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No Child Left Behind Highly Qualified Status

The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 requires that all teachers teaching in core academic subject areas must be "highly qualified" (HQ) no later than the end of the 2005/06 school year. The core academic subject areas are defined as English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science (biology, chemistry, earth science, physics, and physical science), foreign languages (French, German, Latin, and Spanish), civics and government, economics, arts (visual arts and music), history, and geography. Teachers must be fully licensed in the state in which they teach with no licensure requirements waived. The emphasis of reaching HQ status, beyond the state license, is on content knowledge.

Each state must receive federal approval for its plan for measures of HQ status for its teachers. At this time, plans differ from state to state in terms of HQ measures and federal approval status. Teacher education students are urged to research HQ measures in each state in which they plan to pursue a teaching license and teaching position.

In general, when a Vanderbilt student first qualifies for a teaching license, HQ status is already met under the following circumstances that meet the federally-approved plan.

• For Secondary 7-12 Licensed Teachers
  Vanderbilt students are urged to pass the PRAXIS II content exam(s) for each endorsement on their teaching license. This means that the teacher is HQ to teach that endorsement subject. (Note: The teacher is also HQ to teach the subject(s) for which they have a major or 24 semester hours of course work — even though the teacher may not meet licensure requirements for those subjects.)
• For Elementary K-8 Licensed Teachers
  Vanderbilt students are urged to pass the PRAXIS II "Elementary School: Content Knowledge," code 10014, exam for the elementary K-6 endorsement. This means that the teacher is HQ to teach elementary curricula in grades K-6. Elementary teachers who want to be HQ to teach in middle grades 7-8 in Tennessee would need to pass additional tests that are specific to core academic subject areas (i.e., English/language arts [PRAXIS II test code 0049], math [PRAXIS II test code 0069], science [PRAXIS II test code 0439], social studies [PRAXIS II test code 0089]) they want to be identified as HQ to teach in grades 7-8.
• For Special Education Teachers
  Whether or not you are required to meet HQ status depends on the nature of what and who you are teaching. If you are the teacher of record (if you are the teacher assigning the grade), you must be HQ for all the core subjects for which you assign a grade. The same mechanism that applies to elementary and/or secondary teachers applies to teachers of special education students. Note: the grade level of instruction is key, not the chronological age of the student.