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The purpose of Title II, Part A of No Child Left Behind is to focus on preparing, training, and recruiting high-quality teachers and principals in the core academic content areas in order to have a positive impact on student achievement.
Section 9101 of NCLB provides an extensive definition of Professional Development that stresses the rigor of sustained, intensive, and job-embedded professional development that is in alignment with identified student needs. All professional development provided under NCLB must be based on current scientifically based research on teaching and learning in order to help all students meet the challenging State Content Standards. Local Educational Agencies must also regularly evaluate all professional development to measure its impact on increased teacher effectiveness and improved student academic achievement. The results of these evaluations must be used to identify and plan future professional development.
Title II expands the potential audience that may participate in high-quality professional development to include teachers, principals, and assistant principals as well as paraprofessionals and other school personnel. Title II has also been expanded to include all core subject areas such as English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign language, civics/government, economics, arts, history, and geography. Districts may also elect to use Title II, Part A funds to hire highly qualified teachers in order to reduce the pupil/teacher ratio in all grades, especially K-3.
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