AS SCHOOLS opened this fall, the Maryland State Department of Education's annual teacher staffing report showed that we must work more aggressively than ever to ensure that our children are taught by highly qualified teachers.

The solution to the teacher shortage lies in our willingness to do things differently. Finding and hiring more teachers and highly qualified teachers require us to look inward as an education community and a society to enact meaningful change.

Why do we have shortages in mathematics and science teachers? We don't. Qualified engineers, scientists and other experts are interested in teaching. Yet only four Maryland school systems offer alternative teacher certification programs, and they work well. We should now help other systems create similar programs.

The State Department of Education can also help by streamlining certification processes to ensure quality and encourage the experts we seek for our classrooms. In some cases, a new teacher is not absolutely necessary. How about an adjunct teacher -- a university-like approach to bring in certified experts to teach specific classes? This may be a better alternative to scheduling an English teacher to fill in for a science or math class.

Currently, one state regulation allows local school systems to assign teachers "out of field." But Education Trust, a prominent national think tank, found that the amount of out-of-field teaching in the nation and in Maryland remains higher than we would like. We need to repeal or alter this regulation in order to move forward.

We also must find ways to assist local school systems in dealing with the day-to-day realities of not having the trained experts they need.

The State Department of Education is establishing a new data collection process, in conjunction with the No Child Left Behind legislation. It will, for the first time, provide data on teacher qualifications that reveal and report on out-of-field teaching and other important aspects of teacher quality on a state-, system- and school-level basis.

We need to do more than just report this data. We must use this data to assist school systems.

While all of these measures touch upon ways for us to resolve our challenges, perhaps the most crucial way will be to redesign the profession for the 21st century.

Teaching is probably the only profession in which a novice is thrown into the fray with the same expectations as those for a veteran of 20 years. Other fields have multiyear apprenticeships. We have made enormous progress in this area, such as highly successful teacher mentoring programs, but we must look at more models for ideal solutions.

Let's take the next step and give principals and expert teachers more authority, more leadership training and a job structure in which they can lead good teachers to become even better.

The teacher shortage is causing us to re-examine ways to deploy our teachers and principals more effectively. One of the greatest change agents of the last century, Albert Einstein, said that "in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."

Herein, perhaps, lies our greatest opportunity.

Nancy S. Grasmick is state superintendent of schools.