F

lexibility, like balance, is a bureaucratic buzzword used by politicians to justify an unpopular program or policy. But, the Bush administration has lived up to its commitment to be flexible when it comes to states meeting some aspects of the No Child Left Behind Act. This week, the administration relaxed teacher-quality requirements mainly

to help rural states, which are having

a hard time finding teachers who meet the federal guidelines.

After recognizing the challenges faced by teachers in rural, isolated areas – about a third of the nation’s school districts – Secretary of Education Rod Paige announced three changes to NCLB requirements that teachers be “highly qualified.” Under NCLB, highly qualified teachers must hold at least a bachelor’s degree, have full state certification or licensure and have demonstrated competence in the subject areas they teach.

One change is to allow teachers who teach multiple subjects, a common practice in small schools, especially at the middle-school level, more time to meet the federal requirements. If teachers are deemed highly qualified in one subject area, they have three additional years to become highly qualified in the other subjects they teach. Newly hired teachers would have until their third years to demonstrate that they are qualified. In addition, states would be able to use their own certification standards to determine competence for science teachers who cover more than one field.

These changes are helpful but do not change the act’s misplaced emphasis on measuring teacher qualifications only through testing and college degree attainment.

According to data presented by the U.S. Department of Education, Maine had the highest percentage of secondary classes in core academic subjects taught by teachers lacking even a minor in the field being taught, at 29 percent in 1999-2000. The Education Trust, the group that collected the data, said that the problem was even worse in middle schools. So, it is interesting to note that Connecticut had the second highest

percentage of teachers working “out

of field” at 27 percent, yet the state’s eighth graders tested above the national average on the 8th grade reading portion of the National Assessment of

Educational Progress in 2003.

New England’s lowest scores on this test were in Rhode Island, the state with the lowest percentage of “out of field” teachers in the region. This data shows that the assumption that teachers with higher qualifications necessarily are better at helping students grasp information is flawed.

Students, principals and parents know good teachers when they see them. Sometimes they have multiple degrees, sometimes they do not. Encouraging teachers to improve their qualifications is a good goal but it is fallacy to pretend that simply requiring teachers to quickly meet federal definitions of “highly qualified” will translate into improved student performance.