1.3: Teacher Quality
Improve teacher quality. Other Information:
High-quality, effective teaching is one of the most important contributors to improving student achievement. In order that
all children achieve proficiency in reading and mathematics by 2014, the Department must continue to make progress toward
ensuring that all classes in core academic subjects are taught by highly qualified teachers, and that poor and minority children
are not disproportionately taught by unqualified or inexperienced teachers. Over the past five years, states and local school
districts have made substantial progress in determining whether their teachers are highly qualified, in ensuring that they
are assigned to teach subjects for which they are well prepared, and in providing additional support and training to help
teachers with insufficient training to become highly qualified. Across the country, approximately 90 percent of classes in
core academic subjects were taught by highly qualified teachers in the 2004–05 school year, with a slightly higher proportion
at the elementary school level than at the secondary level. Despite this progress, the NCLB requirement that all teachers
in core subjects be highly qualified by the end of the 2005–06 school year has not been fulfilled. States and districts still
face challenges in ensuring that all teachers are qualified to teach their subjects, particularly in small, rural middle and
high schools, and in self-contained secondary special education classes where teachers typically must teach multiple subjects.
During the past year, all states have begun to analyze the pattern of teacher assignments to determine whether schools and
districts with high concentrations of poor and minority children tend to have teachers with less experience and training than
those in wealthier schools and districts. The states have submitted plans to the Department outlining specific strategies
and activities to eliminate differences in teacher assignments where they exist and ensure that all teachers in core subjects
are highly qualified. Strategy 1. Collect data and monitor performance to ensure that all states meet the goal of having all
core academic classes taught by highly qualified teachers in school year 2006–07 and beyond. NCLB requires that each class
in a core academic subject be taught by a teacher who holds a bachelor’s degree and has obtained full state certification,
and who has demonstrated competence in each subject taught. Over the next three years, the Department will work extensively
with SEAs—including at least one monitoring visit to each state—to ensure that this requirement is met and to verify that
accurate data on teacher qualifications and assignment are reported. Strategy 2. Monitor states with substantial numbers of
classes taught by non-highly qualified teachers, spurring these states to bring all teachers to highly qualified status as
soon as possible. In states where core academic classes are still taught by teachers who are not highly qualified (e.g., in
rural areas and in special education classes), the Department will closely monitor the SEAs to ensure that their plans for
highly qualified teachers are being rigorously and effectively implemented. The Department also will support SEAs as they
work with their LEAs to use federal funds effectively to support high-quality professional development and training programs
to assist teachers to become highly qualified as soon as possible. Strategy 3. As states move toward ensuring that all teachers
are highly qualified, monitor their efforts to determine that poor and minority children are not taught at disproportionate
rates by unqualified, inexperienced, or out-of-field teachers. All states have devised plans for ensuring that children from
all backgrounds and incomes are taught by qualified, experienced, in-field teachers. The Department will work with SEAs to
improve these plans and will monitor to ensure that the plans are being implemented and that full compliance with the highly
qualified teacher requirements is reached in all types of districts and reported to the public. Strategy 4. Encourage districts
to reform educator compensation systems to reward their most effective teachers and to create incentives to attract their
best teachers to high-need schools and hard-to-staff subjects. Through the Teacher Incentive Fund, the Department will support
a diverse set of projects to develop or expand sustainable differential performance-based compensation systems. These projects
will serve as pilot programs that reward teachers for: improvements in student achievement; outstanding teaching performance
as measured by rigorous, multiyear evaluations; and taking on additional or new responsibilities or assignments (such as teaching
in a high-need, low-performing school). Lessons learned from these projects will be disseminated by the Department for use
by states and LEAs as they face the challenge of recruiting and retaining their best teachers.
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