Focus on Teacher Preparation, Not Numbers, Panel Hears

By Jessica L. Sandham

Washington

Lawmakers trying to revamp national teacher education and recruitment programs should focus more on improving the overall quality of the teaching pool, and worry less about increasing the supply of teachers, witnesses told a congressional subcommittee last week.

Much of the testimony during the hearing on teacher preparation emphasized the need for higher standards both for teachers and for the schools that train them. Class-size reduction, as promoted under President Clinton's $12 billion proposal to hire 100,000 new teachers, should not be undertaken if new teachers are not adequately prepared for the classroom, several speakers said. ( "Clinton Seeks Teacher Hires, Small Classes," Feb. 4, 1998.)

"You are just as likely to see [worse] achievement as better achievement when you reduce class size in schools," Eric Hanushek, the director of the W. Allen Wallis Institute of Political Economy at the University of Rochester in New York, told members of the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth, and Families on Feb. 24. "There is nothing as important as...