School & District Management

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

By Debra Viadero — April 19, 2005 2 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

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 those struggling urban schools.

“It would seem logical for schools to place their strongest and most experienced teachers in the 9th grade,” said Ruth Curran Neild, the lead author of the report. In the 200,000-student district she and her co-author studied, though, students in 9th grade had the lowest odds of students in any high school grade of being taught by a certified teacher.

Focusing on the 1999-2000 school year, the study found that the overall percentages of new or uncertified teachers ranged from 8 percent to 60 percent in the 35 high schools the researchers tracked. Magnet and vocational schools had the fewest uncertified teachers. And, in keeping with other studies, the researchers found that black, Hispanic, and low-achieving students tended to get disproportionately high shares of new and uncertified teachers.

Reasons for Placements

In 25 of the high schools, freshmen were more likely than seniors to have new or uncertified teachers instructing them. In 10 of those 25 schools, the proportion of novice teachers or those lacking certification was twice as high for 9th graders as it was for 12th graders.

Ms. Neild, an associate professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania’s graduate school of education, said that in one of the schools that participated in the study, she saw 9th grade Algebra 1 classes being taught by uncertified teachers who had studied political science, not math, in college.

Yet, she added, principals often have valid reasons for assigning teachers who may be arguably the least qualified to their most needy students. Upper-grades classrooms, with more stable student populations, are often considered plum assignments, and principals may use those teaching posts to reward senior teachers because they have no other incentives to offer.

Also, she said, districts often send newly minted teachers to schools a day or two before school starts, which leaves principals little time to become familiar with their qualifications.

“If I were a principal, I would put them in Algebra 1, rather than calculus,” Ms. Neild said.

While it’s hard to say exactly what kind of impact new or uncertified teachers have on 9th graders’ academic achievement, the study did point to one possible indicator of a negative effect.

All other things being equal, it found, students taught by those less “qualified” urban teachers tended to miss more days of school—about three-quarters of a day more for every 10-percentage-point increase in the percentage of uncertified or new teachers who taught them.

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Classroom Technology Webinar
How to Leverage Virtual Learning: Preparing Students for the Future
Hear from an expert panel how best to leverage virtual learning in your district to achieve your goals.
Content provided by Class
English-Language Learners Webinar AI and English Learners: What Teachers Need to Know
Explore the role of AI in multilingual education and its potential limitations.
Education Webinar The K-12 Leader: Data and Insights Every Marketer Needs to Know
Which topics are capturing the attention of district and school leaders? Discover how to align your content with the topics your target audience cares about most. 

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School & District Management Explainer What Does a School Principal Do? An Explainer
Learn about the principal workforce, what makes principals effective, and how schools can retain the best leaders.
Image of staffing.
Andrii Yalanskyi/iStock/Getty
School & District Management Running for a School Board Seat? This Is the Most Powerful Endorsement You Can Get
New research shows that this endorsement in school board races is more influential than any other, with virtually no downside.
5 min read
People in privacy booths vote in the midterm election at an early voting polling site at Frank McCourt High School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City on Nov. 1, 2022.
People in privacy booths vote in the midterm election at an early voting polling site at Frank McCourt High School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City on Nov. 1, 2022.
Ted Shaffrey/AP
School & District Management High Pace of Superintendent Turnover Continues, Data Show
About one in five large districts lost a superintendent last year, researchers found.
2 min read
Image of exit doors.
pavel_balanenko/iStock/Getty
School & District Management Finding the Source of PCB Contamination in Schools Just Got Easier
Researchers say they have found a promising method to determine where in school buildings the PCB contamination is greatest.
7 min read
Image of a brick wall and glass blocks.
iStock/Getty