Defining “Highly Qualified Teachers”: What Does “Scientifically-Based Research” Actually Tell Us?

The Secretary’s report accurately claims that “researchers have found that some teachers are much more effective than others” (2002, p. 7). Studies using valueadded student achievement data have found that student achievement gains are much more influenced by a student’s assigned teacher than other factors like class size and class composition (Sanders & Horn, 1994; Sanders & Rivers, 1996; Wright, Horn, & Sanders, 1997). A recent analysis by Rivkin, Hanushek, and Kain (2001) attributes at least 7% of the total variance in test-score gains to differences in teachers. The Secretary’s report asserts, however, that “there is little evidence that education school course work leads to improved student achievement” (2002, p. 19), stating that the evidence about “knowledge of pedagogy, degrees in education or amount of time spent practice teaching”—which are the “requirements that make up the bulk of current teacher certification regimes”—is surrounded by a “great deal of contention” (p. 8). To support the assertion that “virtually all” of the studies linking certification and improved student outcomes are “not scientifically rigorous,” the Secretary’s report cites a report by Kate Walsh (2001), written for the Baltimore-based Abell Foundation,2 which asserts that there is “no credible research that supports the use of teacher certification as a regulatory barrier to teaching” (p. 5). Unfortunately, Walsh’s report excludes much of the evidence on the topic, misrepresents many research findings, makes inaccurate claims about studies that have examined the consequences In July 2002, the U.S. Secretary of Education issued the Secretary’s Annual Report on Teacher Quality (U.S. Department of Education) as required by the 1998 reauthorization of Title II of the Higher Education Act. In this report titled Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge the Secretary essentially argues for the dismantling of teacher education systems and the redefinition of teacher qualifications to include little preparation for teaching. Stating that current teacher certification systems are “broken,” and that they impose “burdensome requirements” for education coursework that make up “the bulk of current teacher certification regimes” (p. 8), the report argues that certification should be redefined to emphasize higher standards for verbal ability and content knowledge and to de-emphasize requirements for education coursework—making student teaching and attendance at schools of education optional and eliminating “other bureaucratic hurdles” (p. 19). These conclusions rest on the following arguments, each of which is addressed in turn in this article: • Teachers matter for student achievement, but teacher education and certification are not related to teacher effectiveness. • Verbal ability and subject matter knowledge are the most important components of teacher effectiveness. • Teachers who have completed teacher education programs are academically weak and are underprepared for their jobs. • Alternative certification programs (ACPs) have academically stronger recruits who are highly effective and have high rates of teacher retention. The report suggests that its recommendations are based on “solid research.” However, none of these arguments has strong empirical support, and the report does not cite the scientific literature that addresses them: Only one reference among the report’s 44 footnotes is to a study that was eventually published in a peer-reviewed journal, and the study’s findings are misrepresented in the report. Most references are to newspaper articles or to documents published by advocacy organizations, some of these known for their vigorous opposition to teacher education.1 Although an accurate review of rigorous research on teacher qualifications and their relationship to student achievement could provide useful guidance to state policymakers, such a review is not to be found in this report. Instead, the Secretary’s report fails to meet the Department of Education’s own standards for the use of scientifically based research to formulate policy. The report cites almost no research that would meet scientific standards, misrepresents findings from a large number of sources, and includes many unsupported statements about teacher education and teacher certification. Whatever the contributions of this report to the debates on teacher quality, an accurate rendering of the research base on these important topics is not one of them. In this article we discuss the research base that treats the arguments made in support of the report’s recommendations and suggest that different conclusions would derive from a well-grounded rendering of the evidence. Research News and Comment