Getting and Keeping Teacher Quality Where it Counts

A growing body of research demonstrates one of the most important factors influencing the academic success of students is the effectiveness of their teachers. If this is so, then why are high-poverty and low-performing schools so often staffed with the least experienced, least qualified teachers? And what can parents, educators, and policymakers do about it?

In February, three education organizations launched the National Partnership for Teaching in At-Risk Schools to help answer these questions. The founding groups-the Education Commission of the States (ECS), ETS, and Learning Point Associates-all have extensive experience helping states and districts recruit and retain successful teachers in hard-to-staff schools.

The National Partnership plans to review and share existing data and research on teacher quality as well as commission new research to create an information clearinghouse that includes a Web site and best-practice library. Resource and policy development for states, districts, and schools are also on the group's agenda. This month's newsletter summarizes the findings of the National Partnership's inaugural report, Qualified Teachers for At-Risk Schools: A National Imperative, which highlights both pressing concerns and some promising solutions related to teacher quality.

The Problem

The National Partnership defines effective teachers as those who make a consistent, positive difference in the achievement of their students. Effective teachers, it asserts, possess a deep understanding of both subject matter and pedagogy, are fully certified, and have several years of teaching experience.

Unfortunately, a disproportionately small number of teachers who fit this definition work in high-poverty schools. Students in these schools, the report asserts, are more likely than students in wealthier schools to be assigned to teachers who lack a major or a minor in their teaching field and have fewer than three years of teaching experience. Schools with a high percentage of minority students have similar problems. Secondary students in schools in which African Americans and Latinos make up 90 percent or more of the population are twice as likely to be taught by teachers who are not certified in the subject they teach as are students in predominantly white schools (Haycock, 2000).

Several factors help create these teaching inequalities. The national shortage of highly qualified teacher applicants-especially in key subject areas such as mathematics, science, and special education-exacerbates the difficulty of attracting teachers in these subjects to high-poverty schools. Cumbersome application processes hinder the ability of some districts to find and hire good teachers in a timely fashion, with job offers being made even after the school year begins. And, when at-risk schools do succeed in hiring teachers, they often have a difficult time keeping them. The report reveals that while the average annual statewide attrition rate in Colorado was 20 percent from 2001 to 2004, the figure was more than 50 percent from 2002 to 2003 in some of the state's urban schools.