FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – State Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, will be the featured speaker at a daylong state conference titled “Preparing Highly Qualified Teachers for Arkansas” on April 28 in Little Rock.

The conference is an annual event sponsored by the Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas on issues in K-12 education, and this is the first year the conference will address the topic of teacher quality. The conference will be at the Peabody Hotel in Little Rock. It is free and open to the public. To register, send an e-mail to oep@uark.edu.

Elliott previously served in the Arkansas House of Representatives for six years and taught high school for 31 years. She will give her talk, “From the Classroom to the Legislature,” during the luncheon between 11 a.m. and noon. Elliott chairs the joint Senate and House Education Committee of the Arkansas General Assembly.

According to Sandra Stotsky, who holds the Twenty-First Century Chair in Teacher Quality in the university’s department of education reform and helped the Office for Educational Policy organize the conference, its major purpose is to suggest to legislators and other policymakers a variety of ways in which Arkansas can increase the academic quality of its teaching force. As she notes, a teacher’s knowledge of the subject he or she teaches is the chief characteristic of an effective teacher that has been identified by a body of sound educational research. Improving teacher quality is also one of President Barack Obama’s major educational interests.

Several University of Arkansas professors, state education officials and other legislators will make presentations during the day. The schedule:

Standards, Assessments and Teacher Preparation in Arkansas, 9 to 11 a.m.

• Teaching Algebra I at Grade 8 – New Options for Being Highly Qualified, Charles Watson, Arkansas Department of Education

• Does Arkansas Have the Science Content Standards That it Needs? William F. McComas, University of Arkansas

• Teaching and “The Test”: Connections Between the State Assessments in Literacy and Teacher Preparation and Practice, Chris Goering and David Jolliffe, University of Arkansas

• Improving Curriculum, Standards and Professional Development in the English Language Arts, Quentin Suffren, The Learning Institute

• Rationale for a Dedicated Reading Test, Margie Gillis, Haskins Laboratory, Yale University

Alternative Routes to Licensure and Their Effectiveness, Noon to 2 p.m.

• What Is the Arkansas Nontraditional Licensure Program and Why Does it Exist: Patti Froom, Arkansas Department of Education

• Beyond Certification: Searching for the Best and Brightest, Janet Hugo, Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and Arts

• Teacher Quality vs. Teacher Certification, Scott Shirey, KIPP Delta Public Schools

Useful Indices of Teacher Effectiveness, 2 to 3:30 p.m.

• What Do Student Achievement Data Say About Teaching Effectiveness? Charity Smith, Arkansas Department of Education

• Ideas for a Teacher Quality Report Card, Sandra Stotsky, University of Arkansas

• What Do Lawmakers Need to Know about Teachers in Order to Improve Quality? state Rep. Dave Rainey, D-Dumas, and state Sen. Jimmy Jeffress, D-Crossett