Highly Qualified Teachers

Federal law stipulates that by today all states must inform the federal government what they plan to do to ensure that all teachers are taught by highly qualified teachers. According to No Child Left Behind not only must all teachers possess degrees in the subject areas that they are teaching but there must not be an inbalance between the number of unqualified teachers teaching in urban settings and those teaching in other more affluent schools. The Citizens Commission on Civil Rights, a Washington based education watchdog group, released a report entitled, "Days of Reckoning: Are States and the Federal Government Up to the Challenge of Ensuring a Qualified Teacher for Every Student?" The report found a wide range of problems in the ways that states are implementing this component of the NCLB legislation. Some states consider teachers highly qualified simply because they have been teaching for a very long time. Nine states were cited for having no equity plan. Education week contains a useful analysis of this report.

In the beginning of my teaching career I often thought about what it meant to be a qualified teacher. I graduated from a joint program between Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, earning two B.A.s. One of my degrees was in Political Science. The other was in Talmud and Rabbinics, ancient Jewish Law. In my first teaching position I taught middle school Jewish studies at a Jewish day school. I certainly had a deep knowledge of Judaism. However, I lacked an understanding of effective teaching practices. I was a horrible teacher. I think that No Child Left Behind misses the mark when it mandates that teachers have a degree in the subject that they are teaching. Simply because somebody knows a subject well does not mean that they know how to teach the subject effectively.

After I began my teaching career, I earned a teaching certificate from the State of Texas, in history and government. During this coursework I took classes on pedagogy and educational psychology and classroom management. I also observed teachers in their classrooms. One teacher I observed in a summer school class was showing his students an old fashion film, in which a tape recording was cued to specific slides in the film. The tape recording buzzed when it was time to move to the next slide. The teacher did not have the slide and the recording cued properly but he didn't notice it. This teacher had a teaching certificate but he didn't care enough to be an effective educator. Many teachers who possess teaching certificates and know pedagogy don't know enough subject matter to teach effectively.

Degrees and certificates alone cannot make an individual a highly skilled teacher. Indeed, there are far too many variables at play to legislate what it means for a teacher to be highly qualified or highly skilled. Rather than using federal legislation to define these teachers, I suggest that we empower principals, perhaps in collaboration with teacher leaders, to determine who is effective and who is not.


Just a thought!!