Out of luck with out-of-field teachers

Surprise, surprise: Another analysis of teacher quality, another finding of disparities for low-income and minority students. (As faithful Gradebook readers know, we've been writing about this a lot lately.)

The latest is from The Education Trust, which found poor and minority students in middle and high schools are twice as likely as other secondary students to be taught by out-of-field teachers in English, math, science and social studies, according to its Core Problems report released this morning.

"Conversations about the achievement gap often turn too easily to what's not happening in students' homes," Ed Trust Vice President Ross Wiener said in a press release. "These data make clear that we need to put much more emphasis on what’s not happening in classrooms."

Education Trust defined out-of-field teachers as not having certification in the subjects they're assigned to teach and not having academic majors in that subject. The problem is especially bad in secondary math: 40.5 percent of math classes in poor schools are taught by out-of-field teachers; in schools with the least low-income students, the figure is 16.9 percent.

In Florida, 66.1 percent of secondary teachers in core subjects report being certified in the subject they're assigned to teach, the study shows. Teachers in only 10 other states reported having lower rates.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Comments

[mom5]

If anyone bothered to go into the FLDOE statistics on pass/fail rates, they would see that the lowest passing rates are in the toughest subjects to find teachers to teach....physics, math 6-12, middle grades science 5-9, chemistry.

The highest passing rates are in the fields where there are more applicants than there are positions...social sciences, elementary ed, english, language arts.

I wonder.... if there were differential pay by subject areas at the secondary level for the hard to fill subjects, just as there is at many universities, would there be an influx of applicants taking the tougher subject area tests and passing them?

Incentives are something to consider in addition to providing differential monetary incentives to teach at the lower socio economic schools.

There are bonuses given in Corp. America when an employee takes on a tougher assignment....so why not in education?

[Janet]

Frans - apparently you have not heard of private practice:) Drs are some of the worst at this! Ever heard of "not taking new Medicare patients" or pediatricians who don't take Medicaid!

I agree being in the correct degree field helps. However, you can not make up for all deficits in some of these kids lives. Nothing will overcome things like drug abuse, physical abuse and neglect. Also, even amongst my own kids and nieces and nephews I will tell you there are HUGE variances in how mature or how fast kids learn. Each needs something different. It often takes the individual, one on one w/ a parent to figure that out or motivate a child.

[Frans van Haaren]

Here is an analogy. Suppose your doctor would say 'You know what, I went to school to learn all about medicine and how to make people better when they're sick, but I would be able to do a much better job working with people that want to get better and that come from a supportive and stable family'. We would not let the doctor get away with that would we? What's the difference?

[Jo]

It's time to face the facts. There are not enough quality, highly-trained teachers to go around in the public school system. The majority of the ones that are available would rather teach students that want to learn and have supportive, stable parents. It's just that simple.

[publicschoolteacher]

Frans,
How do you propose we do that when they keep hacking away at our budget?

[Frans van Haaren]

"Conversations about the achievement gap often turn too easily to what's not happening in students' homes," Ed Trust Vice President Ross Wiener said in a press release. "These data make clear that we need to put much more emphasis on what’s not happening in classrooms."

Well said. School districts ought to concentrate on the things they can control: effective instructional technology delivered by well-trained teachers.

If we cut the funding by another billion and a half or so ($500 million in the current year and another $1 billion next year), no one will have to worry about this disparity because the teachers will be equally as bad all around. Maybe since the State cannot afford World Class Standards, we should revert to Third World Standards.