In Urban Classrooms, the Least Experienced Teach the Neediest Kids
In urban classrooms, novices learn on the job, and the children suffer
MaryEllen McGuire is the education policy program director at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Imagine for a moment that you are driving your child to the hospital. She has a high fever and is suffering from severe abdominal pain. It's unclear what's wrong but she is in definite need of medical attention.
Now imagine that the only doctor on call is a recently graduated medical student. It's her first day on the job and there is no experienced physician or surgeon available for consultation. Are you satisfied with this level of care for your child? I wouldn't be. I'd want to benefit from the knowledge of a more experienced physician. Wouldn't you?
Unfortunately, a similar scenario is playing out in America's urban classrooms with shocking regularity. Teachers with the least experience are educating the most disadvantaged students in the highest poverty, most challenging schools. Low-income kids are being "triaged" not by experienced teachers, but by those with fewer than three years of teaching to go on.
Does it matter? Absolutely. According to the research, teacher experience is at least a partial predictor of success in the classroom and, at present, one of the only approximations for teacher quality widely available. Experienced teachers tend to have better classroom management skills and a stronger command of curricular materials. Novice teachers on the other hand struggle during their initial years in any classroom.
Why are our least experienced professionals consistently being handed the most challenging teaching assignments? Because of the way seniority is rewarded in teacher contracts. More often that not, union contracts dictate that veteran teachers get first dibs on available positions within a school system. As a result, when given the chance, teachers often choose to transfer to more desirable, low-poverty schools. As a result of these transfers, students with the greatest educational need are time and time again taught by the least experienced teachers.
How bad is the problem? According to the National Center for Education Statistics, schools with the most low-income and minority students employ almost twice the proportion of teachers with fewer than three years of experience as higher-income and low-minority schools.
Disparities also exist in the distribution of teachers who are highly qualified in their subject areas as defined by No Child Left Behind. According to an Ohio study, one of every eight teachers in schools within the highest poverty and minority levels was not highly qualified, compared with only one of every 50 teachers in the lowest-poverty schools, and one of every 67 teachers in the lowest-minority schools.
Ultimately, disparities in teacher experience and credentials put low-income students at a disadvantage and perpetuate the achievement gap.
You may question whether policymakers are wholly insensitive to these inequities. They are not. When the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was originally passed in 1965, lawmakers inserted specific provisions to ensure that low-income students were provided services "comparable" to those provided to their more wealthy peers. These services included the equitable distribution of teachers.
Unfortunately, language subsequently inserted into law has rendered the provision almost meaningless. Since initial passage, lawmakers have decided to exempt teacher seniority from figuring into school comparability calculations. This has allowed school districts across America to hide the fact—under cover of federal law—that their poorest students in their poorest schools are being taught by their least experienced, least expensive teachers. After all, one of the primary determinants of a teacher's salary is years of experience. If this experience is not figured into comparability calculations, a teacher of 10 years and a teacher of 10 days can appear to have the same qualifications. Multiply this several times over and to compliance officers, the schools filled with experienced teachers look "comparable" to those filled with novices.
But there is hope. Recently published guidance related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act clearly says that if states want to receive the second half of their stimulus funds and be eligible for a portion of Education Secretary Arne Duncan's $5 billion Race to the Top Funds, they must make reforms in four areas—including making improvements in "the equitable distribution of qualified teachers for all students, particularly students who are most in need."
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Reader Comments
Purpose of Education
First, all stakeholders should believe that the purpose of education is to create production citizens.
I agree with both Allison and Dawn that financial support, parental intervention, and commitment to educational excellent are needed.
When the prison population has a higher increase than college atttendance, there are serious problems in the United States. Throwing money at the problems and instituting new programs every other year have been ineffective. We should take strategies that worked and apply them to the new realities in our country.
Leadership in this country should invest in education as if not doing so is a terrorist act. Education should be tied in with our national defense. If leaders saw education as ensuring the security of our nation, they would act differently.
broken system
Our entire education system is outdated and broken. We're still running schools on an agrarian calendar that isn't applicable to today's world. We have expectations of every student meeting every standard, unlike any other country in the world.
We're "training" teachers by having them study subject matter in depth. The training we need as educators is on human relations, behavior, how to teach children whose lives are ihn shambles, where to turn for help when your students are addicts or the children of addicts, and understanding of class differences.
We have allowed parents to become disengaged in the education process. It is truly sad that in a school of 350 students I cannot get more than 5 parents to come to an advisory meeting, unless of course we're planning a promotion party or changing the dress code. What message is that disengagement sending to the kids? Yet parents come in all the time complaining that we don't involve them in decision making. We send letters, e-mails and have automated phone call reminders. Do I have to have a chauffering service too?
It's a shock to the system the first time a student curses at you. It's a bigger shock to the system when the parent comes in cursing and defending their child's disrespect. As a principal it's interesting to me how many people seem to think that rules do not apply to them or to their children. Not only is our educational system broken, but in large part our society is broken. That's a really tough fix!
For the 7.5 hours a day we have our students our teachers, paras, and principals are working on teaching how to get along with others, how to behave within the "normal" parameters of society, and how to cope with crisis...on top of the subject matter that 100% of our students are expected to master. Most days I feel the need for a superhero's cape! I choose to work with these students, because that is where I think I can make the biggest difference. I'm sure I could go other easier places, but I don't see the fun in that.
Until we change our society this problem will never be fixed.
It's time to act as citizens
Rather than complain about the writer, posturing politicians or uncaring parents maybe it's time for everyone to take a look at themselves. Are there people who don't care? Most definately, but at least the writer is attempting to look at education with careful deliberation and try to find answers. How many of us can say we have done more than read an article in the newspaper or listen to the local school chatter to then procede to make a proclamation of the failing education system while we continue sipping our coffee and reading the entertainment section?
I am a parent, I know many teachers who care and many who are burned out. I know politions who blow so much hot air they could be the source of global warming and shocking to some - others who care deeply. I've heard the chatter, read the studies and had the arguments. I have been to more school committee meetings where I have been the only person in the room that I've lost count.
Why should politicians listen to us when we say nothing? How can parents know how to care and support their children when they've lived a life where no one has done so for them? No one has taught them? How can we expect teachers to work miracles with no experience, no supplies and buildings falling around them? We can't. While it is possible to rise above these challenges, we've all heard the inspiring stories, the hill is VERY steep. So shall we all fall down and give up? No.
We need stop unfunded mandates - they are helping to destroy our school budgets and in turn our schools but we also need teacher support, training and incentives. We need to utilize the laws and resources the way to they were meant to be utilized and frankly this will never happen until each of us actually tries to make our voice heard. The "posturing" politions will never change unless we require them to change.
We need to support the parents who have no support - that does not have to mean throwing money at the situation - mentoring is one free option. We need to reach out to our communites and say "what can I do to help," and when the door is slammed in our face because "it's impossible and things are never going to change" we need to knock on the door that much louder.
There are no pat answers but success is possible. When people take ownership of the system, work with what they have, demand more from themselves and others and refuse to settle for less amazing changes can be made. If we take the suggestions of people such as the writer - people who have truly studied the problems and add our voices AND ourselves things can change. We have had so many successes in this country - we can do it here.
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