The Oregonian

HILLSBORO: 3 middle schools take a hit in “highly qualified” teachers

Thursday, October 28, 2004
SOPHIA TAREEN

HILLSBORO -- Three out of four middle schools in the Hillsboro School District saw significant drops in their percentage of "highly qualified" teachers, despite gains among middle-school teachers statewide.

Evergreen, J.B. Thomas and J.W. Poynter fell from the 80 percent range to the 50 percent range for the 2003-04 school year, according to numbers released Wednesday by the Oregon Department of Education.

Bucking district trends, Raymond Brown Middle School was nearly steady -- close to 77 percent -- in the number of highly qualified teachers it has employed in the past two academic years.

Meanwhile, the Beaverton District's numbers held steady or improved. Hillsboro's high school numbers dropped slightly.

The numbers reflect the previous school year, so any teachers hired this year are not taken into account.

Teachers and administrators at all four Hillsboro middle schools say the new figures don't reflect the quality of education or their teaching styles.

"The teachers we had were not 'highly qualified,' but they were qualified," said Mario Alba , principal at J.B. Thomas. "They were doing quality teaching."

School officials attribute the declines to the massive budget cuts the district faced in the 2002-03 school year.

At the end of that year, the district had to slash 142 licensed teacher positions, said Jim Biller, the district's director of personnel for teachers.

For the 2003-04 school year, the middle schools were left with staffing gaps.

To cover the classes, teachers had to instruct out of their highly qualified subject areas. As such, the rates of highly qualified teachers dropped.

The highly qualified measurement comes from the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind Act.

To be defined as highly qualified, middle- and high-school teachers have to pass college courses or a nationally standardized test in the subjects they teach.

So how did Brown keep its rate high?

With some smart hiring and a little luck.

In the same year the district was making cuts, Brown had 15 teachers retire.

With 15 vacancies, Brown had more flexibility to hire teachers who met the standard into some of the open positions.

"It happened to work out," said Dave Parker , assistant principal at Brown. "The teachers that came to us were 'highly qualified' in the areas we needed."

Another factor affecting the low percentages at the three other schools was teaching styles.

All four of the district's middle schools employ some form of team teaching -- a reform that the schools have used for the past several years.

The style comes from Turning Points, national research from the Center for Collaborative Education in Boston. It says middle-schoolers achieve better when they are taught the way elementary students are taught.

Elementary students stay with the same teacher all day, but in middle school, students have more than seven teachers -- one for each subject.

The team-teaching model allows the same group of students to stay with just three or four teachers, even if it means that a highly qualified teacher teaches out of his specialty subject.

That style adversely affects the numbers.

"For years, the push in middle schools has been Turning Points -- that's been the bible for middle school," Poynter Principal Mike Scott said. "Lately, with No Child Left Behind, the focus has had to shift."

Brown alters the team teaching approach so more teachers instruct within their specialty.

Jeanie Kerner , a highly qualified seventh-grade science teacher at Brown, doesn't think the numbers measure much.

"I don't think kids are getting less of a quality education from teachers who aren't highly qualified in spite of what the state says," she said.

Next year, district and school administrators see the numbers climbing.

This year, the district hired 82 teachers in grades seven through 12.

"I'm not worried, because a year from today it will reflect differently," said Alba, principal at J.B. Thomas. "We've taking steps to ensure that the teachers we are hiring are highly qualified."

Sophia Tareen: 503-294-5956; sophiatareen@news.oregonian.com