Education Week
By Debra Viadero
Although some 90 percent of teachers may be considered "highly qualified'' under the teacher-quality provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, varying state definitions of what counts as highly qualified mean that skilled teachers likely remain unevenly distributed among the nation's classrooms, according to a large-scale federal study released today.
"I think the high compliance rate suggests there were states that set the bar low and, in a way, grandfathered in a lot of teachers,'' said Kerstin Carlson Le Floch, one of the primary authors of the study, which was conducted for the U.S. Department of Education by the Washington-based American Institutes for Research and the RAND Corp. of Santa Monica, Calif.
"To get the real story," she added, "you have to look below the surface, where we're still seeing inequities.''
Counting Coursework
States vary in the amount of subject-matter coursework they consider equivalent to a college major in order for new secondary teachers to meet the content-mastery requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act.
The interim study, part of an ongoing congressionally mandated evaluation of the federal Title I program for disadvantaged students, draws on survey data from the 2004-05 school year for nearly 13,000 teachers, special educators, paraprofessionals, and administrators in 300 districts across the country.
Researchers said the study, which was originally due to be published in 2005, is the largest federal survey to date examining how educators are implementing the teacher-quality provisions of the 5 ½-year-old No Child Left Behind law. Researchers finished collecting data this year for the eventual final report.
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