Education Week - November 11, 2015 - 9

Ala. Teacher of the Year Ensnared by Certification Snafus
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Alabama State Department of Education

teaching position this year in a disadvantaged school in Birmingham,
Ala., she took it.
The school, Oliver Elementary,
then informed Corgill just before
Labor Day weekend that she would
be moved to 5th grade, where a
teacher had suddenly left. Corgill
had taught 4th grade at her previous school, and holds certification
from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to teach
students ages 7 to 12, so her new
school shifted her up.
"This is the reality of public
school," Corgill wrote in a blog post
describing that sudden transition
from 2nd to 5th grade. "This is
where the rubber meets the road.
This is where you learn why we
have a teacher shortage and good
teachers are fleeing the profession."
Then, more than a month into her
5th grade assignment, the district
informed Corgill that under state
rules, she was not qualified to teach
at that level.

A Teacher's Frustrations
In a written statement given to the
news organization AL.com, state Superintendent Thomas Bice said the
distinction between Corgill's old and
new schools involved an intersection
of state and federal accountability
rules: Corgill's new school, unlike
her previous one, is a Title I, or designated low-income, school. Because
Corgill holds state certification only
in prekindergarten to 3rd grade, she
was not considered "highly qualified"
to teach 5th grade in accord with
federal law, according to Bice. And
Alabama doesn't recognize National
Board certification as an acceptable
substitute for the appropriate gradelevel state certification.
There's at least one problem with
that explanation: Under the No
Child Left Behind Act, according to
the U.S. Department of Education,
the highly-qualified-teacher requirement applies to all schools in states
that receive federal Title I money
(all states do), not just Title I schools.
That would mean that in fact Corgill shouldn't have been teaching
4th grade at her old school, either.
Responding to a request from Education Week, Bice admitted that was
true, "but the sanctions are different
for a Title I School."
According to her resignation letter, the state told Corgill that if she
wanted to continue teaching 5th
grade, she would need to apply for
a K-6 teaching certificate and take
two separate Praxis licensure tests.
(Praxis tests generally have a registration cost of about $120 to $160
each, and take a few hours, not including study time.)
Frustrated, Corgill resigned.
"In order to attract and retain
the best teachers, we must feel
trusted, valued, and treated as professionals," she wrote in her resignation letter, published online by
AL.com. "It is my hope that my experience can inform new decisions,
policies, and procedures to make
Birmingham city schools a place

Ann Marie Corgill poses with
Alabama State Superintendent
Thomas Bice after being
named the state's 2014-15
teacher of the year.

grees, full licensure, and subject-area
competence.
In practice, the requirement has
often been circumvented or softened. Since 2011, teachers entering
the profession through alternativecertification programs have been

considered "highly qualified." And
the U.S. Education Department has
shown a willingness to grant states
a waiver from the provision. In May,
New Mexico received the first such
waiver, by using teacher-evaluation
results in lieu of fulfilling every
tenet of the highly-qualified-teacher
definition.
To hammer home the point: Both
versions of the NCLB rewrite now
pending in Congress scrap the highlyqualified-teacher framework altogether, allowing states the latitude
to decide what qualifies a teacher to
teach.
Another sticking point with the
"highly qualified" requirement: The
goals of the law obviously haven't
been realized. That's why the Education Department has drawn a new requirement for states to come up with
so-called teacher-equity plans that will
encourage better distribution of effective teachers throughout states.

Layers of Complexity
State certification requirements
pose their own set of complications.
States can have a multitude of different certification types.
In Alabama, for instance, teachers
can be certified in early childhood
(P-3), elementary education (K-6),
middle school (4-8), secondary (6-12),
elementary-secondary (P-12), or special education (K-6 or 6-12).
The numerous certification types

are rooted in how children of different
ages learn, and in the differences in
subject-matter difficulty. The distinct
areas allow for specialization among
teachers, but also can limit schools'
and educators' flexibility, as Corgill's
case suggests.
The lack of transferability of certifications between different states adds
another layer of complexity, although
many states have made headway in
forging reciprocity agreements, Rogers said.
Michelle Accardi, the director
of policy and partnerships for the
National Board for Professional
Teaching Standards, said that state
certification systems have become
so complex that those navigating
them-and sometimes even those
operating them-can get confused.
"I think there is a large opportunity, not just in Alabama, but in
many other states, to look at licensure structures and look at commonsense ways to streamline those structures," she said.
But it's not clear that the Birmingham district has much leeway in Corgill's case, although the teacher said
in a public statement that she and
the district might come to a compromise solution.
"I can't imagine anyone from
Alabama feels good about this, but
there's probably not much they can
do about it," said Rogers. "Maybe
something like this might cause
them to reconsider that."

everyone wants to work and learn."
Not that Corgill escapes culpability either.
"One of the responsibilities of
being a professional is knowing
what you can do and cannot do,"
said Phillip S. Rogers, the executive
director of the National Association
of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification.
Many questions remain about the
situation leading to Corgill's resignation: Why did Oliver Elementary
move Corgill to 5th grade without
checking on the certification requirements? What prompted the
district to check her certification
after the fact? Why wasn't Corgill
transferred back to 2nd grade?
What other options was she offered?
A spokeswoman for the Birmingham district said the district could
not comment on personnel issues.

'Highly Qualified' Confusion
Meanwhile, Corgill's public statements reveal a teacher repeatedly
vexed by her new district's treatment of her, with the certification
incident being the latest. She has
said that, among other frustrations
prompted by the district, it had also
neglected to give her a paycheck for
the first two months of the current
school year.
That the matter came to a head
over certification issues, however,
reflects a growing area of tension in
education policy.
The "highly qualified teacher" provision of the No Child Left Behind Act
was meant to be a source of equity, ensuring that disadvantaged students
had access to teachers with college deEDUCATION WEEK | November 11, 2015 | www.edweek.org | 9

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Education Week - November 11, 2015

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