Minority students' teachers are worst

CHICAGO - School districts like Chicago, with high percentages of low-income and minority students, are more likely to have teachers who are unqualified, inexperienced, and less talented academically, a study says.

"We take the children who have less, then turn around and give them teachers who have less to offer," said Heather Peske, co-author of the report for The Education Trust, a Washington-based nonprofit think tank that tracks state compliance with President Bush's No Child Left Behind law.

The findings in the study released Thursday show a direct connection between poor teacher quality and low student achievement.

The study analyzed teachers in Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin, and came less than a month before states have to deliver plans to the Department of Education proving that qualified, experienced teachers are distributed fairly under NCLB.

http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/state/14798268.htm?source=rss&channel=belleville_state

More experienced teachers are usually rewarded by getting to move into less challenging environments. Schools in the cities are where we need the best.

Still, a hell of a lot of good teaching happens in urban schools. We can't overcome everything.

First, I do have to say the measure of quality teachers appears on the narrow side for my taste. That said, it shouldn't be shocking that those schools have trouble keeping quality teachers. Teaching is a tough job virtually anywhere. In a chaotic school, and I work at one, it is exponentially harder. That is why I left for a different school. I will make some more money, work in a better enviroment, and have an easier job. Why shouldn't I have left? Will the person who replaces me be as qualified as I was? I honestly don't know.

Chicago's public school system being the most obvious target for that sort of thing. I nobody applied for those teaching jobs--and made it known why--there would be a huge uproar. Maybe then the real problems would be addressed.

When I say "real problems," by the way, I am talking about administration, faculty, and the politics of the entire system. For example, there is supposedly a mentoring program in the Chicago Public Schools called the Golden Teachers program. It is supposed to provide a mentor and intensive one-on-one training to first year teachers. My mentor falsified her records, never observed my classroom, and pocketed the $2000--all with full knowledge of the principal. At the end of the year, I was fired for not being able to "control my students" (i.e. turn them into automatons), and my mentor was promoted to a cushy downtown desk job.

Fuck that. Don't teach. Boycott it as a profession until these types of problems are admitted and addressed.

http://www.cea.org/TeacherVacancies/vacancies.cfm

NOTICE:
CEA believes that Waterbury teachers are unfairly being asked to bear the brunt of years of this city's financial mismanagement. The politically appointed State Oversight Board took control of the city's finances, and in the process, eliminated the collective bargaining rights of teachers. This abrogation of teacher rights will have long-term consequences because educators will choose not to stay in Waterbury and that will reduce the quality of teaching.

On March 5, 2004, the CEA Board of Directors unanimously adopted a resolution recommending that certified teachers not seek employment in Waterbury until the situation is remedied. Below is the text of the resolution:

Move to adopt the following resolution for the Waterbury Teachers Association:

Whereas, a cornerstone of CEA has been to support a negotiations law that allows for a fair process promoting good working conditions for teachers,
Whereas, the Special Act created a State Oversight Board thereby removing the existing collective bargaining rights for teachers in Waterbury,
Whereas, through a series of political and financial crises, the city was placed under the auspices of the State Oversight Board,
Whereas, all negotiations were subject to the whim of an unfair and Arbitrary State Oversight Board of political appointees;
Now therefore, the Connecticut Education Association recommends that no professional educator seek employment in the Waterbury School System. Further, the CEA will take all appropriate actions to inform all parties of this decision.

Teaching in inner city is harder that in the burbs, but pays no better. Teachers groups have historically fought incentive pay based on location. With senority, teachers can and do choose to work in less stressful situations. It really isn't rocket science.

worst problems is through financial incentives. Like someone else said, why take on students who are already behind and have a whole host of challenges related to their family's financial situation (from where they are forced to live to often having only one parent who works long hours to pay the bills), when you can teach in another district with many fewer problems?

The state of our schools begins with economic factors: how can someone making minimal wage or slightly above pay rent, put food on the table, buy clothes, and cover other things like transportation and health costs, working just one job? If minimal wage was higher (for example, it's currently $7.63 in WA and min. wage is linked to inflation), this parent might have an additional 5-10 (or more) hours per week to spend with their children.

Economic factors also affect who chooses to teach: I greatly respect those who teach but financially, it's not the smartest decision (you can get a good portion of the summer off but you work long hours during the year, and many, especially newer teachers, need to teach or work another job in the summer to make ends meet).

cial incentives to live in districts they work in. If there were urban homesteading programs for those who provide social services as well as poor people, you would see a lot of positive changes in those neighborhoods. As it is, few who provide these services, teachers included, want to live in neighborhoods run by gangs, pimps, gun runners and drug lords. If city and state governments would make it attractive for teachers, cops, firemen, social service providers, etc. to live in the neighborhoods in which they work, it would be great for them and the neighborhood, too.

Teachers are US citizens too and there is nothing like money to earn the admiration of US citizens. Here in a very rural area, the best teachers are in the city. The rural schools are filled with the less motivated teachers while the city schools attract the best and the brightest. Why? Because the city schools pay more. If I were a teacher, I would want to work where they paid me more. Not to mention the facilities and after school programs are so much nicer and better maintained.

This is the American way. I don't blame the teachers, they have families to raise and lives to live outside of teaching. This is what happens when money is allotted to schools based upon the wealth of the population they serve.

That's what my brother, a math and science teacher, does. However, he's getting older and angling for a less stressful school.

Some years ago at an in-service workshop where teachers at the school were being 'encouraged' to work harder to improve the learning atmosphere at the school, one of the teachers said: 'Most of the students shot in drive-by shootings last year attended this school. There is much more to creating a good learning atmosphere than just focusing on what goes on in the class-room and in the building.'

Teaching would be easier in schools that don't have 5,000 students. I'm not talking about smaller classrooms, here, although that might help. The business paradigm of concentrating students into mega schools needs to be turned around.

"Efficiency" and economies of scale don't work as well when it comes to human beings.