Teacher qualifications

Question:
Do you have any information on high school teacher qualifications in their teaching assignments?

Response:
Current federal education legislation requires school districts to measure and report on teacher qualifications, both to ensure that students are being taught by highly qualified teachers and to ensure that teachers are distributed equitably across schools, regardless of student demographics. Teachers are certified by the state in which they teach. The 2007� Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) asked teachers whether they were certified in the subject that they taught most often (referred to as their main assignment), as well as what their major was in college.

Twelve percent of teachers whose main assignment was secondary mathematics had neither a major nor a certification in the subject. This percentage was higher than the percentage of English teachers or science teachers that had neither qualification (8 and 4 percent, respectively). For schools with at least half White enrollment, 8 percent of mathematics teachers had neither qualification, which was lower than the overall rate and the rate for schools with at least half Black enrollment (25 percent). Other differences between racial/ethnic groups could not be distinguished, in part due to large standard errors.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2010). Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups (NCES 2010-015).

Percentage of public high school-level teachers who reported a major and a certification in their main assignment, by selected main assignments: 2007�
Selected main assignment	Total	Major in main assignment			No major in assignment
		Total	Certified	Not certified	Total	Certified	Not certified
Mathematics	100.0	71.6	59.8	11.8	28.4	16.2	12.2
English	100.0	81.9	66.6	15.4	18.1	9.7	8.4
Science	100.0	83.6	70.5	13.1	16.4	11.9	4.5

NOTE: Race categories exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2010). Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups (NCES 2010-015).

Related Tables and Figures:  (Listed by Release Date)

• 2012, Digest of Education Statistics 2011, Table 179. States requiring testing for initial certification of elementary and secondary teachers, by skills or knowledge assessment and state: 2010 and 2011
  
• 2012, Digest of Education Statistics 2011, Table 75. Percentage of public school teachers of grades 9 through 12, by field of main teaching assignment and selected demographic and educational characteristics: 2007-08
  
• 2012, The Condition of Education 2012: Characteristics of Full-Time School Teachers
  
• 2010, The Condition of Education 2010: Newly Hired Teachers
  

Other Resources:  (Listed by Release Date)

• 2010, Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS): This site offers extensive data on American public and private elementary and secondary schools.Teachers, principals, schools, school districts and library media centers are components of the SASS survey system.