NCLB effects on teacher quality

The US Department of Education released results of a study examining how the current incarnation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (“No Child Left Behind”) has affected the quality of the faculties in US schools. The report, entitled State and Local Implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, Volume II: Teacher Quality under NCLB: Interim Report (2007), is lengthy and detailed. Here is a snippet from the executive summary:

Based on findings from two federally funded studies-the Study of State Implementation of Accountability and Teacher Quality Under NCLB (SSI-NCLB) and the National Longitudinal Study of NCLB (NLS-NCLB)-this report describes the progress that states, districts, and schools have made implementing the teacher and paraprofessional qualification provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act through 2004–05. Generally, the studies found that:

• Most teachers met their states’ requirements to be considered highly qualified under NCLB. However, state policies concerning highly qualified teachers varied greatly, both in the passing scores that new teachers must meet to demonstrate content knowledge on assessments and in the extent to which state “HOUSSE” policies give existing teachers credit for years of prior teaching experience versus emphasizing more direct measures of content knowledge and teaching performance.
• The percentage of teachers who are not highly qualified under NCLB is higher for special education teachers, teachers of LEP students and middle school teachers, as well as for teachers in high poverty and high minority schools. Moreover, even among teachers who were considered highly qualified, teachers in high poverty schools had less experience and were less likely to have a degree in the subject they taught.
• Although nearly all teachers 1 reported taking part in content focused professional development related to teaching reading or mathematics, a relatively small proportion participated in such learning opportunities for an extended period of time. For example, only 20 percent of elementary teachers participated for more than 24 hours in professional development on instructional strategies in reading; 2 only 8 percent received more than 24 hours of professional development on instructional strategies in mathematics.
• About two thirds of instructional paraprofessionals were considered qualified under NCLB, but nearly a third (28 percent) did not know their status or did not provide a response to the study questions. Most paraprofessionals reported working under the direct supervision of a teacher, but some Title I instructional paraprofessionals indicated that they worked with students on their own without close supervision from a teacher.

Link to a page from which you can secure a copy of the executive summary or the full report.