State Role in Competitiveness

Higher Education’s Role in Statewide Economic Development Initiatives 

• Urge states to include the higher education community as an essential partner in statewide economic development efforts.
• Call for state policies and programs that promote the role of higher education, including public four-year institutions, in the development of the human capital essential to advancing state and local economic development and meeting workforce needs.
• Include all public four-year institutions in formal state sponsored programs designed to facilitate applied research and development activities and regional economic development.

Preparing, Developing and Retaining a Quality Teacher Workforce 

• Support state efforts to establish and implement rigorous standards of learning for students in teacher preparation programs. These standards should address both specific content area comprehension and knowledge of appropriate methods of instruction and should be used to promote public accountability.
• Encourage states to involve public institutions in the integration of the Common Core State academic standards in teacher education programs in states that have adopted these standards.
• Encourage states to develop comprehensive teacher workforce strategies that address teacher quality, recruitment, distribution and retention. These strategies might include:
  
  
  • Strengthened teacher preparation, induction and mentoring, and professional development programs;
     
  • Efforts to increase the number of educators from underrepresented and nontraditional teaching groups;
     
  • Increased coordination between two-year and four-year colleges to facilitate seamless transfer of teacher preparation students;
     
  • Financial incentives for educators, including increased salaries and merit pay based on student learning outcomes;
     
  • Intensified partnerships between teacher preparation programs and school districts, including emphasis on formal, structured interactions between teacher preparation programs and schools;
     
  • Increased professionalism and improved working conditions (enhanced license reciprocity and pension portability, opportunities for advancement, reduced teaching loads and extra support in hard-to-staff schools);
     
  • Comprehensive teacher data systems and research on program effectiveness;
     
  • Increased importance of mathematics education for all teacher preparation students; and
     
  • Alternative certification programs aimed at high-need areas with assurance that these programs have sufficient rigor, including clinical preparation.
   

 

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