Looking at the Best Teachers and Who They Teach
Poor Students and Students of Color are Less Likely to Get Highly Effective Teaching
SOURCE: AP/Rich Pedroncelli
Second-grade teacher Vickie Boudouris goes over a worksheet her students were doing in an English-language-learner summer-school class at the Cordova Villa Elementary School, Wednesday, June 12, 2013, in Rancho Cordova, California.
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Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF of this issue brief.
We want to get the best teachers to the students who need them most, but a review of data from the newest teacher evaluation systems show that that is not always what happens. In an analysis of the newest data, we find that in some areas, poor students and students of color are far less likely than others to have expert teachers.
However, this pressing issue of equal access to great teaching is on the radar of policymakers and advocates. It has taken center stage as a key education policy for the coming year. President Barack Obama spotlighted it in his fiscal year 2015 budget request. Federal officials at the U.S. Department of Education are on the verge of issuing a new strategy to require all states to update their plans to ensure that every student has equal access to high-quality teaching. All told, this is a good time to take a look at new educator evaluation data to see if the information generated by this new reform can illuminate this issue. The concern among policymakers and student advocates is that students in disadvantaged schools are less likely to have access to high-quality instruction than students in affluent schools.
Now that some states have evaluations of teacher effectiveness based on new accountability measures, it is possible to glean information about the distribution of teachers across school demographics. We made the following findings:
- The new evaluation data confirms previous findings—in many places, poor children and children of color are less likely to be taught by a highly effective teacher.
- Despite the overall pattern of inequitable distribution, there are some places where excellent teachers are more evenly deployed.
- The places with a more balanced distribution of effective teachers are where we should look to learn about the policies and practices that help give all students access to great teaching.
New definitions of effectiveness in teaching
In the past five years, the definition of teacher effectiveness has undergone a shift from being based on credentials and years of experience to being measured by observations of instruction and student learning. In the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, or NCLB, the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Congress defined a highly qualified teacher as one with a bachelor’s degree who is state certified or licensed and Looking at the Best Teachers and Who They Teach | Center for American Progress:
