WASHINGTON — A new public school teacher in North Dakota works for a year on probation before getting job security. For a teacher in Missouri, it's five years.

It's just one example of how policies affecting the teaching profession vary from state to state, according to a report by the National Council on Teacher Quality, a private group in Washington.

Just as the federal No Child Left Behind education law is being rewritten on Capitol Hill, state laws nationwide need reworking, the nonpartisan group says.

"For the most part the current system is a mix of broken, counterproductive and anachronistic policies in need of an overhaul," says the report, which summarizes each state's laws and regulations affecting teachers.

The group found differences in how teachers are evaluated, prepared, licensed and compensated — all factors that affect teaching quality.

Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said the variation in policies makes little sense, but she stopped short of calling for national standards for teachers.

"I've seen some states do some good things that I know wouldn't happen if they were all in the same room trying to do it," Walsh said.

One example of how states differ from each other, and the labor market more broadly, involves teacher evaluations.

While annual reviews may be a fact of life in many businesses, only about a quarter of states require annual evaluations for teachers, according to the report. Hawai'i, Missouri and Tennessee let teachers go as long as five years without a formal review, the report says.

And only about half the states require that reviews include a classroom observation.

Richard Ingersoll, a professor of education and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, says that's unwise. "Evaluations are important. These are employees that are working with our children," he said.

But Massachusetts commissioner of education David Driscoll said states are reluctant to create too many requirements in this area. In large schools, he said, principals may not have time to review every teacher annually.

The majority of teachers go through undergraduate education programs at colleges or universities. But states, which approve these schools, set weak standards for them, according to the report.

For example, it finds that only nine states — California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Texas and Washington — require that aspiring elementary-school teachers take an introductory American history class in education school.

"You want to make sure the teacher knows something about the American Revolution and the Civil War," Walsh said.

The report finds that many states make it difficult for people who did not graduate from education schools to become teachers. Barriers include requiring large amounts of coursework and only allowing colleges, not other nonprofits or school districts, to run teacher preparation programs, the report says.

"It's OK to put up criteria of quality and rigor," Driscoll said, adding, however, that states should not "be making people jump through hoops that aren't important." The report gives Massachusetts good marks for bringing people with different backgrounds into teaching.

Similarly, veteran teachers should be able to move easily between states by taking licensing tests showing they meet the new state's standards, the report says. Instead, newcomers are more likely to have to take additional course work, which can be expensive and time-consuming.