Strip away all the rhetoric about whether teachers should be paid more and you leave one fact: Nebraska students consistently rank among the very best in the country in all measures of achievement.

For instance, in 1999, Nebraska students as a whole ranked 13th nationally on the ACT. When compared with other states where 70 percent or more students took the test, Nebraska was first.

On the 1998 SAT tests, Nebraska ranked 10th. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests for fourth grade, Nebraska students ranked ninth in the nation in 1992 and 10th in 1996. On those same NAEP tests for eighth grade, Nebraska students ranked fifth in both 1992 and 1996.

And the coup de grace: Using a composite of the NAEP, SAT and ACT scores, the American Legislative Exchange Council ranked Nebraska schools fifth overall in terms of academic achievement.


Those rankings, of course, relate right back to the quality of classroom instruction those students receive. Good teaching translates into that kind of high achievement.

NSEA's Jay Sears says such success is to be expected, given the quality of students that enter the 17 teacher education programs across the state and the quality of those programs.

"The candidates we get for teacher education programs are those who are taking all the courses they can in high school. They've already had four years of math in high school. They aren't starting with remedial math at the university when they've already had calculus," he said.

Sears, director of instructional advocacy for the NSEA, says it is a known fact that teacher quality is a key to good education.

"Most of our teachers are coming out of our high schools, so the process is just building on itself. Because we have quality going through our system, it regenerates and improves the quality we have in the classroom," he said.


But that culture of continuous improvement doesn't just happen. Becoming a teacher in Nebraska is a rigorous process, with quality control throughout.

To qualify for a teacher education program, a college student must carry a grade point average of 2.5 or better and then pass a basic skill test. After acceptance, those students must have 100 hours of supervised contact with students in a school setting. That's before their 14-week student teaching stint in their final year of college.

Perhaps the biggest quality factor, said Sears, is the state's demand that all teachers who have a grades 7-12 endorsement have a major in their certification area. Thus not only have they learned teaching skills, they have the content knowledge to back up those skills.

Equally a quality factor is the requirement that those at the elementary level enroll in as many hours as possible in all the subject areas they will teach. Many teachers with elementary endorsements have enough content to earn the equivalent of six or seven minors in college.

At all endorsement levels, "our people have qualified in both the content and the instruction piece," Sears said.

Nebraska also offers more than 90 certification areas and standards for those areas are very specific about the skills and knowledge teachers must have. Most states require only very broad certification areas.

"Our grads don't have any trouble getting certified in other states," Sears said.

Unfortunately, more and more Nebraska teachers are lured to other states by higher pay. But those who choose to teach in Nebraska must constantly improve their skills. Teachers must constantly learn in order to renew and update their certifications. And they must undergo constant evaluation.

"It's a whole culture of continuous improvement. You can't have started teaching in 1971 and keep teaching until 2021 without improving," Sears said.

Strip away all the rhetoric about whether teachers should be paid more and you leave one fact: Nebraska students consistently rank among the very best in the country in all measures of achievement.

For instance, in 1999, Nebraska students as a whole ranked 13th nationally on the ACT. When compared with other states where 70 percent or more students took the test, Nebraska was first.

On the 1998 SAT tests, Nebraska ranked 10th. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests for fourth grade, Nebraska students ranked ninth in the nation in 1992 and 10th in 1996. On those same NAEP tests for eighth grade, Nebraska students ranked fifth in both 1992 and 1996.

And the coup de grace: Using a composite of the NAEP, SAT and ACT scores, the American Legislative Exchange Council ranked Nebraska schools fifth overall in terms of academic achievement.


Those rankings, of course, relate right back to the quality of classroom instruction those students receive. Good teaching translates into that kind of high achievement.

NSEA's Jay Sears says such success is to be expected, given the quality of students that enter the 17 teacher education programs across the state and the quality of those programs.

"The candidates we get for teacher education programs are those who are taking all the courses they can in high school. They've already had four years of math in high school. They aren't starting with remedial math at the university when they've already had calculus," he said.

Sears, director of instructional advocacy for the NSEA, says it is a known fact that teacher quality is a key to good education.

"Most of our teachers are coming out of our high schools, so the process is just building on itself. Because we have quality going through our system, it regenerates and improves the quality we have in the classroom," he said.


But that culture of continuous improvement doesn't just happen. Becoming a teacher in Nebraska is a rigorous process, with quality control throughout.

To qualify for a teacher education program, a college student must carry a grade point average of 2.5 or better and then pass a basic skill test. After acceptance, those students must have 100 hours of supervised contact with students in a school setting. That's before their 14-week student teaching stint in their final year of college.

Perhaps the biggest quality factor, said Sears, is the state's demand that all teachers who have a grades 7-12 endorsement have a major in their certification area. Thus not only have they learned teaching skills, they have the content knowledge to back up those skills.

Equally a quality factor is the requirement that those at the elementary level enroll in as many hours as possible in all the subject areas they will teach. Many teachers with elementary endorsements have enough content to earn the equivalent of six or seven minors in college.

At all endorsement levels, "our people have qualified in both the content and the instruction piece," Sears said.

Nebraska also offers more than 90 certification areas and standards for those areas are very specific about the skills and knowledge teachers must have. Most states require only very broad certification areas.

"Our grads don't have any trouble getting certified in other states," Sears said.

Unfortunately, more and more Nebraska teachers are lured to other states by higher pay. But those who choose to teach in Nebraska must constantly improve their skills. Teachers must constantly learn in order to renew and update their certifications. And they must undergo constant evaluation.

"It's a whole culture of continuous improvement. You can't have started teaching in 1971 and keep teaching until 2021 without improving," Sears said.