Rigor Disputed In Standards For Teachers

By Bess Keller

States have fashioned wildly different ways of judging whether teachers already in the classroom meet the federal standard of "highly qualified," raising the possibility that teachers in some states will not face the high hurdle that Congress intended.

Critics say that many states are giving veteran teachers too easy a pass on whether they know their subjects well enough to teach them effectively, as the No Child Left Behind Act specifies.

"Few states distinguish themselves in terms of the rigor and comprehensiveness" of their evaluation systems, said Ross Wiener, the director of policy for the Education Trust, a Washington- based group that pushes higher achievement for poor and minority students. The trust released a report last month criticizing states for designing evaluations that depend too much, for instance, on existing licensing or professional-development requirements that may or may...