A handful of states are gradually adopting licensing tests that measure aspiring elementary teachers' ability to master aspects of what's arguably their most important task: teaching students to read. In the most recent example of what appears to be a slow but steady push, Wisconsin became the latest state to adopt a rigorous, stand-alone test of…

School after school in the Phoenix area has a banner hanging on the side of the building: iTeachAZ. It is shorthand for Arizona State University's new flagship undergraduate teacher education program, which integrates several high-profile--and hotly debated--reforms to teacher preparation today. Under the program, which debuted formally this…

More than 400 educators in the Miami-Dade County, Florida, school system take part in a professional-development and curriculum program that attempts to build students' science knowledge while also helping them master English. Developed by researchers at the University of Miami, the Promoting Science among English Language Learners program…

Congress should pay for the development of a national teacher test, using performance to judge accomplishment, and the test results should be incorporated into state licensing requirements, a report released May 24 argues. Prepared by a panel of the National Academy of Education, the 112-page guide calls on federal and state policymakers to…

For years, educators and researchers have seen teachers at all grade levels attempt to upgrade their grasp of physics, chemistry, and biology, from basic theories to complex material. Now, the pressure on schools and instructors to improve science instruction is likely to intensify, with approaching federal requirements on states to test students…

Concern is rising in some quarters that the No Child Left Behind Act permits foreign companies to provide federally financed online tutoring to students at underperforming schools. Such arrangements appear to constitute only a minute fraction of the tutoring business that is mushrooming under the federal law. Nine members of Congress asked the…

States have fashioned wildly different ways of judging whether teachers already in the classroom meet the federal standard of "highly qualified," raising the possibility that teachers in some states will not face the high hurdle that Congress intended. However, to be deemed highly qualified under the federal law, teachers must hold a…