Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants for States and Partnerships,
Title II, Part A, Higher Education Act (HEA)

The purposes of the Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants Program are to:

• Improve student achievement;
  
• Improve the quality of the current and future teaching force by improving the preparation of prospective teachers and enhancing professional development activities;
  
• Hold institutions of higher education (IHEs) accountable for preparing teachers who have the necessary teaching skills and are highly competent in the subjects they teach, including training in the effective uses of technology in the classroom; and
  
• Recruit highly qualified individuals, including those from other occupations, into the teaching force.
  

Uses of State Grant Funds

States use state grant funds to reform teacher preparation requirements, and to ensure that current and future teachers possess the necessary teaching skills and academic content knowledge in their teaching subjects, by carrying out one or more of the following activities:

• Reforms — Implementing reforms that hold institutions of higher education (IHEs) with teacher preparation programs accountable for preparing teachers who are highly competent in the academic content areas in which the teachers plan to teach, and possess strong teaching skills, which may include the use of rigorous subject matter competency tests and the requirement that teachers have an academic major in the subject area, or related discipline, in which they plan to teach;
  
• Certification or Licensure Requirements — Reforming teacher certification or licensure requirements to ensure that teachers have the necessary teaching skills and academic content knowledge in the subject areas in which they are assigned to teach;
  
• Alternatives to Traditional Preparation for Teaching — Providing prospective teachers with alternatives to traditional preparation for teaching through programs at colleges of arts and sciences or at non-profit educational organizations;
  
• Alternative Routes to State Certification — Carrying out programs that:
  
  • Include support during the initial teaching experience; and
  • Establish, expand, or improve alternative routes to state certification of teachers for highly qualified individuals, including mid-career professionals from other occupations, paraprofessionals, former military personnel, and recent college graduates with records of academic distinction;
    
• Recruitment, Pay, Removal — Developing and implementing effective mechanisms to ensure that local educational agencies (LEAs, local school districts) and schools are able to effectively recruit highly qualified teachers, to financially reward those teachers and principals whose students have made significant progress toward high academic performance, such as through performance-based compensation systems and access to ongoing professional development opportunities for teachers and administrators, and to expeditiously remove incompetent or unqualified teachers consistent with procedures to ensure due process for the teachers;
  
• Social Promotion — Development and implementation of efforts to address the problem of social promotion and to prepare teachers to effectively address the issues raised by ending the practice of social promotion.
  
• Recruitment — Carrying out the following activities:
  
  • Awarding scholarships to help students pay the costs of tuition, room, board, and other expenses of completing a teacher preparation program;
    
  • Providing support services, if needed to enable scholarship recipients to complete postsecondary education programs; and
    
  • Providing follow-up services provided to former scholarship recipients during their first three years of teaching; or
    
  • Developing and implementing effective mechanisms to ensure that high-need LEAs and schools are able to effectively recruit highly qualified teachers.

Partnership Grants

Eligible partnerships receive competitive grants. Partnerships include:

• A partner institution -- a private independent or state-supported public IHE with a teacher training program;
  
• A school of arts and sciences; and
  
• A high-need LEA; and
  
• May include a governor, state educational agency (SEA), the state board of education, the state agency for higher education (SAHE), another IHE other than the partner institution, a public charter school, a public or private elementary or secondary school, a public or private non-profit educational organization, a business, a teacher organization, or a prekindergarten program.

Uses of Partnership Grant Funds

Required Uses of Funds — A partnership must use grant funds to carry out the following activities:

• Reforms — Implementing reforms within teacher preparation programs to hold the programs accountable for preparing teachers who are highly competent in the academic content areas in which the teachers plan to teach, and for promoting strong teaching skills, including working with a school of arts and sciences and integrating reliable research-based teaching methods into the curriculum, which curriculum shall include programs designed to successfully integrate technology into teaching and learning;
  
• Clinical Experience and Interaction — Providing sustained and high quality pre-service clinical experience including the mentoring of prospective teachers by veteran teachers, and substantially increasing interaction between faculty at IHEs and new and experienced teachers, principals, and other administrators at elementary or secondary schools, and providing support, including preparation time, for such interaction;
  
• Professional Development — Creating opportunities for enhanced and ongoing professional development that improves the academic content knowledge of teachers in the subject areas in which they are certified to teach or in which they are working toward certification to teach, and that promotes strong teaching skills.

Allowable Uses of Funds — A partnership may use grant funds to carry out the following activities:

• Teacher Preparation and Parent Involvement — Preparing teachers to work with diverse student populations, including individuals with disabilities and limited English proficient individuals, and involving parents in the teacher preparation program reform process;
  
• Dissemination and Coordination — Broadly disseminating information on effective practices used by the partnership, and coordinating with the activities of the governor, state board of education, SAHE, and SEA, as appropriate;
  
• Managerial and Leadership Skills — Developing and implementing proven mechanisms to provide principals and superintendents with effective managerial and leadership skills that result in increased student achievement;
  
• Teacher Recruitment — Carrying out the following activities:
  
  • Awarding scholarships to help students pay the costs of tuition, room, board, and other expenses of completing a teacher preparation program;
    
  • Providing support services, if needed to enable scholarship recipients to complete postsecondary education programs; and
    
  • Providing follow-up services to former scholarship recipients during their first three years of teaching; or
    
  • Developing and implementing effective mechanisms to ensure that high-need LEAs and schools are able to effectively recruit highly qualified teachers.

Teacher Recruitment Grants

Eligible states and partnerships may be awarded competitive Teacher Recruitment Grants. Recipients use the grant funds to:

• Award scholarships to help students pay the costs of tuition, room, board, and other expenses of completing a teacher preparation program;
  
• Provide support services, if needed to enable scholarship recipients to complete postsecondary education programs; and
  
• Provide follow-up services provided to former scholarship recipients during their first three years of teaching; or
  
• Develop and implement effective mechanisms to ensure that high-need LEAs and schools are able to effectively recruit highly qualified teachers.