According to the federal government, a highly qualified teacher is one who has at least a bachelor's degree, full certification in the state he or she teaches and can demonstrate mastery in each core subject area he or she teaches. Each state determines certification and mastery specifics, although plans must be approved by the federal government.

While most states got credit for showing some effort, according to Department of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, each state has been issued new recommendations.

"Many states took this very seriously, recognizing that good teachers make all the difference in whether or not our children succeed in their studies," Spellings said in a statement.

States reports
Some states will have an easier time demonstrating compliance than others.

A majority of states -- 37 plus Washington, D.C. -- met only some of the criteria and must submit new data and plan improvements to the Department of Education by Sept. 29.

Four states: Hawaii, Missouri, Utah and Wisconsin, failed completely. They must submit new plans by Nov. 1 and undergo monthly auditing of their teacher quality data.

States that fail to submit new plans face possible sanctions, including the loss of federal education funds.

To date, the Department of Education has not announced when states would lose such funds and to what extent.

The remaining nine states received favorable reviews for submitting complete plans with creative ideas on how to improve teacher quality. They are: Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, South Carolina and South Dakota.

Getting qualified teachers in all school
Acknowledging that no state was likely to meet full compliance on teacher quality, last fall Spellings issued a new goal of 100 percent compliance by the end of the 2006-7 school year. States would not lose federal education money, if they showed a good faith effort in reaching the new goal.

In addition, the Education Department requested more details on how states were going to guarantee that highly qualified teachers are distributed equitably among all students, especially poor and minority students, a part of the law not previously addressed.

The Education Trust, a watchdog agency that advocates for underprivileged students, issued its own report of the states' data prior to the Department of Education. In it, the trust rebuked states for failing to guarantee equity of qualified teachers among the country's most disadvantaged schools.

"Most states failed to follow instructions and analyze inequity in a way that tells the public whether both groups of children -- those of color and those living in poverty -- get their fair share of teaching talent," the Education Trust said.

In Ohio, a state that the Education Trust said did provide good data and plans to improve teacher equity in its report, students in low-income and high minority schools were less likely to have highly qualified teachers.

"In schools with less than 10 percent of low-income students, only 1.5 percent of the teachers were not highly qualified as opposed to 11.9 percent in schools with 90-100 percent low-income students," the Ohio report to the Department of Education stated.

Nationally, according to the Education Trust, the statistics are worse.

"In high poverty secondary schools, 34 percent of classes are taught by out-of-field teachers while only 19 percent of classes in low poverty schools are taught by out-of-field teachers. Disparities are similar for high minority versus low minority secondary schools. At high minority schools, 29 percent of classes are taught by out-of-field teachers compared to 19 percent at low minority schools," Heather Peske, senior associate for teacher quality at the Education Trust, wrote in a statement.

But other education leaders expressed hope that with this new information states will meet their required equity goals, which are difficult, long-term missions.

"This is an area that's going to require work to address," Scott Palmer, a lawyer who consults with the Council of Chief State School Officers, a group that represents state education agencies, told the Honolulu Advertiser. "The hope is that, with this feedback, we will (get) there."

States' efforts to meet goals
South Carolina is one state that received passing marks from the Education Department. The state has a multi-faceted plan to acquire and retain highly qualified teachers.

The state has a variety of teacher programs that repay college loans for new graduates who agree to work in the neediest schools; pay teachers extra for taking on more responsibilities and increasing student achievement; and rehire retired teachers, who can then earn a salary as well as retirement benefits.

There is one program that brings extra qualified teachers -- many are national board certified -- into especially needy schools to act as teacher specialists. These teachers, who must meet stringent application qualifications, are paid one and a half the usual salary. On average they earn $21,000 more to work in these schools, according to State Deputy Superintendent Janice Poda.

"If they're willing to work in these districts we should be willing to pay them more money," Poda said.

Teacher specialist Jacqueline Gilyard is a 16-year veteran middle school math teacher who now mentors teachers and students at Fairfield Middle School, in Winnsboro, S.C.

She says she loves the program because she can impact more people.

"When I was a classroom teacher I only had an impact on those 70 to 80 students I had each year. Now I can make a difference with every child in the school," she said.

After analyzing data such as benchmark and diagnostic tests, Gilyard pinpoints which individual students and teachers need her assistance. She then participates in a variety of tasks from co-teaching to mentoring and tutoring to staff development.

Gilyard thinks the state should provide more programs like this, especially in rural districts that have a hard time retaining qualified teachers.

"With NCLB we really have to step up and give it our all. I have the chance to do it all," she said.

Poda credits her state's successes to the fact that the state has been working on teacher quality for many years.

In addition to testing teachers since 1976 and having a state-wide teacher evaluation system since the early 1980s, in 1998 the South Carolina Legislature created an accountability act that focused on offering low performing schools an equitable education. The state also has had a statewide recruitment center funded by the general assembly since 1985.

But Poda thinks the challenges of 100 percent compliance will continue.

"This is going to be one of the biggest challenges that states have to deal with," she said.

There are impoverished parts of South Carolina, where there just isn't any livable housing for teachers and they have to drive more than 40 miles to work, Poda said.

Kansas, another state that received a passing grade from the Education Department, credits their success in the report to the extensive data that they've collected on teacher qualifications.

"I think that one of the reasons our plans passed is that we have a really good data based on highly qualified teachers. We've been able to identify who they are, where they're teaching and whether it's high poverty or low poverty," Dr. Martha Gage, the director of teacher education and licensure for Kansas, said.

Gage said the Kansas group decided to focus on what was positive in education, not the negative, when it came to No Child Left Behind.

We "paid attention to what it required and instead of thinking it was going away or blowing it off we geared up and tried to be as honest as we could be," Gage added.

The state is creating a committee, set to convene in early September, to create policies on recruitment and retention of teachers to submit to the state board of education.

Is the goal reachable?
While some states are making concerted efforts to reach 100 percent compliance there are skeptics, like Nevada Schools Superintendent Keith Rheault, who think the goal is unreachable because teacher training can't keep up with the demand for new teachers.

"We'll never catch up," Rheault told USA Today. "When you hire 3,000 new teachers a year, you can't get them all highly qualified."

The Education Trust's Peske disagrees.

"We are shirking our responsibility to say it's an unrealistic goal. If we say that it's unrealistic, we're saying it's OK for some children -- and they become poor and minority children -- not to be taught by highly qualified teachers," Peske said.

Peske said the best state plans are district specific and make efforts to guarantee that poor and minority students get equal access to highly qualified and experienced teachers.

Meanwhile, urban districts like San Francisco may be losing teachers who can't afford to live in the city while rural districts face fewer teachers in the applicant pool.

"Different districts have different issues and needs," she said.

-- By Annie Schleicher, Online NewsHour