Title: What makes a great teacher? | Parenting
Headings: What makes a great teacher?
What makes a great teacher?
Here are some characteristics of great teachers
What No Child Left Behind means for teacher quality
Next page: How parents can advocate for qualified teachers
How parents can advocate for qualified teachers
Recommendations from the National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future
Additional resources

Content: Middle and high school teachers must demonstrate competency in the subject area they teach by passing a test or by completing an academic major, graduate degree or comparable course work. These requirements already apply to all new hires. Advertisement
Schools are required to tell parents about the qualifications of all teachers, and they must notify parents if their child is taught for more than four weeks by a teacher who is not highly qualified. Schools that do not comply risk losing federal funding. Although the law required states to have highly qualified teachers in every core academic classroom by the end of the 2005-2006 school year, not a single state met that deadline. Advertisement
The U.S. Department of Education then required states to show how they intended to fulfill the requirement. Most states satisfied the government that they were making serious efforts, but a few were told to come up with new plans. Next page: How parents can advocate for qualified teachers
How parents can advocate for qualified teachers
Over the next decade, schools in the United States will be faced with the daunting task of hiring 2 million teachers. We know that high-quality teachers make all the difference in the classroom.