A Highly Qualified Teacher in Every Middle Grades Classroom: What States, Districts and Schools Can Do

by Sondra Cooney and Gene Bottoms

Teacher quality is one of the most critical issues facing the middle grades. SREB recommends seven key practices for increasing the number of highly qualified teachers in the middle grades: 1) require every new teacher to have a content major or minor in a content area; 2) establish subject-specific certificates for middle grades teachers and eliminate certificates that overlap grade levels; 3) encourage pre-teaching experiences that start early and that lead to at least 18 weeks of supervised teaching; 4) require mentoring programs for teachers with less than three years of experience; 5) offer incentives to highly qualified teachers in the middle grades; 6) require ongoing professional development in subject areas; and 7) evaluate professional development by its effects on student achievement.

Key words: teacher quality, No Child Left Behind, professional development, teacher certification, mentoring, content knowledge, teacher education

(02V56) Price: $2.50 each; 16 pages

Goal that it reflects: 3. Achievement in the middle grades for all groups of students exceeds national averages and performance gaps are closed.

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