Until last week, out-of-state and newly graduated teachers who wanted to work in North Carolina were required to pass a subject-area test to teach in that state's middle and high school classrooms. Last Thursday, however, faced with a worsening teacher shortage and pressure from legislators to alleviate it, the state board of education dropped the test in the hopes of recruiting more of out-of-state teachers. According to William Harrison, superintendent of schools in Cumberland County and chair of the committee that developed the new policy, "Teachers in Pennsylvania may not come to North Carolina if they find they have to jump through a few more hoops. [Dropping the test] will make our task a little less taxing." Ironically, state board leaders are using the oft-derided No Child Left Behind act as an excuse to lower state teaching standards. The highly-qualified teacher provisions of NCLB, they claim, give schools "an extra measure of quality control" to shield them from hiring poor teachers. Unfortunately, it seems more likely that this policy change will make it easier for less-than highly qualified teachers to fly under the NCLB radar. Why didn't North Carolina INSTEAD allow its own residents to become teachers simply by PASSING a subject-matter test rather than enduring the hoops of traditional teacher-training and certification?
"Hurdle removed for teachers," by Todd Silberman, News & Observer, January 9, 2004