I
106TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 2344
To provide funds to assist high-poverty school districts meet their teaching
needs.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JUNE 24, 1999
Mr. DAVIS of Florida (for himself, Mr. ROEMER, Mr. ETHERIDGE, Mr. GON-
ZALEZ, Mr. FORD, Mr. SHOWS, Mr. BENTSEN, Mr. MARTINEZ, Mrs.
MINK of Hawaii, Mr. KUCINICH, Ms. SANCHEZ, Mr. FATTAH, Mr. HOLT,
Ms. WOOLSEY, Mr. ROMERO-BARCELO´, Mr. SCARBOROUGH, Mr. FOLEY,
Mr. HINOJOSA, Ms. STABENOW, Ms. BERKLEY, Mr. THURMAN, Mr.
KIND, Mr. SMITH of Washington, Mr. LAMPSON, and Mr. WYNN) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Edu-
cation and the Workforce, and in addition to the Committee on Armed
Services, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in
each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdic-
tion of the committee concerned
A BILL
To provide funds to assist high-poverty school districts meet
their teaching needs.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Transition to Teaching
Act’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress finds as follows:
(1) School districts will need to hire more than
2,000,000 teachers in the next decade. The need for
teachers in the areas of mathematics, science, for-
eign languages, special education, and bilingual edu-
cation, and for those able to teach in high-poverty
school districts will be particularly high. To meet
this need, talented Americans of all ages should be
recruited to become successful, qualified teachers.
(2) Nearly 28 percent of teachers of academic
subjects have neither an undergraduate major nor
minor in their main assignment fields. This problem
is more acute in high-poverty schools, where the out-
of-field percentage is 39 percent.
(3) The Third International Math and Science
Study (TIMSS) ranked United States high school
seniors last among 16 countries in physics and next
to last in mathematics. It is also evident, mainly
from the TIMSS data, that based on academic
scores, a stronger emphasis needs to be placed on
the academic preparation of our children in mathe-
matics and science.
(4) One-fourth of high-poverty schools find it
very difficult to fill bilingual teaching positions, and
nearly half of public school teachers have students in
be appropriated $18,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2000
through 2005.
SEC. 5. APPLICATION.
Each applicant that desires an award under section
4(a) shall submit an application to the Secretary con-
taining such information as the Secretary requires,
including—
(1) a description of the target group of career-
changing professionals upon which the applicant will
focus in carrying out its program under this Act, in-
cluding a description of the characteristics of that
target group that shows how the knowledge and ex-
perience of its members are relevant to meeting the
purpose of this Act;
(2) a description of how the applicant will iden-
tify and recruit program participants;
(3) a description of the training that program
participants will receive and how that training will
relate to their certification as teachers;
(4) a description of how the applicant will en-
sure that program participants are placed and teach
in high-poverty local educational agencies;
(5) a description of the teacher induction serv-
ices (which may be provided through existing induc-
(c) REPAYMENT.—The Secretary shall establish such
requirements as the Secretary determines appropriate to
ensure that program participants who receive a training
stipend or other financial incentive under subsection
(a)(2), but fail to complete their service obligation under
subsection (b), repay all or a portion of such stipend or
other incentive.
SEC. 7. EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION.
To the extent practicable, the Secretary shall make
awards under this Act that support programs in different
geographic regions of the Nation.
SEC. 8. DEFINITIONS.
As used in this Act—
(1) the term ‘‘high-poverty local educational
agency’’ means a local educational agency in which
the percentage of children, ages 5 through 17, from
families below the poverty level is 20 percent or
greater, or the number of such children exceeds
10,000; and
(2) the term ‘‘program participants’’ means ca-
reer-changing professionals who—
(A) hold at least a baccalaureate degree;
(B) demonstrate interest in, and commit-
ment to, becoming a teacher; and
(C) have knowledge and experience that
are relevant to teaching a high-need subject
area in a high-need local educational agency.
Æ