2,900 state teachers unqualified, firm says
Associated Press
A private consulting firm hired by the Department of Education says 2,900 Hawai'i public school teachers don't meet federal standards and are underqualified to teach their subjects.
The problem especially affects secondary schools where teachers handle such core subjects as math, science, social studies, English and foreign languages.
Oregon-based School Synergy says 22 percent of the Islands' 13,000 teachers do not qualify under the No Child Left Behind law. To be graded as "highly qualified," teachers must have a bachelor's degree, a state teaching license and proven competence in all subjects they teach.
The Oregon group recommends that Hawai'i develop programs to encourage more students to be teachers and more teachers to improve their qualifications.
Initially, the state Education Department calculated that more than twice as many teachers — 6,200 — might be unqualified to teach their subjects for this school year. But after reviewing teachers' credentials, the figure was lowered to 2,900.
The School Synergy data shows that Hawai'i has trouble attracting experienced teachers to higher grades.
For the 2005-06 school year, the Education Trust ranked Hawai'i 47th among states in the percentage of secondary students taught by highly qualified teachers — 77 percent. The education advocacy group puts the figure for elementary grades at 97 percent.
"At the secondary level, there clearly is a problem," said Candice Crawford of the trust. She indicated this could account for lower scores by Hawai'i students in national testing.
Synergy has a $250,000 contract with the state to help schools meet federal standards for teachers.
Under the NCLB law, states were supposed to have all teachers fit the highly qualified label by the 2005-06 school year. None made it, so the federal Education Department demanded new state plans.
The federal government last year scored Hawai'i as one of four states that needs a better plan for hiring highly qualified public school teachers. The state gets nearly $13 million in annual federal funds to help teachers become highly qualified.
