Re: from USA Today

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Well, teachers are where the children are, so NCLB does have something 
to do with teachers.

The problem here is a system that wants to identify every teacher as 
"highlly qualified."  Now, parents and children are not exactly 
storming the gates of district offices and state capitols to demand 
that every teacher be identified as "highly qualified," so where do you 
think the pressure to do that is coming from?  Hint:  It isn't the 
Business Roundtable.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: QCao009@aol.com
To: arn-l@interversity.org; fcarforum@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 5:44 am
Subject: [arn-l] from USA Today


It must be teachers' fault that the Department, States and  districts 
are
using NCLB incorrectly !!!


     Report, suit  question teacher  qualifications
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

A federal lawsuit and a new report challenge the  Bush administration's 
rules
on teacher credentials, saying they fail to  ensure that students have 
a
highly qualified teacher. But the lawsuit and  the report offer 
diverging
recommendations for fixing the problem.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in San Francisco by  several civil rights 
groups,
challenges the U.S. Education Department's  regulations for "highly 
qualified
teachers," saying the department has  watered down the standard by 
allowing
thousands of teachers-in-training in  California and elsewhere to be 
declared
highly qualified before they even  finish training.
Poor and minority students, the suit says, are more  likely to be 
taught by
interns; in many cases, about 12% of poor students'  teachers are 
interns.
Statewide, only about 3% of teachers are  interns.
Amy Wilkins of The Education Trust, an advocacy  group, says the 
Education
Department "has failed miserably" in ensuring  that all students have 
highly
qualified teachers. She also says the state  of California and its 
school
districts "have sought to undermine the  intent of the law at every 
turn."
The Education Department did not immediately respond  to a request for
comment.

The report, from the Center on Education Policy, a  Washington think 
tank
that has monitored Bush's No Child Left Behind  education reform law, 
says the
law has had little effect on either student  achievement or the 
qualifications
of the teacher workforce. But it  recommends the federal government 
give states
more leeway, not less, in  how they define a qualified teacher.

Quan





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