New Jersey School Boards Association, 413 West State Street, P.O. Box 909, Trenton, NJ  08605-0909
Telephone: (609) 278-5202  ●  Fax: (609) 695-0413  ●  Web site: www.njsba.org/PI 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New NCLB Policies on Highly Qualified Teachers

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2004—U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige announced this week three new policies that would give teachers greater flexibility in demonstrating that they are highly qualified under the No Child Left Behind Act. These new policies, which take effect immediately, will address the particular challenges of teachers who teach more than one subject, especially science teachers and those in rural districts.

Science Teachers For science teachers, the Department’s guidance will allow states the flexibility to use their own certification standards to determine subject-matter competency, rather than requiring it for each science subject.

Rural Areas One of the new provisions recognizes that teachers in small, rural and isolated areas are often assigned to teach multiple subjects, face unique challenges in meeting the highly qualified provisions in all subjects they teach, and may need additional time to meet the requirements. As long as teachers in eligible districts are highly qualified in at least one subject, they will have three more years to become highly qualified in the additional subjects they teach. Newly hired teachers would have until their third year of teaching to meet that requirement.

For example, if a state certifies teachers in the general field of science, a science teacher may demonstrate subject-matter competency through a “broad field” test or major. If a state requires certification or licensure in the specific science subjects, such as chemistry, biology or physics, the teacher would be required to demonstrate competency in each of the subjects.

Multiple Subjects The third provision assists current teachers who teach multiple subjects, particularly teachers in middle schools and those teaching students with special needs. Under the law, current teachers have the option—instead of taking a test or going back to school—to demonstrate subject-matter competency through a process called High Objective Uniform State Standard of Evaluation (HOUSSE). This process may include a teacher’s years of experience, high-quality professional development success as measured by a teacher’s student test scores, continuing education and other objective evaluations. The new policy streamlines the HOUSSE process by allowing teachers to demonstrate subject-matter knowledge through one procedure for all the subjects they teach.

The New Jersey Department of Education will decide whether to approve the U.S. Department of Education’s new flexibility provisions. Once decided, the Department will likely specify the details of the revisions and the procedures for implementation in New Jersey. 

NJSBA Advocacy Efforts NJSBA has been working hard to promote greater flexibility in NCLB. These new flexibility provisions from the U.S. Department of Education is welcome, but still falls short of solving some of the basic implementation problems with the law.

To see what your board can do to assist NJSBA with its lobbying efforts, log on to www.njsba.org and click on No Child Left Behind. From there, click on Report & Sample Resolution: Change NCLB Now! for information on how to pass a board resolution.

   pi/www/2004/NCLB changes - mar18