Return-Path: <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id gBOIpCX00068; Tue, 24 Dec 2002 13:51:13 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 13:51:13 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <001d01c2ab7c$65646d50$965ef7a5@MCORLEY> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Mary Ann Corley" <macorley1@earthlink.net> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:995] Least-qualified teachers often teach poor, minority kids X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; Status: O Content-Length: 6171 Lines: 113 The following article is from USA Today, December 23, 2003. A substitute for an education: Least-qualified teachers often teach poor, minority kids By Fredreka Schouten and Larry Bivins Gannett News Service - Dec 23, 2003 USA Today WASHINGTON -- Half of public schools serving minority children fill long-term teaching vacancies with substitutes, many of whom lack even basic teaching qualifications, a Gannett News Service investigation has found. The problem is even more staggering at predominantly black schools, where nearly six out of 10 principals use substitutes. At schools with few black children, only about one in four principals uses substitutes. ''This is one of the dirty little secrets in education,'' says University of Pennsylvania researcher Richard Ingersoll, an expert on teacher distribution who analyzed federal data for GNS. GNS' study of teaching quality at poor and minority schools found: * Poor and minority students are the most likely to have teachers with the least experience. * More than half of U.S. black and Hispanic middle-school students are taught key academic subjects such as math and English by teachers who lack at least a college minor in those subjects. * Poor high school students are twice as likely as middle-class and wealthy peers to be taught key subjects by teachers not certified in those fields. ''We basically have not been honest with either kids or with their parents,'' says Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, which lobbies on behalf of poor and minority children. ''We have been assigning significant numbers of teachers to teach subjects they really don't have much grounding in.'' Those inequities outrage Karen Harvey of Palm Beach County, Fla. Her son's ninth-grade English and social studies classes at Pahokee Middle-Senior High School were taught by substitutes for the entire 2001-02 school year because school officials failed to lure enough qualified teachers to Pahokee, a predominantly black farming community 40 miles from the yacht clubs and palm-lined boulevards of Palm Beach and other coastal towns. ''I don't have a problem with aides filling in for a short period of time, but it's a problem when somebody who doesn't know the subject turns around and teaches my child,'' Harvey says. Substitutes need only 30 credit hours, less than two years of college education, to teach at the Pahokee school. Pahokee's problems are repeated at schools in high-poverty areas across the country. The GNS investigation analyzed information culled from the federal government's newest and most thorough survey of public school teachers and principals, along with interviews with education researchers, school officials and parents across the nation. The Schools and Staffing Survey was conducted during the 1999-2000 school year. Performance gap Teacher quality is the single biggest influence on student achievement, according to research over the past two decades. And national test scores show that the performance gap that separates black and Hispanic students from whites stubbornly persists. Yet GNS found that the students who need the most help are being shortchanged: * In Florida, more than six of 10 principals at schools where at least half the students are minorities said they fill long-term teacher vacancies with substitutes. Poor secondary-school students in Florida are almost seven times as likely as their richer peers to be taught core academic subjects by teachers who lack even state certification in those fields. * In Illinois, almost 70% of principals at mostly minority schools used subs to fill vacancies, compared with just 17% of principals at schools where fewer than 16% of the students are minorities. * In Idaho, more than 47% of students in predominantly poor secondary schools are taught key academic subjects by teachers who lack at least a college minor in those fields -- compared with only 9.4% of students in schools with few poor students. * In Michigan, 73% of principals at predominantly minority schools use subs to fill vacancies, vs. 26% at schools with few minority students. School officials in many states say acute teacher shortages are the root of the problem. And in many districts, teachers with the most seniority have the greatest say in where they work. That means least experienced, least qualified teachers often end up at schools where no one else wants to teach. Good teachers are hard to find Federal legislation that President Bush signed into law in January has put new pressure on schools to improve teacher quality. The No Child Left Behind law requires a ''highly qualified'' teacher in every public school classroom by the end of 2005-06. But experts warn that, just as substitute and uncertified teachers are not necessarily bad at their jobs, holding a teacher credential is not a guarantee of quality. Some states make licensing exams so easy that most candidates pass. Educators have zeroed in on teacher quality as a key to closing the achievement gap between white students and their black and Hispanic peers. But recruiting good teachers is particularly difficult in places such as Pahokee Middle-Senior High, where 96% of students are black and Hispanic and almost as many are poor. Half drop out. The school was one of seven in the county to earn an F rating from the state for 2001-02. Only 15% of its students perform at grade level. Faced with seven failing schools, Palm Beach County officials scrambled last summer to move the best teachers to the lowest-performing schools by offering them $10,000 to transfer. Only 10 agreed to move; none went to Pahokee. Officials plan to try again next year. Karen Harvey hopes the school's lousy rating will force the board to do more. She recalls helping her two kids with homework one evening when her nephew, who attended school in West Palm Beach before moving to Pahokee, glanced at math homework that her eighth-grade son was doing. ''Oh, I had that in the fifth or sixth grade,'' her nephew said. The memory still rankles Harvey. ''Why isn't my son being taught at the same rate as kids on the coast?'' she asks. ''That's cheating my son."
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