By KYLE ROBERTS

Staff Writer

A new law has many teachers scrambling back to a place they thought they had left forever: college.

The No Child Left Behind act was signed into law January 8, 2001, by President George W. Bush and requires that teachers in core subjects must prove their competence to continue teaching.

Dr. Jo Ann Dauzat, dean of the College of Education and a professor of education, said she is looking for the university to continue to provide opportunities for teachers to enroll and take courses at their leisure.

"We have had a dramatic increase in student enrollment that involves school teachers who are trying to gain the 'highly qualified' status that the law requires," Dauzat said. "In the fall we expect many more to come back to school and take courses to achieve their necessary status."

Dauzat also said teachers all over the country are coming back and enrolling in college again to take courses that will give them that status which the act calls for.

"We have tried to accommodate teachers as best we can," Dauzat said. "We are planning to offer courses over the Internet to help them take their courses."

Although the new plan is intended to assure better quality teachers in the classroom, Dauzat said she believes most veteran teachers are unhappy.

"Teachers feel betrayed," Dauzat said. "Most teachers have their masters' degrees already but now have to come back to the classroom just to prove their competence all over again. The law was passed to weed out the bad teachers, but most of the good teachers are feeling like it is an attack against them."

The increased enrollment will continue over the fall, as well as through the summer.

Some students believe the increased enrollment will be beneficial to the university.

"I think the increase will be good for Tech," Tim Connelly, a sophomore aviation major, said. "Any time more students are brought to Tech, it's usually a good thing."

The NCLB Act also states that schools now have to give an annual "report card" to the state to ensure that the school systems are living up to the standards the law requires, and Dauzat said the university will continue progress to help all parties involved.

"The law requires a lot of things out of a lot of people," Dauzat said.

"We are trying our best here at Tech to ensure that we are helping these teachers as well as we can."