The National Council on Teacher Quality comes out swinging in its 2007 State Teacher Policy Yearbook, looking at state progress on teacher quality. They looked at each state and Washington DC, evaluating its progress on a matrix of 27 goals related to teacher quality for a total of over 1,300 separate analyses. What did they discover? "States as a group meet or come close to meeting just 21 percent of the goals, with no state meeting even half of the goals."

These goals include equitable distribution of quality teachers across the state, professionalization of teacher training and licensure, value-added teacher evaluation, accountability for teacher preparation and alternative certification programs, and improvements to the preparation of special ed teachers.

Some of the specific shortcomings the report sees nationally:

STATES ARE NOT PAYING ENOUGH ATTENTION TO WHO GOES INTO TEACHING. States provide significant funding to teacher preparation programs, particularly in state-funded universities, yet there is little oversight of candidates’ academic caliber.

This is interesting vis-a-vis the IERC study from a few weeks ago that found that new teachers with strong academic backgrounds were likelier than others to leave the profession quickly. Could this be related to another shortcoming seen in the NCTQ analysis--that states aren't doing an adequate job of monitoring the quality of teacher preparation these students are receiving?

The report berates states for not relying on their own licensing tests and allowing teachers to teach for months or even years before having to show competence on a licensing exam, something no other highly trained profession allows. If states don't rely on the tests and don't trust them to measure whether someone is minimally qualified to become a teacher, what is their purpose?

Most damning, the report argues that in most states:

THE INTERESTS OF ADULTS FREQUENTLY COME BEFORE THE NEEDS OF THE CHILDREN. Far too many accommodations are made for teachers in the areas of testing, tenure and evaluations, risking the possibility that too many children could suffer significant academic harm from a bad teacher.

This is a BIG report (and this is just the summary! There are full-length state-by-state reports, too), but there's lots here to think about. To keep it manageable, I suggest focusing on pages 6-11 and then popping over to page 29 to see about Illinois. Hungry for more? Pages 68-121 go through each of the 27 goals in some detail, including listing which states are meeting each goal. (The website also has a neat interactive map that shows a summary of this info).

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