States and districts have much more flexibility to meet the "highly qualified teacher" requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act than most people acknowledge; in fact, states have an historic opportunity to revamp their teacher preparation and certification systems, according to Michael Petrilli, Associate Deputy Under Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education. In a speech given last week at a regional teacher quality summit in Austin, Texas, Petrilli challenged state and district leaders to imagine a new preparation and certification system for teachers that doesn't erect unnecessary barriers to talented people who want to teach, but instead seeks out talented people and brings them into schools. "If they want to, [states] can dramatically streamline their processes, and create alternate routes to full state certification that target talented people who would be turned off by traditional preparation and certification programs," Petrilli noted. "For example, states could adopt the new system created by the American Board for the Certification of Teacher Excellence, an organization supported by a Department of Education grant that has created an extremely rigorous assessment system for new teachers, in both content areas and professional teaching knowledge," he continued. "States could decide that individuals who pass the relevant sections of the American Board assessment would be considered fully certified to teach, regardless of where they learned the important knowledge and skills that were tested. While good schools would certainly give those teachers strong mentoring, induction and professional development opportunities, from the state regulators' perspective the teacher would have met all necessary requirements to teach." "Be bold," Petrilli urged. "Consider whether you can create a route to full certification for highly talented people, people with strong academic skills, perhaps with specific experiences working with children, but routes that will make it more likely for these people to say yes to teaching."
