The federal "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" (NCLB) legislation required school districts to ensure that all teachers of core academic subjects met the requirements to be designated highly qualified by July 1, 2006. However, because no Maryland counties were able to comply with the 100 percent highly qualified designation by July 1, 2006, the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) requested an extension until July 1, 2007, which was approved by the federal government. Maryland counties continue to strive toward this goal. A class is considered taught by a teacher designated highly qualified if the teacher is certified and has completed an academic major or has passed an appropriate Praxis test; completed the High, Objective, Uniform State Standard of Evaluation; or holds an advanced professional certificate in the core academic subject he/she is teaching (applies to educators with experience prior to July 1, 2007). Core academic subjects are English, language arts/reading, world languages, mathematics, science, the arts, elementary and early childhood education, and social studies. This memorandum provides information regarding the number and percentage of core academic classes in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) being taught by teachers designated as highly qualified. Of the 35,743 core academic subject classes being taught by MCPS teachers as of December 1, 2013, 34,599 were being taught by teachers who are designated highly qualified, and 1,144 were being taught by teachers who are not yet designated highly qualified. Countywide, 97.8 percent of classes in the core academic area of the arts were taught by highly qualified teachers, followed by classes in English (97.7%), elementary and early childhood education (97.6%), social studies (96.8%), world languages (94.9%), science (94.5%), mathematics (94.1%), and language arts/reading (92.9%). The summary data provided in this memorandum provide the number and percent of core academic area classes being taught by teachers who have been designated highly qualified and classes being taught by teachers who have not been designated highly qualified as of December 1, 2013.