Since the topic of the federal government’s “No Child Left Behind” policy and legislation came up at the annual SLATE Steering Committee meeting last November, I’ve been doing a little research at its website (http://www.nclb.gov), interested as I am in continuing to explore the qualities of “good” teaching (an issue that both Don Mayfield and I took up in the February SLATE newsletter and that I think is worth pursuing further).  Specifically, I went looking for the definition of a “highly qualified teacher,” which all public- and charter-school teachers in the nation must fit by the 2005-6 school year.  In searching out this definition, I wanted to discover what qualities the federal government believes are necessary for someone to teach successfully in order to “close the achievement gap in America’s public schools,” the ostensible goal of “No Child Left Behind.”  I’m still mulling over what I found, but so far I’m having trouble seeing how the government’s definition of a “highly qualified teacher” offers anyone in the field any new insights into effective teaching that facilitates learning for all students, especially those who struggle.

Since the definition is so short, I’ll quote it here in its entirety for those who haven’t yet seen it.  On one page of the “No Child Left Behind” website, an attractive Power Point slide (http://www.nclb.gov/next/closing/slide038.html) poses the question, “What is a ‘highly qualified teacher’?” and then breaks up its answer into two columns, one for “Elementary school teacher” and the other for “Middle or High School Teacher,” with two pencil-bulleted items under each heading.  For elementary teachers the criteria for qualification are “Holds a bachelors degree” and “Has demonstrated mastery by passing a rigorous test in reading, writing, math and other areas of the curriculum.”  A qualified secondary teacher, according to the definition, “[h]olds a bachelors degree” and “[h]as demonstrated competency in subject area taught by passing a rigorous State test, or through completion of an academic major, graduate degree, or comparable coursework.” 

I’m not sure exactly what I expected of the definition--and perhaps I shouldn’t have been so hopeful--but it was more than requirements for a degree and passage of a test.  I don’t know of any public school in the country that doesn’t already adhere to the degree requirement, and states, some for a long time, have mandated that pre-service teachers pass general and subject area tests before they can earn a teaching certificate.  Even Iowa, long known for its resistance to state and national tests and its fervent belief in local control, requires passage of Educational Testing Service’s Praxis I for admittance to teacher education programs and has, for the past two years, been piloting Praxis II for certification.  When, at another part of the NCLB site, I consulted the 142-page “Improving Teacher Quality State Grants:  Title II, Part A Non-Regulatory Draft Guidance” of December 19, 2002--which, by the way, adds a third requirement (not mentioned in the slide I quote above) that an individual must have “full State certification as a teacher or passed the State teacher licensing examination and holds a license to teach in the State”--for more details about the “highly qualified” label, I was hard pressed to find new or valuable standards to substantially improve the qualifications of teachers.  Instead the bulk of the material was detailed explanations of what constitutes “certified” and--without specifying a particular test-- phrases like “high, objective uniform State standard of evaluation” and “rigorous State test,” with admonishments that test content “should be rigorous and objective and have a high, objective, uniform standard that the candidate is expected to meet or exceed” repeated again and again. 

Such circular wording, besides being mind numbing in its vagueness, does nothing except feed a ballooning testing machine that because of monetary constraints is bound to rely on standardized tests that cannot measure the essence of effective teaching.  It cannot do any more than, at best, articulate only the most basic standards for teacher qualification, the most rudimentary of teaching competencies but can do little to reach into the heart of what really makes a “highly qualified teacher.”  In my opinion, the “No Child Left Behind” criteria deserve no better than the label “entry level teacher,” and suggesting that they constitute a “highly qualified teacher” is ludicrous and even insulting to the many truly highly qualified teachers already reaching students every day in our schools.  The criteria and the way they most likely will be tested don’t seem to recognize that teaching is a specialized field in which not only subject matter (factual) knowledge but also pedagogical knowledge, difficult to demonstrate on a paper and pencil test, are paramount.  As Harvard’s Howard Gardner said in a talk he gave at Iowa State University in January, understanding is a “performance,” and if one “can’t use [knowledge] flexibly, it’s of no use.” That being the case, if we really want to test whether someone is a “highly qualified teacher,” we need to measure pedagogical and disciplinary knowledge in use.  But will federal and state governments administer performance tests like the ones that teachers engaged in National Board Certification now take?  I highly doubt it since the cost and time involved in such an evaluation process are prohibitively expensive for mass testing.         

This semester I supervised a group of student teachers who hope to become full-fledged English teachers next fall.  In this role, I’m always looking for different ways to articulate for them and, more importantly, to help them articulate for themselves what they must have and do to become the best English teacher possible.  I can’t, in good conscience, hold up the “No Child Left Behind” definition as the standard to which I hope they’ll aspire.  Why? Because by the time they graduate and do the necessary paperwork for the state, they will have already met these criteria.  Yet they’re just beginning; they’re merely at the threshold of understanding what a highly qualified teacher is and does, let alone becoming that teacher.  They certainly haven’t arrived, as the federal government’s definition implies, and I don’t know how they will, if they strive only to meet that definition’s criteria.

Gardner takes comfort--and we can too--in the fact (borne out by studying the history of education in America) that reforms are cyclical and that right now “we’re going through a punitive cycle.”  In this, he says we have three choices:  “We can do what we’re being asked to do,” follow all the rules, teach to the tests, etc.  “We can be political and try to fight” this testing mania primarily espoused by people who are linear thinkers and don’t know much about the complexities of teaching and learning.  Or we can continue to do what he calls “good work” that doesn’t sacrifice our professional judgment even if we have to give a cursory nod to the tests.  As a person of Belgian descent, whose forebears have favored creative subversion in dealing with the many bullies who have tried to take over their country, Gardner’s third choice appeals to me most.  Regardless what path we choose, though, I have faith in the teacher spirit, just as William Faulkner had faith in the human spirit.  In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, he articulates his belief in the ability of humankind not only to “endure” but to “prevail.”  I believe teachers, especially, possess this ability.  No matter how many degree and testing hoops through which others say teachers must jump, what truly makes a “highly qualified” teacher is the unrelenting, continual desire to become a better thinker, a better reader and writer, a better communicator, and most of all a better person who can use her or his knowledge flexibly and with compassion to help students reach these same goals.