Meeting the
Highly Qualified Teachers
Challenge

The Secretary’s Annual Report on Teacher Quality

U.S. Department of Education
Office of Postsecondary Education
2002

 

U.S. Department of Education

Rod Paige
Secretary

Office of Postsecondary Education

Sally Stroup
Assistant Secretary

Office of Policy Planning and Innovation

Jeffrey R. Andrade
Deputy Assistant Secretary

June 2002

This report is in the public domain. Authorization to reproduce it in whole or in part is granted. While permission to reprint this publication is not necessary, the citation should be: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, Office of Policy Planning and Innovation, Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge: The Secretary’s Annual Report on Teacher Quality, Washington, D.C., 2002.

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A Message from the Secretary of Education

Just a few months ago, President George W. Bush and the United States Congress issued a compelling challenge to our nation: to ensure that in this great land, no child is left behind. I take that challenge seriously, and I take it literally.

Meeting that challenge will require the hard work and attention of parents, business leaders, concerned citizens, school administrators, and students. But more than anyone, meeting that challenge will require the talent and dedication of America’s teachers. As President Bush said recently, “We give our teachers a great responsibility: to shape the minds and hopes of our children. We owe them our thanks and our praise and our support.”

As a part of the No Child Left Behind Act, Congress issued another challenge to ensure that, by the end of the 2005-2006 school year, every classroom in America has a teacher who is “highly qualified.” After all, only with a talented teacher in every classroom will our students have the opportunity to excel. Will our nation meet the “highly qualified teachers” challenge? As this report explains, this challenge will be met only if our state policies on teacher preparation and certification change dramatically.

This report and information provided on an accompanying Web site (www.title2.org) meet the requirements of Title II of the Higher Education Act, which created a national reporting system on the quality of teacher preparation. It provides a wealth of new information on teacher quality in the United States. I hope it also serves as a useful guide as jurisdictions work to meet the requirements of the new law by placing a highly qualified teacher in every classroom. Most importantly, I hope it serves as a helpful tool as all of our communities work to ensure that no child is left behind.

 

Sincerely,

Rod Paige

Contents

Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge

Executive Summary

The Title II Reporting System

Under the 1998 reauthorization of Title II of the Higher Education Act, the secretary of education is required to issue annual reports to Congress on the state of teacher quality nationwide. Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge is the inaugural report on this important issue. The 1998 reauthorization also established a reporting system for states and institutions of higher education to collect information on the quality of their teacher training programs. Data collected under the Title II reporting system are available at www.title2.org and include information on state teacher certification requirements, the performance of prospective teachers on state licensure tests and the number of teachers hired on temporary or emergency certificates.

The Vital Role of Teachers in Leaving No Child Behind

As President Bush said recently, “We give our teachers a great responsibility: to shape the minds and hopes of our children. We owe them our thanks and our praise and our support.” Because of the vital role that teachers play in the lives of our children, the No Child Left Behind Act requires that all teachers in core academic subjects be highly qualified by the end of the 2005-2006 school year.

As part of the new law, Congress defines highly qualified teachers as those who not only possess full state certification but also have solid content knowledge of the subjects they teach. For example, beginning Fall 2002, all new elementary school teachers will have to pass tests in subject knowledge and teaching skills in math, reading and writing, while new middle and high school teachers must pass rigorous subject-matter tests or have the equivalent of an undergraduate major, graduate degree or advanced certification in their respective fields. As this report details, research suggests teachers with strong academic backgrounds in their subjects are more likely to boost student performance.

The Title II reporting system reveals that states have a long way to go in meeting these requirements, largely because of states’ outdated certification systems. Many academically accomplished college graduates and mid-career professionals with strong subject matter backgrounds are often dissuaded from entering teaching because the entry requirements are so rigid. At the same time, too many individuals earn certification even though their own content knowledge is weak. States’ systems seem to maintain low standards and high barriers at the same time.

A Broken System

The data collected for this report suggest that schools of education and formal teacher training programs are failing to produce the types of highly qualified teachers that the No Child Left Behind Act demands. Some highlights from the Title II reporting system:

• Only 23 states to date have implemented teacher standards tied to their respective
  academic content standards for grades K-12.

• Academic standards for teachers are low. On one popular teacher licensure test used by 29 states, only one state set its passing score near the national average in reading, while 15 set their respective passing scores below the 25th percentile. On math and writing tests, only one state set its passing score above the national average. Not surprisingly, more than 90 percent of teachers pass these tests.

• Forty-five states have developed alternate routes into the profession to bypass some of the burdensome requirements of the traditional system. While performance on licensure tests is higher among alternate route teachers than traditionally prepared teachers in most states, alternate routes are still larded with a variety of requirements.

• States are increasingly relying on teachers who are hired on waivers and lack full certification (a practice that is to be phased out under the new law). Nationwide, 6 percent of teachers lack full certification, but the share of uncertified teachers is higher in high-poverty schools and certain fields like special education, math and science.
  

Ensuring a Highly Quality Teacher in Every Classroom

Data collected for this report, and outside sources, confirm that states have a long way to go in aligning their certification regimes with the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. In order to comply with the new law, states and universities may well have to transform their preparation and certification systems, by basing their programs on rigorous academic content, eliminating cumbersome requirements not based on scientific evidence and doing more to attract highly qualified candidates from a variety of fields.

Across the country, there are several promising experiments that recruit highly qualified candidates who are interested in teaching but did not attend schools of education and place them quickly into high-need schools, providing training, support and mentoring. If states are to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act these programs should become models for the future, as states make it less burdensome for exceptional candidates to find teaching positions in our nation’s schools.

In order to leave no child behind, we need a highly qualified teacher in every classroom. Clearly, states and universities have much work to do in the years ahead. This report points the way.

Introduction

Background on the Secretary’s Report

Few adults are as important in the lives of children as teachers are. Ensuring that all students have access to highly qualified teachers is of paramount importance, especially for disadvantaged children. Fulfilling the promise of leaving no child behind rests on our ability to staff our schools with the best teachers our nation can produce.

Recognizing the vital role that teachers play, Congress recently required the secretary of education to issue an annual report on the state of teacher quality and teacher preparation in the 50 states. This is the first full report submitted to Congress on these topics.

This report contains a variety of data collected under the requirements of Title II of the Higher Education Act. Last amended in 1998, Title II requires three annual reports on teacher preparation. First, institutions of higher education are to report various data to states. These data include the pass rates on state certification and licensure examinations of students completing their teacher-training programs.

Second, using reports from institutions of higher education as well as other sources, states are to report the following information to the U.S. Department of Education:

• State certification and licensure requirements for completers of traditional and alternate teacher preparation programs;
  

• Statewide pass rates on the most recent state assessments of graduates of teacher preparation programs, pass rates disaggregated by institution, and quartile rankings of their institutions based on their pass rates;
  

• The number of teachers on waivers or emergency and temporary permits;
  

• Information on teacher standards and their alignment with student standards; and
  

• Criteria for identifying low-performing schools of education.
  Finally, the secretary of education is to report to Congress on national patterns and their implications (the topics of this document and related material found at www.title2.org).
  

Outline of the Secretary’s Report

This report attempts to do more than present the key findings from the Title II reporting system. It also seeks to place these findings within the context of state and federal policy and rigorous scientific research. Here is a brief overview:

Chapter One: “The Quest for Highly Qualified Teachers.” This chapter will provide a summary of the sweeping reforms enacted by the No Child Left Behind Act, especially the new requirement that all teachers be “highly qualified” by 2005-2006. It also draws upon solid research to answer the question: What do we know about highly qualified teachers?

Chapter Two: “Preparing and Certifying Highly Qualified Teachers: Today’s Broken System and Its Alternative.” Chapter Two investigates how teacher recruitment, preparation and certification systems in place today impede the development of highly qualified teachers and presents a more promising model for the future.

Chapter Three: “Are States Doing Enough to Produce Highly Qualified Teachers? Lessons from the Title II Reporting System.” Chapter Three presents findings from the Title II reporting system, as well as rigorous evidence from other sources, about the “state of the states” vis-à-vis the preparation and certification of highly qualified teachers.

Chapter Four: “Looking Forward: A Highly Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom.” The concluding chapter presents some final insights into the state of teacher quality today and offers suggestions for states as they seek to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act to provide a highly qualified teacher in every classroom.

Top of Page

Introduction • Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Appendices