States Still Ironing Out ‘Highly Qualified’ Kinks

Even the last states to be reviewed on their progress for meeting the “highly qualified” teacher provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act have some distance to travel before satisfying the law, according to Department of Education documents and officials.

A case in point is Connecticut, one of the final stops for the federal monitoring teams charged with describing how much a state is on track for ensuring that all its teachers meet the mandate.

In a report delivered to Connecticut last month, federal officials found fault with several ways that the state determines highly qualified status. The report also criticizes the state for not collecting the data needed to show whether progress was being made, for failing to report to the public, and for allowing too much variability in the way veteran teachers can demonstrate they are highly qualified without taking a test or...