Utah teacher quality falls short

Twenty-eight percent of Utah teachers are not highly qualified to instruct students in core academic subjects based on federal regulations, leaving the state short of the No Child Left Behind's 100 percent goal due this spring.

But the U.S. Department of Education says Utah is making a good-faith effort to reach the goal. The State Office of Education notes teachers meet state licensing standards and cautions parents not to jump to conclusions.

"These are federal standards," said Larry Shumway, state director of educator quality and licensing. "As a parent, I think it's useful information, but always in the context of what I know about my local school and my child's teacher."

No Child Left Behind requires all students, regardless of ethnicity, poverty, language barriers or disability, to be reading and doing math well by 2014.

But the law also contains requirements for teacher quality to ensure students can meet those goals.

Basically, teachers must have majored in each subject they teach. That has proven tough for special education teachers, who might teach several subjects to their students, and those who teach, say, physics, chemistry, and math in a small, rural school with few resources to hire teachers for each subject.

Schools receiving Title I money, targeted at low-income areas, must notify parents if their child's teacher doesn't meet the federal standard.

The State Office of Education also posted its highly qualified teacher statistics online (see delleat.usoe.k12.ut.us/u-passweb/DisplayStateHQTeacherLinkPDF.jsp) following a federal review conducted earlier this month.

Overall, 72 percent of core academic classes — language arts, math, science, social studies, the arts and foreign language — were taught by highly qualified teachers in the 2004-05 school year. That's up from 69 percent the year before.

Just over 80 percent of teachers are highly qualified in both high- and low-poverty elementaries. But there are fewer highly qualified teachers in high-poverty middle and high schools — 60 percent — than in low-poverty schools, where 75 percent of teachers meet the standard.

District and charter school marks vary, but elementaries are more likely to have highly qualified teachers than secondary schools, where lessons become more specialized.

In Emery County, for instance, 91.4 percent of elementary teachers are highly qualified, compared to 43.6 percent of secondary schoolteachers.