Department of Education August 5, 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In accordance with the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended (Privacy Act), the Department of Education (Department) publishes this notice of a new system of records entitled Impact Evaluation of Teacher Preparation Models (18-13-10). The system contains information about teachers from selected teacher preparation programs and their students. The selected teacher preparation programs are a sample of 10 programs with low entrance requirements5 of which also have minimal course requirements and 5 of which also have substantial course requirements. To identify the 10 programs, the contractor selected from 165 programs in 12 states with low entrance selectivity requirements. The study sample consists of teachers in districts and schools where there is both an alternatively certified teacher and a traditionally certified teacher with similar amounts of prior teaching experience who teach in the same grade. A pair of new teachers in the same grade was formed at each of 80 schools included in the study, with 1 teacher having taken the traditional route and 1 the alternative route to certification. The system includes the teachers' social security numbers; the teachers' demographic informationsuch as race/ethnicity, age, and educational background; information from two classroom observations; and the results of the teachers' standardized test scores (e.g., existing SAT or ACT scores) as well as their students' standardized test scores. The Department seeks comment on this new system of records described in this notice, in accordance with the requirements of the Privacy Act.