A Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom?: Appraising Old Answers and New Ideas

A Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom? lays out new approaches for ensuring high-quality teacher preparation while offering a candid assessment of the obstacles that may impede the implementation of such new models.

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, states will have to ensure that every public school classroom is staffed by a highly qualified teacher. This mandate--and the fact that many children, especially low-income and minority students, are taught by underqualified teachers ill-equipped for the challenges ahead--gives new urgency to debates over teacher recruitment, preparation, and induction.

For several years, these debates have been dominated by competing groups of partisans. One denies that teaching requires a professional base of knowledge and skill, while the other tries to promote professionalism by ensuring that traditional programs retain their control over licensure and formal certification. The conflict confuses policymakers, frustrates educators, and stifles potentially promising solutions.

In this volume, eleven contributors with rich experience in policy and teaching take a fresh look at a number of issues, including:

• Current systems for preparing and licensing teachers, and how they affect the quality and supply of teachers in the work force;
• An array of reform models for teacher preparation and licensure, and what they would mean for the profession;
• Questions of rigor and ideology in the core curricula of education schools or programs;
• The federal role in teacher preparation and licensure, especially in light of NCLB.

Frederick M. Hess is director of Educational Policy Studies and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also the executive editor of Education Next. Andrew J. Rotherham is director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s 21st Century Schools Project and a former special assistant to President Bill Clinton on domestic policy. Kate Walsh is president of the National Council on Teacher Quality.