Draft Federal Regulations Released

Late yesterday afternoon, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan held a press conference to announce the release of proposed federal regulations for teacher preparation programs. While the regulations are not yet open for public comment through the Federal Register, the draft language is now available on the Department of Education’s web site.

Right now, the AACTE government relations team is reading and analyzing these draft proposed regulations. We will be producing various resources to assist members in crafting comments, and we are issuing the following press statement from Sharon Robinson at noon today:

“The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) is currently reviewing the draft proposed regulations. Once the proposed regulations are published for public comment, AACTE urges its 800 member institutions, other educators, colleagues, partners and the public to consider and comment on the proposal.

“In their current form, these proposed regulations have the potential to halt or even reverse the hard-won progress of current teacher preparation program reform efforts. We are deeply concerned about the proposed regulations for the approximately 25,000 teacher preparation programs across this nation.

“These rules not only highlight the Administration’s determination to create a federal ratings system for higher education, but also could turn back the clock on innovation and reform in educator preparation—negatively affecting teacher candidates, schools and universities, the teaching profession and, ultimately, our country’s millions of PK-12 students.

“Given the potentially wide-ranging implications, we are meticulously reviewing the details of the proposed regulations in their current form and working with our members and our partners to ascertain the effects on the field should they be implemented.”

AACTE members will receive notice from Sharon when the regulations are officially available for public comment, as well as when AACTE resources are available on our web site.

Should you have any questions in the meantime, please e-mail them to regs@aacte.org.


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Deborah Koolbeck

Senior Director of Government Relations, AACTE