Teachers Achieving 'Highly Qualified' Status on the Rise

Poorer schools still not getting their share, state data shows.

Teachers meeting the “highly qualified” standard their states set were teaching core subjects in 94 percent of the nation’s classrooms in the 2006-07 school year, but poorer schools were still less likely than their wealthier counterparts to employ them.

That year, 96 percent of core-subject classes in low-poverty schools were taught by highly qualified teachers, compared with 91 percent in high-poverty schools, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which recently released the data ( requires Microsoft Excel ) that states are required to submit to the federal agency.

In some states, the gap was glaring. In Maryland, 95 percent of elementary classes in low-poverty schools were staffed with highly qualified teachers, compared with only 66...