U.S. Education Department Gives States Reprieve in Meeting ‘Highly Qualified’ Teacher Requirement

States have been promised a one-year reprieve on equipping every core-subject classroom with a teacher who meets the federal standard of "highly qualified," but only if the states are trying hard enough.

In an Oct. 21 letter to chief state school officers, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said that federal officials would not necessarily yank funds from states that "do not quite reach the 100 percent goal" for highly qualified teachers by the end of the current school year—the goal set by the No Child Left Behind Act. Rather, she wrote, federal education officials will apply a series of tests to decide whether states have made enough progress to get the reprieve.

The goal has been one of the most controversial sections of the nearly 4-year-old law, in part, because of the hurdles local officials face in finding enough highly qualified teachers for certain classrooms—in rural areas and for special education students at the secondary level, for instance—and partly because the federal standard focuses on subject-matter knowledge. To be deemed "highly qualified" under federal law, teachers must hold a standard license and demonstrate knowledge of the subjects they teach. It is up to states to decide, within federal guidelines, what constitutes such a demonstration, although it should be equivalent to at least a test at the college level...