A hard-hitting new report from the Education Trust sharply criticizes the Department of Education for its enforcement of teacher quality provisions in NCLB. In Need of Improvement: Ten Ways the U.S. Department of Education Has Failed to Live Up to Its Teacher Quality Commitments contrasts the Department's rigorous focus on issues of accountability and adequate yearly progress with its more vague, even lax, standards on teacher quality. The bulk of the paper is devoted to instructing the Department on how it can tighten up its policies.

The report makes 10 recommendations:

1. 1) appoint a teacher czar at the department to oversee this $3 billion effort;
2. 2) insist on better reporting of data from the states, some of whom are doing a pretty sloppy job collecting important data;
3. 3) increase vigilance in requiring states to fix the inequitable distribution of good teachers in affluent and poor schools;
4. 4) send a strong message that it is possible for the nation's classrooms to be staffed with highly qualified teachers;
5. 5) pressure schools of education to produce more teachers in understaffed areas;
6. 6) clarify the definition of "highly qualified" for the states;
7. 7) allow more leeway for staffing of rural schools;
8. 8) support parents' right-to-know by insisting that letters of notification are sent home as required;
9. 9) encourage value-added data collection so that we really know who is highly qualified;
and finally,
10. 10) push for amendments to the Higher Education Act (HEA) that will hold colleges of education truly accountable.

While some of the language of the report is combative, the report is fundamentally constructive in its criticism. If the Department can look past such accusations as "this Administration cares nothing about teacher quality," they should find some useful suggestions from the ever-helpful Education Trust.