PSS explores Title II grants for teachers’ dev’t programs

The Public School System is exploring a new federal grant that will help enhance the skills and training of the Commonwealth’s teachers, according to Education Commissioner Rita A. Sablan.

In her recent visit to Washington, D.C., Sablan said that among the important meetings she attended was for the NCLB Title II, which is funding for teacher and principal training and recruitment efforts at the state and local level, as well as teacher training at institutions of higher education.

Saipan Tribune learned that this grant is designed to provide special help for “high need” school districts and schools that have been identified as needing improvement, having the lowest proportion of “highly qualified” teachers, and have the highest average class size.

Title II funds are designed to rectify the problems of large numbers of students being taught by teachers with inadequate content knowledge and preparation in the subjects they are teaching.

According to Sablan, the Title II grant is critical to teachers’ development programs, their certification requirements, and in evaluating their effectiveness in classrooms.

Title II replaces the old Eisenhower Professional Development Program, targeting money to high poverty school districts and limiting the use of the money to teacher training, recruitment and curricular improvement in science and math. Title II also replaces the old Class Size Reduction Program.

Besides the Title II meeting, Sablan said that a series of meetings also took place with officials from granting agencies to ensure that PSS remains in compliance with all these agencies’ requirements such as for the American Reinvestment Recovery Act and the PSS consolidated grants.

Sablan said she also attended a meeting about “waiver flexibility” for the NCLB.

In March 2010, the Obama administration released its blueprint for revising the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the nation’s general education law and is currently known as the No Child Left Behind Act.

The ESEA is the major federal statute governing public education in states and districts across the country. Last authorized by Congress in 2002, ESEA is long overdue for reauthorization as U.S. Congress has yet to follow through on rewriting the law.