A few months ago, the Feds extended the deadline for states to have a highly qualified teacher in every classroom, provided that states show "good faith" in their efforts.

All of the HQT monitoring reports are now out, and there are now eight states whose Title I grants will be conditional on them making changes (Minnesota and North Carolina have made it off the initial list).

From a teacher quality standpoint, there are some serious issues here. The biggest one is the failure of too many states to get serious about their veteran elementary teachers' content knowledge. (Since the reports first came out, Iowa, Montana, and Nebraska have apparently agreed to start testing their new elementary teachers, a very positive development.) This is a big problem given that it's fairly common for elementary teachers to have taken their "subject matter" courses from education faculty.

The gory, wonky details are as follows:

Alaska--A smattering of findings; overall, they're the least NCLB-compliant state in the nation when it comes to teacher qualifications. (In all fairness, they do have some difficult logistical issues to deal with!)

Delaware--Mostly technical matters here, like data collection and procedural issues. One issue looms large: the state's lack of classroom-level data teaching assignment data. If the state gears up its data collection, though, it should be fine.

D.C.--Several findings: lots of work to do in the District. The Feds rightly praise D.C., though, for its aggressive recruitment and retention strategies, including teaming with TFA and The New Teacher Project and focusing on critical shortage areas.

Idaho--Calls its veteran elementary teachers highly qualified by virtue of having education majors, a big no-no in our book.

Iowa--Ditto.

Montana--The Feds issued a somewhat nitpicky finding for allowing its secondary teachers to complete 20-credit minors, which is less than ideal though probably fine for middle school teachers.

Nebraska--Has an "alternate route" that takes six years to complete, which is far too generous.

Washington--Again, calling its veteran elementary teachers highly qualified by virtue of having education majors. Not testing the new ones either, apparently.