Posted on 05/27/2009 6:41:58 AM PDT by decimon
A study forthcoming in the Journal of Labor Economics suggests that high-quality teachers tend to leave schools that experience inflows of black students. According to the study's author, C. Kirabo Jackson (Cornell University), this is the first study to show that a school's racial makeup may have a direct impact on the quality of its teachers.
"It's well established that schools with large minority populations tend to have lower quality teachers," Dr. Jackson said. "But it is unclear whether these schools are merely located in areas with a paucity of quality teachers, whether quality teachers avoid these schools because of the neighborhood or economic factors surrounding a school, or whether there is a direct relationship between student characteristics and teacher quality."
Dr. Jackson's findings suggest that it's not neighborhoods keeping high-quality teachers away; it's the students—and it's directly related to their race.
"This is particularly sobering because it implies that, all else equal, black students will systematically receive lower quality instruction," Jackson said. "This relationship may be a substantial contributor to the black-white achievement gap in American schools."
The study focused on the Charlotte-Mecklenberg school district in North Carolina. In 2002, the district ended its race-based busing program, which distributed the district's minority population across its schools. When the policy ended, some schools had a large and sudden inflow of black students. Since the racial makeup of the schools changed suddenly but the neighborhood and economic factors surrounding them stayed the same, Jackson could test the impact the student body itself had on teacher quality.
Using data supplied by the North Carolina Education Research Data Center, Jackson found that schools that had an increase in black enrollment suffered a decrease in their share of high-quality teachers, as measured by years of experience and certification test scores. Teacher effectiveness, as measured by teachers' previous ability to improve student test scores, decreased in the black inflow schools as well. The change in quality for each school generally occurred in the same year that the busing program ended, indicating that teachers moved in anticipation of more black students.
"This study implies teachers may prefer a student body that is more white and less black," Jackson says.
Black teachers were slightly more likely than white teachers to stay in the schools that experienced a black inflow, the study found. However, those black teachers who did leave black schools tended to be the highest qualified black teachers. So the decline in quality was somewhat more pronounced among black teachers than white teachers.
Just what it is about black students that pushes high-quality teachers away is hard to pin down, Dr. Jackson says. It could be that teachers are reacting to notions about black students' achievement or income levels.
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C. Kirabo Jackson, "Student Demographics, Teacher Sorting, and Teacher Quality: Evidence from the End of School Desegregation," Journal of Labor Economics 27:2.
Since 1983, the Journal of Labor Economics has presented international research that examines issues affecting the economy as well as social and private behavior. The Journal publishes both theoretical and applied research results relating to the U.S. and international data. And its contributors investigate various aspects of labor economics, including supply and demand of labor services, personnel economics, distribution of income, unions and collective bargaining, applied and policy issues in labor economics, and labor markets and demographics.
A “thug” mentality is considered “cool”.
“learning” is a “white thing.”
They've got it backwards and ALWAYS want to blame skin color.
I often wonder ... if any of them study Lincoln ... he was dirt poor with tragedy and look what Abraham Lincoln accomplished. There truly is no excuse. They ALLOW themselves to STAY DOWN.
Maybe he means that the reason is hard for an “educator” to say out loud without scuttling his or her career.
Go ahead and give it a shot Dr. Since the black teachers left too we know it can't be racism. Could it be culture?
Sorry about the multiple posts — our cat stepped on the keyboard!
Yours are exactly this economist first thoughts on the results. If a group of students transfer in from a group that view study and education as “acting white” why wouldn’t teachers who can leave, leave.
“Just what it is about black students that pushes high-quality teachers away is hard to pin down, Dr. Jackson says. It could be that teachers are reacting to notions about black students’ achievement or income levels.”
Notions about achievement or income levels?
How about “Teacher effectiveness, as measured by teachers’ previous ability to improve student test scores”
The study answers itself. Probably spent taxpayer money for it also.
Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. It comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday. - John Wayne
I see you are an advocate of rote learning. ;-)
Your pet goat ate your homework. The check is in the mail...
Let me give you an example of their behavior. One girl, in fourth grade likes to throw scissors at “butts”, literally tackle a fellow student for a marker and bite you if she's not happy with something you have done. A black boy likes to strip down in the locker room and run after other boys and threaten them with his “private parts”. All this is uncivilized behavior. I kid you not, ALL the kids from Africa have the same or similar behavioral problems. The parents think their kids are being “picked on” because of their kin color.
I just say to our daughter, “be nice, get along” but DO NOT GET INVOLVED WITH THESE KIDS. They are BAD NEWS.
The school will NOT throw them out. They will NOT issue behavior reports. They will NOT issue demerits. If if were a white kid they'd get all the above. Eventually the expense drives them out as they go up in grades and the school is proud of its “diversity”.
I teach in a low performing, high poverty school.
Some of my most dear students are the A. American ones. Show them some tough love and a bit of TLC and they will try to walk on water for you. Some of them are the hard core, wanna be thugs, but are willing to work hard for me.
I do have those that will not perform or cannot perform, but they are few and far between.
Am I a good teacher? Scores seem to say so, considering I teach the lowest performing (before special needs) in the school, so I get a lot of those self same students.
But, by most on this board, I am a fool for doing what I feel called to do, with the students that I choose to work with.
At our house, it wouldn't matter what school the kids went to since we stay on top of what they are doing, learning and MOTIVATE them. This is missing from the kids they speak of.
Maybe they grow weary of the constant barrage of racial epithets and get no support from the administration (according to the experiences of 2 of my teacher friends).
Gee, imagine that?
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