MACTE commends the Board of Teaching on your ambitious draft goals for this year focusing on teacher effectiveness, specifically recruitment, licensure requirements, and retention. MACTE wants to collaborate with you in working toward those goals. We will be commenting in more detail on the individual goals in the future, but we want to make several general statements today.

With regard to the recruitment goal MACTE appreciates the Board's recognition of the tension between encouraging additional candidates to enter teaching and maintaining standards for high quality. Many of our institutions offer programs that provide straightforward pathways for working professionals to transition into teaching. One of the issues under entry requirements that concerns MACTE is ensuring quality while providing opportunities for candidates who are English Language Learners. Like you we want to see more teachers of color enter the field. We are in great need of good role models for our K-12 students of color.

MACTE has been an active partner on the task forces examining licensure requirements over the past two years. The process has not always been easy, but we look forward to continuing in that role on the new special education task force. We are eager for the rulemaking process to begin, for higher education to be involved, and for higher education to begin curriculum changes to reflect the new standards. As the Board examines teacher licensure and the alignment with K-12 standards, we look forward to the results. We are ready to explore with you such innovations in licensure fields as immersion and online licensure. Already several of our institutions have programs beginning in these fields.

Finally, MACTE recognizes the value of high quality induction programs as a means of retaining new teachers and helping these teachers to achieve success with their students. We realize that to fully achieve this goal for every new teacher, legislative action and funding are needed. In fact, MACTE has had support for induction and mentoring programs as a major component of our legislative platform for the past two sessions. We want to work with the Board to advocate for high quality induction programs.

Coincidently, this year's focus for MACTE is based on the theme, "Restoring Minnesota's Preeminence as a National Leader in Education." Throughout the year we will showcase ground-breaking innovations in continuous improvement, meaningful work/life, and internationalization that are making meaningful changes in teacher education in Minnesota. As the Board focuses on your critical goals concerning teacher effectiveness, MACTE invites you to call on us to provide research, information and data as we work together towards Restoring Minnesota's Preeminence as a National Leader in Education.