Vikki Miller, Ed.D., Project Director - Phone: (334) 242-9967
Judy Bohannon, Project Facilitator - Phone: (334) 242-9967
The mission of the Teacher Quality Enhancement Project is to improve public education by improving teacher effectiveness. Through the efforts of the Governor's Office and the Alabama Department of Education, Alabama has received a three-year Title II grant from the federal government to provide funding that will allow the state to study issues that inhibit teacher effectiveness. Furthermore, the project is developing exciting new programs to improve the overall level of teacher quality in Alabama.
In the release of the 1999 report Teaching and Learning: Meeting the Challenge of High Standards, the Alabama Task Force on Teaching and Student Achievement helped target educational areas in need of improvement in our state. The report of the Task Force is further serving as a guide to the state's more comprehensive effort as a partner with the 15-state network on the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future.
Alabama's Teacher Quality Enhancement Project was based on the data analysis and consensus-building efforts of the Task Force. It identifies three major goals:
- To strengthen the teacher component of the Alabama Professional Education Personnel Evaluation system
- To recruit caring, qualified teachers, improve retention rates, and reduce the turnover rate of Alabama public school teachers
- To develop and implement a targeted professional development plan for teachers who receive a less than satisfactory evaluation rating or who otherwise experience lack of success in the classroom
With the accomplishment of the project's goals, Alabama will move forward in assuring that its students have competent, caring teachers who will help them acquire the skills necessary for successful living in the Twenty-first Century.
To guide the work of the project, Governor Siegleman appointed a 21-member Task Force on Teacher Quality. They in turn identified a project director and recruited nine school systems to serve as pilot sites for field-testing the project's programs.