Rural Teachers and No Child Left Behind

The U.S. Department of Education as made some common-sense clarifications to the highly qualified teacher requirements. As noted in Teacher Update #8, these requirements provide that all teachers of core academic subjects have a bachelor's degree, be certified by the state, and demonstrate subject-matter competency in each of the core subjects they are teaching. For rural teachers who teach multiple subjects, these requirements may present a significant challenge.

To assist rural teachers and schools, the secretary of education determined that if newly hired teachers in rural school districts (as defined by the Rural Education Achievement Program) are highly qualified in at least one subject they teach, they would have three additional years to become highly qualified in additional subjects. The eligible districts must provide teachers taking advantage of this flexibility with professional development and intense supervision or structured mentoring, as they earn additional subject-matter competencies. The secretary also determined that practicing teachers in these rural school districts would have an additional year to become highly qualified in each of the core subjects they are teaching (i.e., until the end of the 2006-07 school year.)

Links for Teachers

Is your school in a district defined as rural by the Rural Education Achievement Program? Find out at www.ed.gov/programs/reapsrsa/eligible04/index.html.

View the March 15th announcement of additional flexibility for rural teachers at www.ed.gov/nclb/methods/teachers/hqtflexibility.html.

eLearning for Teachers

The Department of Education added the session "No Child Left Behind Basics" to their professional development Web site at www.ed.gov/teacherinitiative.