Steve Sawchuk writes in yesterday's Education Daily ($) about states' progress in meeting the NCLB requirement that 100% of teachers in core academic classes be highly qualified.

There's more progress than you'd think. Sawchuk writes, "Several states have submitted preliminary 2006–07 data to the Education Department indicating that all core academic classes are now taught by highly qualified teachers."

Several states?  All core academic classes?  Yowza!  Universal proficiency should be right around the corner then. 

The article breaks down the national numbers:

• In high-poverty elementary schools, 93.5 percent of courses are taught by HQTs, compared to 96.7 percent in low-poverty elementary schools.

• In high-poverty secondary schools, 88.6 percent of core classes are taught by HQTs, compared to 95.3 percent in low-poverty secondary schools.

Of all the rich-poor gaps in our society, thess have to rank among the smallest. We know teacher quality, not to be confused with HQT status, affects student achievement, but we this kind of statistical information raises more questions than it answers.  Here are a few: 

Has NCLB done anything to improve teacher quality for children in poor neighborhoods?

What can a reauthorized law do to improve teacher quality?  (The AFT has a few thoughts on that.)

Does the law's definition of "highly qualified teacher" have any connection to teacher quality?

Do these small gaps in HQT explain all or some of the achievement gap?

How much more effort should we expend trying to narrow the rich-poor HQT gap and reach 100%?

And, of course, Is our children learning? 

A friend raises the important point that these national figures, which look pretty good, may hide some districts with much lower numbers or much larger gaps.