Who'll teach in tough schools?

Larry Brewer works in a school the federal government labels as "needing improvement."

He shares his time with children who might have been abused, be homeless, just learning to speak English, or whose emotional issues cause them to "act out."

He considers it a privilege.

"This is, in my estimation, the crowning experience of my career. This is better than anything I got to do as principal," said Brewer, a retired Davis County school administrator who teaches social studies at Central Middle School in inner-city Ogden.

"It's a very human, a deeply human, place, a place where people from many different backgrounds and diverse upbringings are brought together and seeking and searching for identity and acceptance."

Utah schools need more teachers who see things the way he does.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act is putting pressure on school districts to have high-quality, veteran teachers working in inner-city schools. Already, some Utah schools are not meeting the letter of the law.

But with challenges associated with working in an inner-city school, some professionals question how they're going to live up to the federal standard.

"If you had a job that was extremely stressful, and you didn't feel successful, you'd move on, right?" said Utah Education Association president Pat Rusk. "(Some teachers take inner-city assignments) to get a job . . . until something better or easier comes along, just like everyone else."

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The No Child Left Behind Act, a 2001 federal law designed to ensure schools address the needs of every student, requires teachers to be "highly qualified."

There are several criteria for determining what that means, and Utah education leaders, like those in other states, are still trying to make sense of it all.

But basically, "highly qualified" means the teacher has a teaching certificate, bachelor's degree and demonstrated competency in the subject the individual is teaching. High-poverty schools also can't have a disproportionate number of teachers with three or fewer years of experience. Disproportionate, in this case, means higher than the district average number of teachers with that experience level.

Yet schools with high rates of students living in poverty, learning English as a second language, and moving at least once during the year typically have a higher teacher turnover rate than more homogenous, suburban schools.