The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) is unhappy, so the Bush Administration must be doing something right when it comes to education reform.

At issue are just two words. The No Child Left Behind Act, now 18 months old, requires that each student have a "highly qualified" teacher. Before, this meant someone who had graduated from a school of education. But Education Secretary Rod Paige has opted to define "highly qualified" in an eminently sensible way: knowing something about what one is teaching. In doing so, he has run up against the AACTE.

Traditional certification, as championed by this educators' guild, emphasizes the "how" of teaching as much as, or even more than, the "what." Prospective teachers fill their days with courses in "Educational Psychology" and "Social & Philosophical Foundations of American Education." By the time a new math teacher graduates, he may or may not know what calculus is, but he'll sure know every theory about how to teach it.

Mr. Paige commissioned the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence, composed of education reformers, to develop a method of certification that rewards subject-area expertise more than it does mastery of (often dubious) pedagogical methods. At the same time, it would create a uniform standard that's more rigorous than current certification tests.

The impetus is the growing number of teachers who come to the profession in unorthodox ways. Some are professionals who opt to teach after building careers in other fields, such as an engineer or ex-military officer who decides to teach high school physics. Others may catch the teaching bug fresh out of college in the Teach for America program, never having taken a formal education course.

But while such talented and enthusiastic instructors strike many parents as a godsend, these "latecomers" threaten the entrenched education monopoly. Which is one reason the current system often makes it hard for them to get regular teaching licenses. Their knowledge and practical experience count for nothing when they seek certification and they are required to go back to "education" school to study teaching theory.

Alternative certification would license such individuals based purely on what they know. Unfortunately, the going hasn't been easy. Most recently, part of the reform board's new test, currently in its final stages of development, found its way into the hands of David Imig, president and CEO of the AACTE, which steadfastly defends the status quo. Mr. Imig promptly distributed the questions at a public meeting of his organization.

No one seriously suggests that Mr. Imig deliberately set out to purloin the new test. Nonetheless, his dissemination of confidential test questions set the alternative-certification exam back by several months as the board went back to the drawing board to craft new questions. In the meantime, Congress got involved, with Representative John Boehner (R., Ohio) and Senator Judd Gregg (R., New Hampshire) asking the Education Department's inspector general to investigate. After all, this alternative-certification effort is backed with federal money.

Three cheers to the Bush Administration for picking this fight. Alternative certification will clear the way for intelligent, talented (and much-needed) teachers to head to the front of the classroom.