Next up on Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s agenda to make D.C. Schools more accountable? Getting “highly qualified” teachers into the classrooms. Under the controversial law “No Child Left Behind,” all teachers must demonstrate that they are qualified to teach their subjects, usually by completing graduate coursework or passing certification tests like the Praxis series.
Last year, nearly half of all core subject classes taught in DC schools were taught by unqualified teachers. The worst-staffed subjects?
– Geography — 32.9 percent qualified
– History — 33.8 percent qualified
– Chemistry — 47.3 percent qualified
Editor’s note: Due to an error, we incorrectly listed the figures above as being the percent of teachers that were unqualified. Please note the corrected figures above.
We mentioned it briefly in this morning’s news roundup, but the Examiner reports this morning that Rhee is out to make sure teachers without “highly qualified status” are taking steps to get themselves qualified, or they’ll lose their jobs. Rhee is also trying to implement more rigorous standards for teacher qualification into the ongoing contract negotiations with the Washington Teachers’ Union.
Despite all of the talk about accountability, there are still some realities to be dealt with. Veteran teachers who remain uncertified often argue that their experience counts more than a test score, and it’s hard to foresee DCPS and the local public charters decreasing their dependence on alternative certification programs like Teach for America or the DC Teaching Fellows, which routinely hire uncertified teachers under provisional licenses. Teach for America, for example, currently has about 240 corps members teaching in the D.C. metro area. Those teachers earn certification by taking courses at local universities while teaching, yet a significant percentage leave the classroom by the time their temporary licenses expire, or right before they would have earned certification.
While getting rid of unqualified teachers is a necessary step, if the District also increased focus on teacher support and retention, we might also see less turnover and consequently less need to fill positions with new, unqualified staff.
