Teachers in the Classroom Act

Summary: Teachers in the Classroom Act - Authorizes the Secretary of Education to award grants to State Governors to provide funds to local educational agencies to hire elementary and secondary teachers or qualified instructional personnel to reduce overcrowded classes. 
Sets forth requirements for State and local eligibility, distribution of funds, program administration, evaluation, and reports. 
Allows State Governors to use up to ten percent of funds received under this Act to establish programs to improve instructional quality by providing incentives to encourage innovative teacher training programs, establish alternate certification and licensure procedures, or to hire nontraditional personnel. 
Authorizes appropriations.

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Teachers in the Classroom Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Enrollment in elementary and secondary schools is at 
        the highest level ever recorded in this country, and the 
        Department of Education recently announced that 52,200,000 
        students are expected to attend school in 1998, an increase of 
        more than a million students over 1997.
            (2) Increases in elementary and secondary student 
        enrollment will continue in record numbers each year for the 
        next decade with more than 3,000,000 additional students 
        expected; secondary school attendance alone is expected to 
        increase by more than 13 percent.
            (3) This unprecedented increase in student enrollment will 
        affect high poverty urban and rural areas, and States 
        experiencing rapid population growth.
            (4) Just to keep pace with the growing number of enrolled 
        elementary and secondary school students, schools will need to 
        hire 150,000 additional teachers during the next decade.
            (5) Data and research, including information from the State 
        of Tennessee's Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio project 
        (Project STAR), the largest and longest lasting experiment ever 
        conducted to examine the effects of small class sizes on 
        student learning and development, suggest that students in the 
        early grades learn more in smaller classes, continue to have an 
        edge over the rest of their peers years after they return to 
        normal-sized classrooms and show that every time a student is 
        added to a classroom, learning is diminished for the rest of 
        the class.
            (6) It is vital that we adequately educate and prepare 
        America's children for the next century and our competitive 
        global economy.
            (7) Helping improve the learning environment for each and 
        every student is an important goal, hiring new teachers is an 
        important objective, and Congress needs to fund positions for 
        teachers without adding to the Federal bureaucracy, deficit, or 
        debt.
            (8) Congress needs to provide resources to keep pace with 
        growing enrollment and, if possible, help to reduce classroom 
        sizes.

SEC. 3. GRANT PROGRAM.

    (a) In General.--The Secretary of Education is authorized to award 
grants to Governors to enable Governors to provide funds to local 
educational agencies to hire elementary and secondary teachers or 
qualified instructional personnel as authorized under State law to 
reduce overcrowded classes.
    (b) State Eligibility.--
            (1) In general.--To be eligible to receive a grant under 
        this Act, a Governor of a State shall submit an application to 
        the Secretary.
            (2) Disapproval.--To the extent that appropriations are 
        made available in a fiscal year to carry out this Act, the 
        Secretary shall not disapprove an application from a Governor.
    (c) Local Eligibility.--To be eligible to receive a grant from the 
Governor, a local educational agency shall--
            (1) establish a trust fund for all payments received under 
        this Act;
            (2) provide assurances that funds received under this Act 
        will be deposited in such trust fund account;
            (3) provide assurances that funds received under this Act 
        will be used only to hire new teachers or qualified personnel 
        not later than 2 years after receipt of such funds;
            (4) provide assurances that the agency will use accounting 
        and auditing practices stipulated by the Governor and allow the 
        State access to any and all records regarding funds received 
        and used under this Act;
            (5) provide assurances that the agency will achieve a net 
        gain in the number of teachers or qualified instructional 
        personnel in a classroom setting;
            (6) review annually the performance of personnel hired 
        pursuant to this Act to ensure that the agency has hired 
        qualified personnel;
            (7) obligate personnel hired pursuant to this Act for a 
        period of employment not to exceed one year;
            (8) repay to the State not later than 27 months after 
        receipt of funds from the State any amounts not expended after 
        24 months of such receipt;
            (9) use funds received under this Act only to supplement 
        the amount of funds that would, in the absence of such Federal 
        funds, be made available from non-Federal sources for the 
        education of students participating in programs assisted under 
        this Act, and not to supplant such funds; and
            (10) apply to the Governor each year in which the agency 
        wishes to receive funding under this Act.

SEC. 4. DISTRIBUTION OF FUNDS.

    (a) In General.--From the amount appropriated for this Act under 
section 8 for any fiscal year, each State is eligible to receive an 
amount that bears the same ratio to the amount so appropriated as the 
average number of children aged 5 through 17, inclusive, in the State 
as reported to the Secretary in the three most recent calendar years 
for which such data is available bears to the number of such children 
in all States during the same period.
    (b) Reallocation.--The Secretary shall reallocate any amounts 
allocated under subsection (a) that are not used by a State for the 
purposes of this section to other States in proportion to the 
distribution of other funds under this section.

SEC. 5. FISCAL REQUIREMENTS.

    (a) Withholding for Noncompliance.--A Governor, 60 days after 
written notice to a local educational agency for substantial 
noncompliance with the provisions of section 3(c), may withhold 
payments to a local educational agency.
    (b) Maintenance of Effort.--After the first fiscal year that a 
local educational agency receives funds under this Act, such agency may 
continue to receive funds for any fiscal year only if the Governor 
finds that the local educational agency has increased the number of 
teachers or qualified personnel in the classroom.

SEC. 6. PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION.

    (a) State Administration.--
            (1) In general.--A Governor who receives a grant under this 
        Act shall select one or more local educational agencies in the 
        State to participate in a program under this Act based on the 
        determination of the Governor regarding the need to alleviate 
        overcrowded classes in schools served by such an agency.
            (2) Evaluation and report.--A Governor who receives a grant 
        under this Act shall evaluate and audit the funds used for any 
        program established by a local educational agency under this 
        Act and shall report such findings on an annual basis to the 
        Secretary of Education.
            (3) Administrative costs.--A Governor may use not more than 
        2 percent of the funds received under this Act to pay 
        administrative costs.
            (4) Innovative teaching programs.--A Governor may use not 
        more than 10 percent of the funds received under this Act to 
        establish a program within the State to improve instructional 
        quality by providing incentives to encourage innovative teacher 
        training programs, establish alternate certification and 
        licensure procedures, or to hire nontraditional personnel.
    (b) Secretary Reporting.--The Secretary of Education, after 
consultation with the Governors, shall report to the Committee on 
Education and the Workforce of the House of Representatives and the 
Committee on Labor and Human Resources of the Senate not later than 
March 1 of each year and shall include in this report, an evaluation of 
the effectiveness of programs assisted under this Act and 
recommendations regarding the continuity of this program.

SEC. 7. CONSTRUCTION.

    Nothing in this Act may be construed to provide tenure to personnel 
hired pursuant to this Act.

SEC. 8. DEFINITION.

    For purposes of this Act--
            (1) the term ``local educational agency'' means a board of 
        education or other authority constituted within a State for 
        administrative control or direction of or to perform a service 
        function for elementary and secondary schools;
            (2) the term ``State'' means each of the 50 States and the 
        District of Columbia; and
            (3) the term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary of the 
        Department of Education.

SEC. 9. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

    There are authorized to carry out this Act--
            (1) $500,000,000 for fiscal year 1999;
            (2) $1,000,000,000 for fiscal year 2000;
            (3) $1,500,000,000 for fiscal year 2001;
            (4) $2,000,000,000 for fiscal year 2002; and
            (5) $2,500,000,000 for fiscal year 2003.