ED sued over teacher-quality rules
Lawsuit claims teachers-in-training should not be considered ‘highly qualified’
From eSchool News staff and wire service reports
August 22, 2007

A group of parents, students, and community organizations is suing the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings over the “highly qualified teacher” provision of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in San Francisco Aug. 21, could affect how schools hire and place teachers in high-need areas in particular, such as the so-called “STEM” fields of science, technology, engineering and math.
NCLB mandates that only teachers who have a full state certification and a degree in their teaching field be considered “highly qualified.”
ED, however, has issued rules that allow states to label anyone currently participating in an alternative-certification program while teaching as “highly qualified,” according to the plaintiffs.
The department’s rules are intended to make it easier for schools to hire non-educators to fill hard-to-staff subject areas in which specialized expertise is required, such as in the STEM disciplines or less-common foreign languages. These professionals have up to three years to gain certification, and they’re allowed to teach--and are considered “highly qualified” under the law--while pursuing their credentials.
The plaintiffs’ lawsuit calls these rules a “loophole” that violates NCLB’s intent, deceiving parents and undermining the educational development of children by labeling beginning and intern teachers as “highly qualified.”
“Providing all students with highly qualified teachers is the only way to ensure that no child is left behind. Defining teachers in training as ‘highly qualified’ violates both the letter and spirit of the law, primarily to the detriment of low-income students of color,” according to plaintiffs’ attorney Jenny Pearlman of the law firm Public Advocates Inc.
The lawsuit seeks to have ED’s directive ruled illegal and the definition of a “highly qualified teacher” as it appears in NCLB used instead.
“If we prevail, the suit will have ripple effects throughout the implementation of NCLB nationally,” said Tara Kini, a staff attorney with Public Advocates. “States and school districts will no longer be permitted to concentrate teachers-in-training in schools serving high numbers of students of color, and they will be required to report accurately the numbers of highly qualified teachers so that real plans can be made to get better trained and qualified teachers to all students.”

According to Public Advocates, more than 10,000 intern teachers are labeled as “highly qualified” each year in California alone. Nationally, the number is more than 100,000, the group says.
Among the groups supporting the lawsuit is the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, which represents the nation’s teacher colleges and is an outspoken critic of alternative-certification programs.
“The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education believes that all teachers should be prepared in a high-quality preparation program and complete that program prior to being designated as highly qualified,” the group said in a statement. “There are five components that we know are essential to any high-quality preparation program. These (are) having selective admissions standards, a curriculum that addresses the essential knowledge and skills needed to be an effective teacher, preparing teachers to teach a diverse range of students, a supervised internship, and a performance assessment that gauges the candidates’ knowledge of subject matter and ability to convey that knowledge effectively.”
The group concluded: “That we would put anyone in the classroom who has not completed a rigorous preparation such as this is not in keeping with the true mission of NCLB.”
Samara Yudof, ED's acting press secretary, had this to say about the lawsuit: “Consistent with the department's practice, we are not able to comment on a complaint that has not been served, but we will, of course, review it closely when we do receive it.”
The lawsuit, Renee v. Spellings, comes as Congress is considering NCLB reauthorization. Regardless of how it plays out in court, the suit could affect how legislators rewrite the law.
The day after the lawsuit was filed, the nonprofit Center on Education Policy (CEP) issued a report suggesting that a majority of state and district officials say the “highly qualified teacher” provision of NCLB has had little impact on student achievement.
The study was based on a survey of officials in all 50 states and a nationally representative group of nearly 350 school districts. More than half of all states and two-thirds of districts reported that the requirements have improved student achievement minimally or not at all. Only 6 percent of states and 4 percent of districts indicated that the requirements have improved achievement to a great extent.
“Despite efforts to comply with the law’s teacher-quality requirements, the effect of these requirements in raising student achievement and improving teacher quality continues to be met with skepticism,” said Jack Jennings, CEP’s president and CEO. Many state and district officials said the law’s definition of a highly qualified teacher was too narrowly focused on content knowledge. Survey respondents suggested revising the definition to take into account teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom and other qualities essential to a good teacher, such as the ability to relate to students, teach students from different backgrounds, and differentiate instruction according to students’ needs.

U.S. Department of Education Waters Down Teacher Quality, NCLB Lawsuit Charges:
Major loophole in defining “Highly Qualified Teacher” defies will of Congress, harms students

August 21, 2007— A coalition of parents, students, community groups, and legal advocates today sued the United States Department of Education and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings for violating the teacher quality provisions of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

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U.S. Department of Education
Public Advocates Inc.
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
Center on Education Policy
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Lawsuit Attacks Alternative-Route 'Loophole' in NCLB Law
By Vaishali Honawar, Education Week, Online: August 21, 2007
Updated: August 23, 2007

A group of California parents, students, and community groups is suing the U.S. Department of Education for allowing alternative-route teachers who are not yet certified to be designated as “highly qualified” under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Under the federal law, to be highly qualified, teachers must have full state certification or licensure, in addition to a bachelor’s degree and evidence that they know each subject they teach. But Education Department regulations allow uncertified candidates who are in alternative-route programs to teach for up to three years while still seeking certification.

Backers of the lawsuit, Renee v. Spellings, which was filed today in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco,said they are concerned because many of those teachers end up in schools that are low-performing and enroll higher concentrations of students of color.

“These are teachers who have come through one month of boot camp in an alternative program and are thrown into classrooms as full-time teachers,” said Wynn Hausser, a spokesman for Public Advocates, a San Francisco public-interest law firm and advocacy group that is representing the plaintiffs.

He contended that the loophole was intended to give Congress “a rosier picture of how close schools are to meeting the standards” of the No Child Left Behind law, which requires every classroom to be staffed by a highly qualified teacher.

Mr. Hausser’s group claims there are currently 100,000 teachers in the nation’s classrooms, including 10,000 in California, who are labeled as “highly qualified” even though they are still in training and have not received certification.

Obscuring the Truth?
The lawsuit drew support from members of the teacher education community, who pointed out that the NCLB law is intended to reduce the number of out-of-field teachers and uncertified teachers in public school classrooms.

“Yet the Department of Education has created this large loophole to allow uncertified teachers who haven’t completed a preparation program to receive a highly qualified designation,” Jane West, the vice president of government relations for the Washington-based American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, said in a statement. “Parents are not being fully informed of the real status of these teachers who are not yet credentialed to serve as teachers.”

"Consistent with the department's practice, we are not able to comment on a complaint that has not been served, but we will, of course, review it closely when we do receive it," said Samara Yudof, the acting press secretary for the Education Department.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare as void the department’s regulation allowing teachers in alternative routes to be designated as “highly qualified.”

“Parents have a right to know the qualifications of their child’s teacher,” said Maribel Heredia, a parent in Hayward, Calif., and one of the plaintiffs.

“My son’s 1st grade teacher is still taking classes necessary to obtain her full teaching credential,” Ms. Heredia said in a statement. “I think it’s wrong that she is called highly qualified. I feel like I am being lied to.”

"Just Walk Away, Renee ..."
Posted by Eduflack at 8/22/2007 12:06 PM

What's the measure of a "good" teacher? It's an age-old question whose answer has varied and changed over the years. For the past five years — under the No Child Left Behind era — we've answered it with the formula developed by Congressman George Miller and his colleagues as part of their HQT provisions. A highly qualified teacher was one who has a degree in the subject matter and who is certified.

Yesterday, a group of California parents took issue with how the U.S. Department of Education was interpreting the HQT provision, specifically how it approved the Golden State's effort to categorize alternative cert teachers and emergency hires as HQTs. The case — Renee v. Spellings — is expected to have national implications on alternative teaching programs. (Or at least that's what Stephen Sawchuck and Education Daily tell us.)

Eduflack doesn't take issue with the intent of Renee and parents across the country who want to ensure that their children get the very best instructors, the very best curriculum, and the very best of opportunities. And I agree that, ideally, our best teachers should be in our most challenging teaching environments, working with the kids who need their experience, expertise, and knowledge the most.

But after five years, it is time to revise our definition of a good teacher. The language is stale. Highly qualified is fine ... to an extent. But is a teacher with a bona fide diploma from a teachers college guaranteed to be a good teacher, while another from Teach for America or Troops to Teachers is not? Of course not. The pedagogy one gets from a TC only takes you so far. Success depends largely on the passion of the teacher, the pursuit of continued learning, the push to continue to improve practice, and one's commitment to the classroom and the student. And many would say alternative routes engender those qualities far more frequently than traditional routes.

Regardless, we need a new benchmark for a "good" teacher. And that benchmark is based on one simple word — effectiveness. Our goal should be to have an effective teacher in every classroom. A teacher committed to boosting student achievement. A teacher that can be measured based on year-on-year gains in her classroom. A teacher who leaves his students better off at the end of the year than they were when they showed up the previous September. Good teachers should be effective teachers. And that effectiveness can be measured, studied, and replicated in other classes and schools.

The words we choose to define "good" teaching are telling of our objectives. "Highly qualified" measures the inputs. "Effectiveness" measures the outputs. And at the end of the day, we should be defining our teachers, our schools, and our kids on the outputs. All the qualifications in the world can't guarantee success. Our focus is results. The end game is achievement.

Slowly, this concept is making its way into our discussions on NCLB and HQT. It was first offered by the Aspen Institute's NCLB Commission, and was championed by its co-chair, Gov. Roy Barnes. We've now seen it mentioned in a number of NCLB reauthorization bills on Capitol Hill. But we have a long way to go.

Maybe the lawyers with Public Advocates can offer a settlement ... all California teachers must demonstrate effectiveness in the classroom. Now that would be a practice worth modeling in all 50 states.