November 13, 2005
"Highly Qualified" Teachers
Edutopia this month published "NCLB Confidential" -- an interesting article by Roberta Furger that explores a few elements of the No Child Left Behind Act that are often ignored because so much of the debates surrounding this act focus solely on the issue of testing and student accountability. I've written here before about one of these neglected areas (the NCLB Act's relationship with military recruitment). Furger's essay takes a look at two components of the Act that are starting to raise problems: how the Act mandates both "parental involvement" in the school and the employment of "highly qualified teachers."
The latter phrase -- "highly qualified" -- is semantically deconstructed by the article. The NCLB makes clear what the standards are for qualification and they are apparently flexible in this criterion, accepting alternative forms of certification. But to be "highly qualified" does not equate with being "high quality" though that's what people initially assume. Some are arguing that this could lead to hiring low quality teachers or generally lower the standards regarding what it means to teach well. Furger cites Barnett Berry, from the Center from Teacher Quality, who challenges the specious way that NCLB defines "qualified" teacher, as simply having a basic teaching preparation and baseline education:
"...someone with a degree in biology, with no knowledge of how to teach second-language learners, no knowledge of how to find the right resources to engage kids, no knowledge of technology applications in school, no knowledge of how to work with parents or children whose culture is different from their own, is 'highly qualified.'"
In other words, being "minimally" qualified is elided by supervisors and administrators as meaning "highly" qualified. Interesting point.
Does certification alone qualify a teacher? Barry also participated in research that asked, "Does Teaching Certification Matter?" -- which challenges research that claims that having a teaching certificate did not make a student more or less prepared to teach than others who had a college degree. His group found that they were indeed still good teachers, but could be better ones, and generally, that preparation is really the issue, not certification.
[Note: Barnett Berry has started an interesting new weblog, Building the Teaching Profession.]
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I understand the stress that NCLB puts out on all of us but it is important not to attack teachers. the standard for qualifaiction is not any less then when a teacher was considered qualified 15 years ago. The difference is Symantics. I am one of those "Highly Qualified" or HQ teachers I am new only 2 years into the professional world but I would like to think that I was just as prepared as most in the past and in the future. The truth is that if a new HQ teacher is hired over an older teacher there are many reasons including one teacher costls less then the other. I think as teachers we can put our efforts in to sytematicaly changing things like lack of funding and laws that leave ELL students and schools that cater to these students left behind. Thie constructive effort can help us overcome the many teaching obstacles that stand in our way. Attacking new teachers jst because we were required to have this new tittle- a tittle that none of us asked for- does not seem to be constructive to me. Lets stand togeather new and experianced to create a world of great teachers. To be honest with you the tittle scares me and many other HQ teachers because when the current laws shift then we will forever be branded with a tittle that represents the days of NCLB.