Comments on: Kennedys http://www.eduwonk.com/2008/01/kennedys.html Education News, Analysis, and Commentary Fri, 19 Mar 2010 03:09:59 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 hourly 1 By: Ed Fuller, Texas http://www.eduwonk.com/2008/01/kennedys.html/comment-page-1#comment-251 Ed Fuller, Texas Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:58:00 +0000 http://www.eduwonk.com/wordpress/2008/01/kennedys.html#comment-251 Unfortunately, neither the law nor the Department of Education do much to equalize teacher quality across schools. Without emphasizing this aspect of the law, the rest of the efforts will have little impact. In fact, the highly qualified provision has actually been used by districts to obscure differences in teacher quality across schools. In analyzing Texas data over time, I continue to find wide gaps in teacher quality between schools serving poor and minority students, yet districts and the state insist that all teachers are highly qualified. Indeed, district personnel now argue that the "problem" of inequitably distributed teacher quality has been "taken care of" because they now report that all teachers are highly qualified and the AVERAGE teacher experience is about the same across schools.<br/><br/>So, the poorly written and poorly enforced teacher quality provisions have actually made things worse because districts (and the state) now argue that there is no gap in teacher quality. Unfortunately, neither the law nor the Department of Education do much to equalize teacher quality across schools. Without emphasizing this aspect of the law, the rest of the efforts will have little impact. In fact, the highly qualified provision has actually been used by districts to obscure differences in teacher quality across schools. In analyzing Texas data over time, I continue to find wide gaps in teacher quality between schools serving poor and minority students, yet districts and the state insist that all teachers are highly qualified. Indeed, district personnel now argue that the “problem” of inequitably distributed teacher quality has been “taken care of” because they now report that all teachers are highly qualified and the AVERAGE teacher experience is about the same across schools.

So, the poorly written and poorly enforced teacher quality provisions have actually made things worse because districts (and the state) now argue that there is no gap in teacher quality.

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