Subject-Matter Groups Want More From Teachers Than NCLB Seeks

By Sean Cavanagh and Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

As states strive to meet looming federal demands to find “highly qualified” teachers, some of the nation’s largest professional groups for teachers are staking out their own positions on how that term should be defined.

At least two such associations, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Council of Teachers of English, have crafted policies describing the knowledge and skills teachers need to capably lead classes in those subjects. Those statements offer what are in some ways more detailed guidelines than the ones set out in the No Child Left Behind Act, the nearly 4-year-old federal law that has forced states to re-examine the competence of their teacher corps.

All teachers of core subjects—English, reading or language arts, math, science, history, geography, economics, civics and government, the arts, and foreign languages—must be deemed “highly qualified” by the end...