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CONCORD, CA -- Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the senior Democrat on the House education committee, issued the following statement today in response to a new report on teacher quality from the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights:
“This new report aptly calls teacher quality a ‘paramount civil rights issue for school children’ and helps explain why far too many poor and minority children still do not have teachers with the same experience and subject-matter expertise as do other children.
“The No Child Left Behind law required states to place highly qualified teachers into every classroom to teach every child – regardless of race or income – by the end of the 2005-2006 year. But no state met this requirement. The Department of Education has extended the deadline by one year and it is imperative that, this time, the Department vigorously monitor and enforce it.
“This new report is based on the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights’ review of 40 states and finds ‘stunning evidence of what little progress most states had made on implementing teacher quality and teacher equity provisions of the law.’ The report also examines why no state met the teacher quality deadline, finding that implementing these teacher quality and equity provisions of the law was not a priority for either the states or the Bush administration in the first three years after the law was enacted.
“It is time for states and the Bush administration to treat teacher quality as the priority it has always been. When disadvantaged students are taught by teachers with less experience or less subject matter expertise, they lose time and learning opportunities that they are unlikely to ever get back. When disadvantaged students are taught by outstanding teachers, their academic achievement soars.
“All children, regardless of race or income, deserve to be taught by highly-qualified teachers. Congress should debate this issue and then do what needs to be done to finally ensure that every classroom is headed by a teacher who will unlock their students’ unlimited potential.”
Last year, Miller introduced the TEACH Act of 2005, intended to attract and retain highly qualified teachers to America’s public schools. For more information, click here.
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