Washington ? Not a single state will have a highly qualified teacher in every core class this school year as promised by President Bush’s education law. Nine states along with the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico face penalties.

The Education Department on Friday ordered every state to explain how it will have 100 percent of its core teachers qualified – belatedly – in the 2006-07 school year.

In the meantime, some states face the loss of federal aid because they didn’t make enough effort to comply, officials said. They are Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina and Washington, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

“At some point there was, I suspect, a little bit of notion that ‘This too shall pass,”‘ said Henry Johnson, the assistant secretary over elementary and secondary education. “Well, the day of reckoning is here, and it’s not going to pass.”

Department officials would not say how much aid could be withheld from states.

States often fell short because they did not report accurate or complete data about the quality of the teacher corps, said Rene Islas, who oversees the review.

The four-year-old No Child Left Behind law says teachers must have a bachelor’s degree, a state license and proven competency in every subject they teach by this year. The first federal order of its kind, it applies to teachers of math, history and any other core class.