HQT Comes to Forefront of NCLB Debate

Teacher quality was the reauthorization topic of the week in Washington. The Center on Education Policy (CEP) released Implementing the No Child Left Behind Teacher Requirements, a report that examines how states and school districts have implemented the law’s highly qualified teacher (HQT) requirements and whether or not, according to state and district survey respondents, the HQT requirements have been beneficial to instructional practices, student academic achievement and the equitable distribution of teachers as required by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

In summary:
• Most districts, but only about a third of the states, reported that they were on track to be in full compliance with HQT requirements by the end of the 2006-07 school year;
• A majority of state and school district officials believe that the law has had minimal to no impact on student achievement;
• HQT requirements have not had a major impact on teacher effectiveness in the view of state and district officials; and
• States reported varying degrees of progress toward an equitable distribution of experienced, well qualified teachers in high poverty and high minority enrollment schools.
Drawing from the report, CEP made a number of recommendations that fuel the performance pay debate, which has received considerable attention recently. At the center of the recommendations is the conclusion that many state and district officials felt the NCLB definition of HQT was too narrowly focused on content knowledge and not on the ability to effectively teach students. The responsibility for crafting the requirements for effective teachers, concludes CEP, should be driven by a state innovation and not federal requirements. The recommendations include that the reauthorized law should:
• Encourage states to develop methods to measure teacher effectiveness;
• Refine the current federal definition of a highly qualified teacher to address the special circumstances of certain kinds of teachers;
• Adopt a comprehensive approach to recruiting and retaining teachers in high-need schools; and
• Provide federal assistance to states to develop and implement comprehensive data systems.
As policy makers digested the CEP report, they also read about Sonya A Renee v. Margaret Spellings, a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by Public Advocates on behalf to a coalition of parents, students, community groups, and legal advocates.
The complaint argues that a regulation issued by the U.S. Department of Education (ED), 34 C.F.R. § 200.56(a)(2)(ii), addressing the requirements of the state certification prong of the law’s highly qualified teacher requirement, is outside the scope of ED’s authority under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Specifically, the complaint alleges that allowing a teacher who is participating in an alternative route to certification and who has not yet obtained full teaching credential to be a highly qualified teacher violates the APA because the definition of HQT in the regulation is arbitrary, capricious, contrary to law, and exceeds the agency’s scope of statutory authority (5 U.S.C. §§ 701-06). The regulation, according to the complaint, flouts the letter and spirit of NCLB.
As a legal matter, courts grant agencies great deference and the likelihood of success on the merits in this case, if it survives procedural challenges, is not good. Yet, as a political matter, the suits will likely have considerable impact since the Chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, Representative George Miller (D-CA), is an original architect of the highly qualified teacher provisions of the law and he has stated his intent to focus his committee’s work on drafting a bill that improves on the existing HQT provisions. On July 30th at the National Press Club, Chairman Miller stated that the bill his committee will introduce this fall will, “ensure that poor and minority students are taught by teachers with expertise in the subjects they are teaching.” That Chairman Miller chooses the word “expertise” is important. As demonstrated by the CEP report and the Public Advocates lawsuit, the focus on “qualified” has not captured the human capital benefits the Miller likely sought when he first drafted the law’s HQT requirements. It is certain, then, that his committee’s reauthorization bill will make considerable revisions to the HQT definition with more attention to expertise and effectiveness.
Resources:
Jennifer McMurrer, Implementing the No Child Left Behind Teacher Requirements (Center on Education Policy: August 2007), http://www.cep-dc.org.
“U.S. Department of Education Waters Down Teacher Quality, NCLB Lawsuit Charges,” Public Advocates, News & Views, August 21, 2007, http://www.publicadvocates.org/
Code of Federal Register, 34 C.F.R. § 200.56(a)(2)(ii), Revised July 1, 2006, http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_06/34cfr200_06.html
Author: DAD