By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

Most Maine teachers are highly qualified, according to data released by the state.

But Dixfield, Litchfield and other local school districts have so few qualified teachers that they’ll soon have to make changes or notify parents of the problem.

The federal government’s 2002 education reform law, No Child Left Behind, required all public school teachers and teaching assistants to be “highly qualified.”

Under the rules, teachers must be certified and must hold a four-year college degree in each subject they teach. Experienced teachers can skip the college degree if they pass a rigorous test or otherwise prove they know the subjects.

Teaching assistants, known as education technicians in Maine, must attend two years of college or pass a standardized test.

A detailed survey by the Maine Department of Education showed that 90 percent of Maine teachers are highly qualified.

Nearly 93 percent of the teachers at elementary schools and 89 percent at the state’s middle and high schools were rated that way. There was very little difference between poor and rich communities.

The survey also showed that nearly 87 percent of teaching assistants are highly qualified.

Although the situation varies at individual schools, most educators in Lisbon, Monmouth, Peru, Sabattus and SAD 9 in Farmington are highly qualified.

In comparison, the survey shows that many educators in Litchfield, Dixfield’s SAD 21, Buckfield’s SAD 39, Kingfield’s SAD 58 and Fryeburg’s SAD 72 are not.

Glitches

Some school officials said the state’s numbers are outdated. In SAD 21, for example, only 68 percent of teaching assistants were deemed highly qualified. But Superintendent Thomas Ward said most have recently taken – and passed – the required standardized test. Now nearly all are qualified.

Other school officials said their numbers were accurate, but could be misleading. They believe all of their educators are skilled and competent, even if the federal government doesn’t, particularly when it comes to special education and middle school teachers.

The federal government wants teachers to show they are qualified in every subject they teach. That can be a problem for special education teachers who head self-contained classrooms and for middle school teachers who run single classes like elementary teachers. They would have to earn degrees or pass rigorous tests in social studies, science, math, English and nearly every other subject they cover in class.

“I don’t know of anyone in that kind of setting who has all the quality the feds are looking for,” said Paul Malinski, superintendent for Union 44, which covers Sabattus, Litchfield and Wales.

Officials at very small schools said their numbers could be misleading, too. For them, one or two teachers can throw off “highly qualified” percentages. In SAD 39, for example, problems with the credentials of three fine-arts teachers made an entire elementary school’s “highly qualified” percentage plummet from 100 percent to 66 percent.

Still, despite the issues, many officials say the data are good to have and good to give to parents. In the past, schools knew how many educators were certified, but no one tracked how many people had backgrounds in the subjects they were teaching.

“It’s been a lot of work, but it has raised everybody’s level of concern and everybody wants the best teachers for our children,” said Susan Pratt, assistant superintendent for SAD 9.

By next year, school systems must show that all of their teachers and assistants are “highly qualified.” Some federally funded schools must inform parents whose children do not have a qualified teacher.