II

106TH CONGRESS

1ST SESSION S. 988

To provide mentoring programs for beginning teachers, and for other

purposes.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

MAY 6, 1999

Mr. DEWINE introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred

to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

A BILL

To provide mentoring programs for beginning teachers, and

for other purposes.

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; FINDINGS; PURPOSE.

4 (a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the

5 ‘‘Teacher Mentoring Act of 1999’’.

6 (b) FINDINGS.—Congress makes the following find7 ings:

8 (1) The most important educational tool in any

9 classroom is a qualified, highly trained teacher.
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1 (2) The American teaching force is aging. The

2 average school teacher was 43 years old in academic

3 year 1993–1994, an increase of 3 years over the av4 erage age of school teachers in academic year 1987–

5 1998. Nearly a quarter of American teachers are

6 over 50 years old and nearing retirement.

7 (3) On average public school teachers have

8 slightly more than 15 years teaching experience, and

9 over a third of the public school teachers have 20 or

10 more years of teaching experience.

11 (4) The experience of America’s veteran teach12 ers should be utilized to help introduce beginning

13 teachers to the profession and to their new school.

14 (5) Retention of beginning teachers is a grow15 ing problem, with approximately 25 percent of be16 ginning teachers leaving the teaching profession

17 within their first 3 years in the classroom.

18 (c) PURPOSE.—The purpose of this Act is to increase

19 teacher retention and improve the support and perform20 ance of teachers by encouraging and assisting States to

21 develop and operate mentoring programs for beginning

22 teachers.
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1 SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.

2 The terms used in this Act have the meanings given

3 the terms in section 14101 of the Elementary and Sec4 ondary Education Act of 1965.

5 SEC. 3. GRANT PROGRAM.

6 (a) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary is authorized to

7 award grants to State educational agencies to enable the

8 State educational agencies to carry out mentoring pro9 grams under which public elementary school or secondary

10 school teachers with more than 3 years teaching experi11 ence serve as mentor teachers to public elementary school

12 or secondary school teachers with less than 3 years teach13 ing experience.

14 (b) AMOUNT.—Each State educational agency having

15 an application approved under subsection (d) for a fiscal

16 year shall receive a grant in an amount that bears the

17 same relation to the amount appropriated under sub18 section (f) for the fiscal year as the number of elementary

19 school and secondary school students in the State for the

20 fiscal year bears to the number of such students in all

21 States for the fiscal year.

22 (c) REALLOCATION.—The amount of a State edu23 cational agency’s grant that will not be used by the State

24 educational agency for a fiscal year shall be reallotted to

25 the other State educational agency in the same manner

26 as grants are awarded under subsection (b).
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1 (d) APPLICATION.—Each State educational agency

2 that desires a grant under this section shall submit an

3 application to the Secretary at such time, in such manner

4 and accompanied by such information as the Secretary

5 may require. Each such application shall—

6 (1) describe the activities and services for which

7 assistance is sought;

8 (2) contain an assurance that funds provided

9 under this Act will be used to supplement and not

10 supplant State or local public funds available for

11 teacher mentoring programs; and

12 (3) contain an assurance that the State edu13 cational agency consulted with local educational

14 agencies, school superintendents, school boards, par15 ents, and institutions of higher education in the de16 sign and implementation of the teacher mentoring

17 program to be assisted.

18 (e) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—There

19 are authorized to be appropriated to carry out this Act

20 $5,000,000 for each of the fiscal years 2000 and 2001.

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