No Educator Left Behind is a series providing answers from the U.S. Department of Education to questions about the federal No Child Left Behind Act and how it will affect educators. If you have a question about No Child Left Behind, send an e-mail to Ellen Delisio, and we will submit your question to the Department of Education.

QUESTION:

Now that NCLB requires teachers to be highly qualified, shouldnt salaries be higher?

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION:

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act required that all teachers who teach core academic subjects be highly qualified by the end of the 2005-06 school year. New teachers must also be highly qualified. According to the law, a teacher is highly qualified if he or she has a bachelor's degree, is fully certified by the state, and has demonstrated subject-area competence in each subject taught. A teacher who has an emergency or provisional license would not be highly qualified.

While decisions about teacher pay are made at the state and local levels, the U.S. Department of Education is interested in helping states and districts do a better job of rewarding teachers who take on difficult teaching assignments. President Bush has proposed a $500 million Teacher Incentive Fund to provide states with money to reward teachers who take challenging jobs and achieve real results. States and districts can use program funds to develop performance-based teacher compensation systems that could go a long way toward alleviating teacher shortages.

Read previous questions and answers in our No Educator Left Behind archive.