions of higher education and local low-income school districts to enhance teacher skills and student achievement. The Teacher Professional Development Institutes 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.
"We know that teachers gain confidence and enthusiasm when they have a deeper understanding of the subject matter that they teach and this translates into higher expectations for their students and an increase in student achievement," Lieberman said. "This legislation will give each participant an opportunity to gain more sophisticated knowledge and a chance to develop curriculum with other colleagues that can be directly applied in their classrooms."
"The quality of teaching children receive is critically important," Dodd said. "This bill will help teachers get exciting, interesting and useful training they need to improve student achievement. Schools, teachers, institutes of higher education, communities and children - everyone benefits from this initiative."
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.
