The AFT will take advantage of Congress's reauthorizing of the Higher Education Act as an opportunity to push for more resources to improve teacher training and quality, says AFT president Sandra Feldman.

Meeting with the AFT Higher Education program and policy council meeting in Washington, D.C., last week, Feldman reminded leaders of the progressive recommendations of the AFT's 2000 K-16 Teacher Education Task Force report, Building a Profession: Strengthening Teacher Preparation and Induction. The task force called for more rigor in the preparation of teachers, including a requirement for an academic major for prospective teachers, more clinical practice and so on.

This agenda must be used to inform discussions about Title II of the act, which has to do with funding teacher education programs "The definition of what makes a highly qualified teacher will be subject of a big debate," she predicted. "We want the AFT to be part of it."

Congress is expected to take up the Higher Education Act, which it reauthorizes every five years, in its next session. PPC leaders also discussed division plans to engage in strategic planning as higher education union locals confront such thorny issues as increased calls for accountability, erosions in tenure rights, reduced state funding and increasing reliance on part-time faculty and distance education alternatives to traditional classroom instruction. [Barbara McKenna]

[October 22, 2002]