U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige's Monday announcement of changes to No Child Left Behind's teacher quality provisions brought quick and passionate reactions from both sides of the debate. Three basic changes were made to the regs. First, teachers in rural schools who teach multiple subjects need only be highly qualified in one subject area by January 2006 and have an additional three years to become highly qualified in any other subject areas they teach. Second, states may decide if science teachers ought to be certified in a specific field of science or in a general science certification. Third, multi- subject teachers (particularly middle school and special education teachers) only have to submit to one process to meet the state's standards for highly qualified teachers. Up until now, a teacher who taught math and science would have to go through the state process twice, once for math and once for science. This also implies that states now have to establish new standards that describe the credentials expected of teachers of multiple subjects.

The National Education Association, no friend of Secretary Paige, commented, "The debate is no longer on whether NCLB and its implementation is flawed and needs to be fixed, but on what needs to be fixed." Conversely, Ross Wiener, Policy Director at the Education Trust, warned, "The Department has done more today to show states how they can avoid addressing teacher quality problems than help them address the substance of these problems&Students from low-income families and students of color will disproportionately suffer the consequences."

Our own sense is that folks at the Department are feeling dumped upon, weary of defending a law that was enacted under a proud and vocal bipartisan spirit. This spirit has evaporated for four reasons:

1. first and foremost, the upcoming November elections;
2. from the start, the total unwillingness of most state departments of education to serve as good foot soldiers for the law instead they are out there fanning the flames of discontent in their school districts;
3. the Department was caught off guard, realizing only too late that people don't like change no matter how laudatory the goals are; and
4. a law that was passed in the middle of the night which contained language that even its primary authors knew nothing about has some flaws surprise, surprise that may ultimately have to be addressed.

Could the NCLB teacher provisions use some revision? Yep, but the revisions ought not to be just about showing how flexible the feds are willing to be but about holding states' feet to the fire to get them to take this issue more seriously. Most states simply are not. The Department's actions may have been appropriate, but changes ought to be pursued only in the interest of doing what is right for students, not because states and teacher unions can't stop grumbling.