There is little coordination between federal K-12 and higher education programs charged with teacher training, even though such efforts could improve education for poor and minority students in low-quality public schools, a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee was told Thursday.

Both the Higher Education Act and the No Child Left Behind Act fund separate teacher education and improvement programs but with different rules and approaches, said George A. Scott, director of education, workforce and income security issues at the U.S. General Accountability Office. “It’s not clear to the extent these programs complement each other, and not much is known about how these laws are aligned,” he said.

Higher Education Act programs mainly support prospective teachers through one-time competitive grants, while NCLB provides annual formula funding based on student counts, he said.

Yet there is a “unique opportunity” in 2007 to build bridges between these initiatives, said U.S. Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Tex., chair of the House Higher Education, Lifelong Learning and Competitiveness Subcommittee, which held the hearing. Both NCLB and the Higher Education Act are up for renewal in Congress this year, with lawmakers likely to seek changes in both statutes. “Clearly there is room for improvement,” Hinojosa said.

While lawmakers and witnesses cited several potential improvements, a common theme was better training of teachers to work with English Language Learners, special education students and low-income youth.

Only about 13 percent of teachers have received at least eight hours of training to work with English Language Learners, Hinojosa said. He also voiced concern about lagging teacher quality at many schools with large concentrations of minority students.

In addition to improving teacher skills in low-income schools, policymakers must do more to ensure that the teaching profession “reflects the diversity of our schools,” he added.