Certified Urban Educators Seen Less Likely to Be Put In 9th Grade Classrooms

Montreal

Though experts agree that 9th grade is a critical transition year in schooling, a study unveiled here last week suggests that freshman students in urban high schools may be less likely than their older peers to get certified, experienced teachers to guide them through that rocky period.

Presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, the study is based on data from 35 high schools in an urban district that the researchers do not name. But the authors of the report say they believe their findings may hold true for big-city districts throughout the United States—and, to a lesser extent, for suburban schools, too.

Several studies in recent years have shown that inner-city schools serving predominantly poor students tend to get more than their fair share of neophyte teachers and to have more teachers assigned to subjects for which they were never certified. Fewer studies have taken a look at how those less qualified teachers may be distributed within...