Obama Administration Fails to Require Equal Distribution of Well-Qualified Teachers
A new study by Mathematica Policy Research demonstrates that experienced teachers matter. Reporting on the study for Slate, Dana Goldstein points out that teachers who earned a $20,000 bonus to move to a struggling school and who significantly improved school achievement in the elementary schools to which they moved, “were far from the Teach for America archetype of a young, transient, Ivy League grad. Their average age was 42, and they had an average of 12 years of experience in the classroom. They were also more likely than control group teachers to be African-American, to be homeowners, and to hold a master’s degree. In short, they were stable adults with deep ties to the cities in which they worked.”
It is therefore troubling that the Obama Administration is failing to insist that children in the poorest neighborhoods have access to well-qualified teachers. In Obama Administration Backtracks (Again) on Teacher Equity, Tara Kini, senior staff attorney at Public Advocates, a non-profit law firm that has led a coalition of national organizations to advocate for the right of the children in poverty, children with special needs, or children learning English to well qualified teachers, describes three ways the Obama Administration has failed to pursue such a goal.
First Arne Duncan’s Department of Education has done little “to enforce any teacher equity protections in the initial round of (No Child Left Behind) waivers.” The Department’s new guidance for renewing the waivers gives states applying for a two-year waiver extension an additional two years even to submit an initial plan for ensuring equitable access to qualified teachers.
Second, President Obama recently signed a renewal of what is known as the Teach-for-