In early January 2003, "Education Week" released a new report on the status of teaching in the United States and concluded that many states are taking steps to recruit and retain skilled teachers, but few efforts focus on the schools where these teachers are needed most. Drawing upon a large national database, "Quality Counts 2003" revealed that students in high-minority, high-poverty schools are far more likely to have teachers who are inexperienced or who are not certified in the subject taught. The findings reported in "Quality Counts 2003" were drawn in large part from the recently released federal dataset, "Schools and Staffing Survey," 1999-2000 (SASS). The Southeast Center for Teaching Quality also analyzed data from the "Schools and Staffing Survey" and developed additional indicators not found in the "Quality Counts 2003" report. These indicators focus on teacher preparation, induction and professional development, testing and accountability, and working conditions. These indicators are important measures of teacher quality. As other research has begun to show, high-quality preparation, induction support, positive working conditions, and training in the use of standards to improve teaching effectiveness all contribute to lower teacher turnover--and lower turnover spurs more coherent and sustained school improvement. Measuring progress on these critical teaching quality indicators is key to moving forward on student achievement. These preliminary findings from the SASS database help describe the status of teaching in the Southeast. A discussion of these findings is presented. (Contains 17 tables and 13 endnotes.)