Minority schools lack top teachers

Teachers in urban districts are being trained in core subjects.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Nearly four out of 10 teachers are not considered highly qualified in the state's high-minority and high-poverty secondary schools, according to a study released this week.
The report by The Education Trust, which advocates for poor and minority children, also found that one in eight elementary school teachers is not considered highly qualified in schools with high numbers of minorities and low income levels.
Those teachers, typically in big-city districts with lower academic performance, have less experience teaching and more frequently do not have academic training in the subject they teach.
"There's solid research that links teachers' content knowledge to student achievement, particularly in high school math and science," said Heather Peske, one of the authors of the report.
"If you have someone who's never taken a college calculus class teaching a high school calculus course, we're effectively committing educational malpractice," she said. "The result is that you have teachers who are just two pages ahead of students in textbooks."
Wealthier districts
A larger portion of teachers are highly qualified in wealthier districts, where most of the students are white, according to the study, which looked at data gathered by the Ohio Department of Education during the 2004-2005 school year. Highly qualified teachers have college degrees in the subject they teach, have passed state exams in the subject and are fully certified by the state.
The Washington-based group also examined data from Illinois and Wisconsin and found similar results for the report, called "Teaching Inequality: How Poor and Minority Students Are Shortchanged on Teacher Quality." It was funded by The Joyce Foundation, based in Chicago, which seeks to ensure that public policies reflect public rather than private interests.
All states must tell the federal government by next month how they plan to reach a national requirement for 100 percent of teachers to be highly qualified.
Since the Bush administration's 2001 No Child Left Behind law, Ohio has added more training for teachers, including special education teachers, Ohio Education Department spokesman J.C. Benton said. The state will highlight this when it submits its plan next month, he said.
Original deadline
No state met the original deadline of this year to have all highly qualified teachers for core subjects, such as math and history, as required by the law, so the government gave the states more time.
About 94 percent of Ohio's teachers meet the requirement, one of the best rates in the nation, Benton said.
"We recognize and are concerned that the number is lower in schools that have more economically disadvantaged students," he said.
Using federal money, the state has been holding workshops in large urban school districts to train teachers in core subjects. Teachers can also attend workshops at 13 universities and colleges throughout the state, he said.
Tom Mooney, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers union, said having all highly qualified teachers in Ohio is difficult partly because half of those hired leave the profession within five years. That rate is higher in urban areas, he said.
"You can't force people to work where they don't want to work," Mooney said. "We don't really have a recruiting problem as much as we have a retention problem. Workloads, working conditions and low pay just drive them out."