The Impact of Teacher Qualifications on Student Achievement: An Examination of Schools in New Orleans Pre- and Post-Hurricane Katrina

One important outcome of the restructuring of the New Orleans school system post-Hurricane Katrina, and the subsequent performance of students, was an awareness that some fundamental premises in No Child Left Behind (NCLB) should be revisited. An examination of student performance in the restructured school system, for example, raised questions about the effect of teacher qualifications on students' performance. Implicit in the NCLB legislation was an assumption that teacher qualifications had a positive effect on student performance as measured by standardized tests. Using data from school records and scores on standardized tests, this assumption was examined and analyzed; allowing the researcher to address three research questions. This quantitative descriptive study of nine New Orleans public schools under the Recovery School District control that existed both before and after Hurricane Katrina, provided evidence that as the number of highly qualified teachers decreased, student performance increased. The results of this study indicate that although NCLB legislation made the issue of teacher qualification a priority in improving student performance, the evidence of this study indicates that the NCLB definition of a highly qualified teacher did not have a strong effect on student performance.