Poor, minority students in Texas more likely to have inexperienced teachers, study finds

form the Dallas Morning News

Study: Students at poor schools most likely to have newest educators

By TAWNELL D. HOBBS / The Dallas Morning News
tdhobbs@dallasnews.com

Poor black and Hispanic students in Texas are more likely to have inexperienced teachers who receive lower salaries, according to a report released Thursday by a Washington-based group that monitors achievement trends.

The Education Trust report looked at gaps in teacher experience and pay in 50 of the largest school districts in Texas and found that the vast majority "saddle high-poverty and high-minority schools with disproportionate numbers of rookie teachers."

In the Dallas Independent School District, gaps in teacher quality are not as big as in some of the state's other large districts, said Kati Haycock, Education Trust president. She commended Dallas school officials for initiatives such as bonuses to attract good teachers to low-performing campuses.

Forty-three of the state's 50 largest school districts have the highest concentration of teachers with fewer than three years experience in their poorest schools. In DISD, almost 14 percent of teachers in the highest-poverty schools have fewer than three years of teaching experience, compared with 9 percent of teachers in the lowest-poverty schools.

Over time, the result of assigning low-performing students to a series of ineffective teachers is "educationally deadly," the report states. It also says that teachers who lack experience and credentials are often paid less than teachers in other schools and that teacher turnover is consistently higher in high-poverty, high-minority schools than in more affluent schools and schools serving more white students.

Having teachers who are effective in their classrooms, as judged by student performance, is part of DISD's Dallas Achieves reform initiative, said Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, who took part in a conference call with the Education Trust on Thursday.

"We have to increase the number of effective teachers that are going to be teaching disadvantaged students, especially in our core subjects," Dr. Hinojosa said.

DISD teachers who move to 14 of the district's lowest-performing schools can get bonuses for doing so and also get academic coaches, Dr. Hinojosa said.