Researcher Meets the Policy Realm: A Personal Account

Few educational problems have received more attention in recent times than the failure to ensure that our nation’s elementary and secondary classrooms are all staffed with qualified teachers. Over the past couple of decades, dozens of studies, commissions, and national reports have bemoaned the quality of our teachers. As a result, there have been numerous policies and initiatives enacted at the federal, state, and local levels. The most significant of these efforts has been the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), enacted in 2002, which set an unprecedented goal to ensure that students are all taught by “highly qualified” teachers. These policies and initiatives have for the most part focused on either upgrading the education and preparation requirements for teachers, or on increasing recruitment and the incoming supply of teachers