SACRAMENTO, CA - Last week, California education leaders held four public forums across the state to gather comments on how to modify the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, due for reauthorization in 2007. California education officials, led by state superintendent Jack O'Connell, are eager to criticize the federal law and its accountability standards.

These meetings have used time and resources that should be directed toward the real culprit for California's education failures - the state's own interpretation of the federal legislation. One of the controversial elements in the No Child Left Behind legislation is the requirement for all students to be taught by a "highly qualified teacher" by 2006.

The federal law gives three specifications for "highly qualified" - the teacher must hold a bachelor's degree, possess state certification, and demonstrate subject-matter competence. The requirements are intentionally broad, so each state can create its own system for qualifying teachers. The NCLB website encourages states to "define certification according to its needs. The state can use this opportunity to strengthen and streamline its certification requirements. It can also create alternate routes to certification."

While California educrats bemoan NCLB, they have missed the opportunity to reform the state standards to encourage more highly qualified people to teach. Rather than streamlining state standards or creating alternate routes to certification, California education officials have interpreted "state certification" as required by NCLB to mean each classroom teacher needs a standard teaching credential from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

The state credentialing process is time-consuming and costly, and consists of a series of courses designed to teach techniques that could be effectively combined into a weekend workshop or a single online course. One teacher who went through the process commented, "In my whole two-year program I learned only one useful tip - don't turn your back on the kids. I could have been gaining experience and making a difference by actually teaching, and instead I was stuck in a credential class, with bad teachers, low standards, and busy work."

This teacher, now with 15 years of experience, teaches AP Calculus and consistently gets high test scores from her students. She only completed her credential because she was determined to teach, no matter what it took.

Instead of encouraging highly qualified individuals to teach, this policy has driven highly qualified teachers from public classrooms into private schools or other careers. Take, for example, Jefferds Huyck, whose plight was reported in the New York Times.

Mr. Huyck holds a doctorate in classics from Harvard and has taught for 22 years at the high school and college level. If these credentials alone don't qualify him to teach, the performance of his students should. They consistently earn honors on a nationwide Latin exam. Yet state officials told Mr. Huyck he must enroll in a state credentialing program to continue teaching and to be considered "highly qualified" under California's interpretation of NCLB. Rather than sit through a series of expensive, elementary and mind-numbingly boring courses, he moved to a private school.

In southern California, an experienced elementary teacher's students, mostly English language learners, outperformed all other classes in the district. She was told she would have to take credentialing courses to earn "highly qualified" status. She chose to stop teaching altogether.

While state officials eagerly point fingers and direct blame toward No Child Left Behind, students are suffering and things aren't getting any better in California's classrooms. If these officials would turn their gaze inward they would see a complicated and inefficient system that deters competent people from teaching.

For California legislators and policy makers, the lesson is simple. Teachers should be judged "highly qualified" by the performance of their students in the classroom, not whether they hold a meaningless paper credential.

Rachel Chaney is a public policy fellow in Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute. She can be reached via email at rchaney@pacificresearch.org.