Congress Approves New HEA

Higher Education Bill Boosts Teacher Ed. Link to Schools

A higher education bill awaiting President Bush’s signature takes steps to increase accountability for programs that prepare teachers. It also refocuses the main federal funding source for education schools on collaborations between such schools and local K-12 districts to improve clinical teacher-training experiences and offer teacher-residency programs.

The bill would reauthorize the Higher Education Act, which was last renewed in 1998 and has been due for an overhaul since 2003. The HEA governs a broad swath of federal student-aid and other college-level programs.

In addition to tweaking the law’s teacher-training elements, the bill simplifies the main federal student-aid application from seven to three pages and alters eligibility and evaluation components of the college-access programs known as TRIO .