Education Secretary Arne Duncan
The Obama administration is announcing
a new push on teacher equity, which at first glance appears to be less cringeworthy than most education policy coming out of this administration:
There are three parts to the effort: By April 2015, states must submit "comprehensive educator equity plans" that detail how they plan to put "effective educators" in front of poor and minority kids. To help states write the plans, the Education Department will create a $4.2 million "Education Equity Support Network." And this fall, the Education Department will publish "Educator Equity profiles" that highlight which states and districts fare well or poorly on teacher equity.
"Effective educators" language can be a red flag, since the administration has pushed some extremely questionable measures of teacher effectiveness. However, there are inequities by some very solid measures:
Students in high-poverty schools, a national survey has shown, are twice as likely to have their most important classes taught by teachers without proper certification. And federal data shows that minority students' teachers on average have less experience than the teachers of their wealthier peers.
The lesser experience of minority students' teachers is likely increased by the pushing of inexperienced Teach for America teachers into urban classrooms and the fact that high-poverty schools are increasingly subject to closings or "turnarounds" in which all their teachers are laid off. It would be great to see a policy acknowledging that teacher experience and specialized qualifications are actually a good thing and that youthful energy (and willingness to work for low wages) is not a magic bullet for deep and pervasive educational inequities. I wouldn't hold my breath for that, but at least the initial reports on this push for teacher equity don't suggest that it's yet another new way of blaming teachers for educational inequities.