Poor and minority children are assigned, on average, to teachers with less experience, less education, and fewer skills than those who teach other children, a report says.
“Teaching Inequality: How Poor and Minority Students are Shortchanged on Teacher Quality” is available from The Education Trust.
Released June 8 by the Education Trust, a Washington-based research and advocacy group, the study collected teacher-distribution data from three states—Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin—and their three largest school systems: Cleveland, Chicago, and Milwaukee.
In each case, the researchers found large differences between the qualifications of teachers in the highest-poverty and highest-minority schools and teachers serving in schools with few minority and low-income students. They also found striking differences in students’ readiness for college depending on the quality of teachers in their schools.
