‘Dirty little secrets in education’
10-month investigation reveals inequities
in educational system

Performance gap persists

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 their white peers stubbornly persists.

Yet GNS found that the students who need the most help are being shortchanged throughout the country:

- 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 percent of principals at predominantly minority schools used subs to fill vacancies, compared with just 17 percent of principals at schools where fewer than 16 percent of the students are minorities.

- In Idaho, more than 47 percent 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 just 9.4 percent of students in schools with few poor students.

- In North Carolina, more than 34 percent of secondary-school students at predominately minority schools are taught the core academic subjects by teachers who lack state certification to teach those topics compared with 9.7 percent of students at schools with few minority students.

- In Michigan, 73 percent of principals at predominantly minority schools use subs to fill vacancies. At schools with few minority students, 26 percent of principals look to subs to fill vacancies.

School officials in many states say acute teacher shortages, particularly in fields like science and math, are the root of the problem. And in many school districts, teachers with the most seniority have the greatest say in where they work.

That means the least experienced, least qualified teachers often end up at schools where no one else wants to teach.

"Nine out of 10 would like to work in a suburban environment, where there is low poverty and better achievement," said Bucholz, the spokesman for the Michigan Department of Education.

But the nation's top school official, Education Secretary Rod Paige, denies that there is a shortage of teachers. He offers other reasons for the imbalance in teacher quality.

"Some of it is associated with the location of schools," said Paige, a former school superintendent in Houston. "Some of it is associated with the perception that some kids are more difficult to teach than other kids. Part of it is associated with bureaucracy and ineffective leadership."

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 the 2005-2006 school year.

States also must devise plans to guarantee that poor and minority students are not taught by inexperienced and unqualified teachers at higher rates than other children.
But experts warn that holding a teacher credential alone is not a guarantee of quality. Some states make teacher-licensing exams so easy that most candidates pass.
And of the 26 states that used the same reading test for teachers in the 1999-2000 school year, all set their passing grades below the scores achieved by the average test-taker, according to a recent report from the U.S. Department of Education. In three of those states — Montana, Mississippi and Nebraska - teachers needed to answer only 53 percent of questions correctly to pass the reading test.

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