Under No Child Left Behind, schools are required to make sure every teacher is “highly qualified,” which—according to the law—means teachers must be certified in the subject areas they teach...In a policy brief titled “Call for Action: Transforming Teaching and Learning to Prepare High School Students for College and Careers,” Mariana Haynes, a senior fellow at the Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE), writes that standards-based reform will continue to fall short in preparing graduates for college and careers without “sustained investments in building the teaching profession and a greater focus on redesigning schools to support teacher and student learning.”