U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige’s Monday announcement of changes to
No Child Left Behind’s teacher quality provisions brought quick and
passionate reactions from both sides of the debate. Three basic
changes were made to the regs. First, teachers in rural schools who
teach multiple subjects need only be highly qualified in one subject
area by January 2006 and have an additional three years to become
highly qualified in any other subject areas they teach. Second, states
may decide if science teachers ought to be certified in a specific
field of science or in a general science certification. Third, multi-
subject teachers (particularly middle school and special education
teachers) only have to submit to one process to meet the state’s
standards for highly qualified teachers. Up until now, a teacher who
taught math and science would have to go through the state process
twice, once for math and once for science. This also implies that
states now have to establish new standards that describe the
credentials expected of teachers of multiple subjects.
The National Education Association, no friend of Secretary Paige,
commented, “The debate is no longer on whether NCLB and its
implementation is flawed and needs to be fixed, but on what needs to
be fixed.” Conversely, Ross Wiener, Policy Director at the Education
Trust, warned, “The Department has done more today to show states how
they can avoid addressing teacher quality problems than help them
address the substance of these problems&Students from low-income
families and students of color will disproportionately suffer the
consequences.”
Our own sense is that folks at the Department are feeling dumped upon,
weary of defending a law that was enacted under a proud and vocal
bipartisan spirit. This spirit has evaporated for four reasons:
- first and foremost, the upcoming November elections;
- from the start, the total unwillingness of most state departments
of education to serve as good foot soldiers for the law instead they
are out there fanning the flames of discontent in their school
districts; - the Department was caught off guard, realizing only too late that
people don’t like change no matter how laudatory the goals are; and - a law that was passed in the middle of the night which contained
language that even its primary authors knew nothing about has some
flaws surprise, surprise that may ultimately have to be addressed.
Could the NCLB teacher provisions use some revision? Yep, but the
revisions ought not to be just about showing how flexible the feds are
willing to be but about holding states’ feet to the fire to get them
to take this issue more seriously. Most states simply are not. The
Department’s actions may have been appropriate, but changes ought to
be pursued only in the interest of doing what is right for students,
not because states and teacher unions can’t stop grumbling.