Improving Teacher Quality: Better Luck Next Time

By Michael J. Petrilli

You might as well call it Christmas in August: The last few weeks before the start of school have seen a blizzard of activity for human-resources and personnel departments in school systems across the land. After all, the deadline for the No Child Left Behind Act’s “highly qualified teachers” requirement is only nine short months away. District officials are doing all they can to hire new teachers with the necessary credentials.

But for all the hurrying and scurrying, will the nation’s teaching force really be that much stronger in June 2006 than in January 2002, when President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law? Will we have made much progress in closing the “teacher-quality gap,” whereby poor and minority students are much more likely to suffer through inexperienced or out-of-field teachers? The truth is: probably not.

What happened to the great hopes and lofty rhetoric of putting a highly qualified teacher in every classroom by 2006? This is the tale of a policy initiative that was strangled in the cradle. Let’s...