The U.S. House of Representatives passed two bills on Wednesday that would create stricter accountability requirements for teacher-education programs and increase student-loan forgiveness for some schoolteachers. The measures had strong bipartisan support, although some Democrats complained that they had been shut out of the debate.

The measures are the first in this year's renewal of the Higher Education Act to go before Congress. One bill, HR 2211, would close loopholes in earlier rules, mandated in the 1998 reauthorization of the act, that allowed colleges to avoid reporting how many of their students failed teacher-licensure tests.

"The current requirements have often been manipulated, leaving data skewed and irrelevant," said Rep. John A. Boehner, an Ohio Republican who is chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, during the debate before the vote. "HR 2211 ensures that progress can accurately be measured."

The measure, sponsored by Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Georgia Republican, also would authorize grants to foster "innovative programs" such as alternative-certification routes, charter colleges of education, and model teacher-training centers at colleges that mainly serve minority students. The bill was approved, 404 to 17, on a roll-call vote.

The bill, named the "Ready to Teach Act of 2003," calls for colleges to report the pass rates on certification or licensing tests for all students who take such exams within three years of graduation or after completing at least 50 percent of the course work required for a teacher-preparation program. Higher-education institutions with fewer than 10 students who have completed 50 percent of the course work in their teacher-preparation programs would report an average pass rate over a three-year period.

Colleges that fail to report the information promptly and accurately could be fined as much as $25,000. As in the current law, the new bill calls for states to report on the performance of their teacher-education programs to the U.S. secretary of education, who uses the data to prepare a "report card" to present to Congress. In the new bill, students in teacher-preparation programs that have lost state approval and financial support because of "low performance" also would be unable to receive federal student aid, and those institutions would be ineligible for federal grants that provide professional-development training to schoolteachers.

The second bill, HR 438, would increase the total amount of student-loan forgiveness for mathematics, reading, science, and special-education teachers who agreed to work for five consecutive years in schools where at least 30 percent of the children come from low-income families. The loan-forgiveness amount would increase to $17,500 from the $5,000 now provided. The measure, titled the "Teacher Recruitment and Retention Act of 2003," passed on a roll-call vote of 417 to 7.

Both bills moved quickly to a vote because the House Rules Committee, dominated by the Republican majority, decided late Tuesday night to allow only amendments that had gained approval in previous committee meetings to go to the House floor for debate, with the exception of one amendment sponsored by Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat. That amendment, which was approved by the House on Wednesday, would allow teachers with special certification in reading instruction to be eligible for the loan forgiveness.

But the Rules Committee's blockage of other amendments outraged Democrats, who had hoped to propose extending student-loan forgiveness to all teachers in schools that have more students who are poor, and to teachers in the federal Head Start program for poor and minority preschool children.

"The Republican leadership is stifling the debate in this House," said Rep. James P. McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat. "We are sick and tired of being shut out of the process. It's a disservice to our constituents."

The Democrats supported the measures that passed, but said the legislation did not do enough to help teachers in high-poverty schools. Some Democrats also pointed out that even though the bills passed, the budget appropriations proposed by the Republican majority would not come close to actually financing the measures. The bills passed on Wednesday authorize spending about $300-million, but the appropriations bill, scheduled for debate today, allots them only $90-million, said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat.

"There's a credibility gap" between the rhetoric supporting education and the actual money for the efforts, he said. "We as a Congress are not delivering."