The Percentage of Highly Qualified Math/Science Teachers and Variables that Affect the Likelihood of Being Highly Qualified, by State, Before and After NCLB

Abstract

A major concern of educators today is to ensure that our nation's elementary and secondary schools are staffed with qualified teachers. The quality of teachers and teaching undoubtedly becomes one of the most important factors in shaping the learning and growth of students. The assignment of teachers to teach out-of-field is believed by some to be a contributor to low quality teaching. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 established a nationwide goal of reducing and eliminating gaps between groups of students, and recognized the key to improving student learning and closing achievement gaps depends upon access to highly qualified teachers for all students. The purpose of this study was to see how state teacher certification requirements changed after No Child Left Behind Act and whether NCLB affected the percentage of highly qualified teachers in each state. The practical purpose of this study was to ascertain whether NCLB and middle school licensure requirement reform have had an effect on the number of highly qualified and non-highly qualified middle-school teachers in hard to staff areas like math and science. Using Schools and Staffing Survey data from school years 1999-2000 and 2003-2004, this study found that on the average there was a slight increase in percent middle-school science teachers with science majors from 1999-2000 to 2003-2004 but a decrease in percent of fully certified math and science teachers and a decrease in middle-school math teachers with math majors. Certain states, Nebraska, Alabama, District of Columbia, New York and New Jersey were consistently high in percent majors while certain other states, Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, Arizona and North Carolina were consistently low with Kentucky low in both categories (percent fully certified middle-school math teachers with math majors, percent fully certified middle-school science teachers with science majors) during both school years. Some states increased in both percent fully certified and majors in both math and science: Minnesota, North Dakota, and New Hampshire. Vermont, DC, Michigan and Ohio decreased in both of these categories. To show statistical significance, a logistic regression and odds ratio was done to compare states' likelihood of having matched teachers (which means fully certified with a major in the field taught) to Kansas's teachers' likelihood of being matched. This revealed that teachers who taught in DC were 615% more likely to be matched than those who taught in Kansas during 1999-2000. Only teachers who taught in Minnesota have greater odds of being matched than Kansas teachers during both 1999-2000 and 2003-2004. A regression analysis showed that certain teacher factors affected the likelihood of a teacher being matched. These variables were middle-school teacher who teaches in high school vs. middle-school teacher who teaches in middle school or elementary school, fully certified vs. not fully certified, and, male vs. female. The individual state certification requirements were compiled from before and after NCLB and compared to see if licensure changes affected how states fared in percent majors and fully certified. After NCLB, several states added middle level endorsements in math and science that increased teachers' opportunities to become highly qualified. Some states increased the stringency to become highly qualified by adding content preparation requirements and/or "specific subjects required." These changes were considered positive changes in certification requirements after NCLB. A negative change after NCLB was the decrease in content preparation requirements, or changing from requiring specific subjects to not requiring these subjects. The results of this study did not show any particular trend in terms of which states tended to increase or decrease in the percent of full certification and major of middle-school math and science teachers from both years of SASS data. It showed that there were particular states that had increased or decreased in their percent of full certification and major but no correlation emerged.