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.
You know - good for you - I wish I could do the same because I LOVE kids (of any color) and particularly want to help those who really want to work hard and learn. But there are SO many other teachers in the system along with parents and admin types who don’t want the truth to be told and don’t care about the end result of the schooling. I’m too old to fight that fight but I wish you all the best. Comments here are basically from frustration, seeing hard-earned tax payer money going to a failed system run by the unions and butt-kisser Obama...
Are those “Students” with the behavior issues Muslim?
Perhaps that should be looked into. Just a suggestion.
“This relationship may be a substantial contributor to the black-white achievement gap in American schools.”
The most substantial contributor to the Black-White achievement gap in American schools can be directly traced to the fact that a large majority of Black households have no father in them.
I’ve had the opposite experience with black Africans in college. They are highly intelligent and they abhor the degenerate hip-hop culture of black Americans.
Got to wonder just how much money was spent on this. Maybe some of it was funded by the Porkulus Bill.
There are two very good reasons. First affluent suburban districts pay better. There is a brain drain that goes on. It’s very common for very qualified, even Ivy League educated teachers with 2 to 5 year experience leave a school in the inner city, get a job in the suburbs and receive 10 to 20K a year more.
The second problem is that inner city school students bring inner city problems to school with them. That means even gang violence. Assaults on teachers are all too common. While violent students are not the norm there are certainly plenty of verbally abusive students that care little about their education. That said the majority of kids are very nice and value their education but they often get overshadowed by the pain in the asses.
One clue is that the last district stopped calling me to come in. They had offered me and in-school disciplinarian floater position, put I liked the migrant class/age/school mix of a regular floating sub. It appeals to my sense of adventure.
One story:
The Junior High called me the one morning I’ve had a hangover in the past twenty years (Divine coincidence!) and after I had marked myself out of availability that day some days prior. Yet they kept calling, being desperate. Around 10 am I foolishly accepted. Bad move. It was the district’s worst seventh grade class in years on their worse day of the week, in their worst period of the day (right after lunch) in their worst subject: math.
Math is my favorite subject and my classes in it are usually fun and productive. Not this one.
From the moment I walked in late to their class (given that I accepted the duty late and had rushed over — an hour from bed to classroom) they were on my case, on each others cases, etc etc. No interest whatsoever in math. I was in no mood for it. “YOU ARE REALLY PISSING ME OFF!” I firmly asserted. That got their attention. One black girl (the one with the worst mouth, of course) said “You cursed at us!”. Somehow we made it through one half the lesson plan. The teacher actually did leave a lesson plan.
After the class ten students ran to the Prinicpal’s office and lined up on one side of the door. Ten kids who had already learned how to hobble class discipline and drive away good teachers. One kid lined up on the other side. She told the real story. But there was nothing the Principal could do to support me — some of kids had moms (and a few dads) who had already established a complain-about-teacher relation with the district’s whimpy Superintendent. So I learned from the other teachers, later. In any case that school never called me back.
He and I both...;-) Seriously though, I am also an educator in similar circumstances. While I have managed to inspire some of the thugs to do some work, several remain out of reach due to lack of any parental influence. Too many of my students have families of their own already, or are the breadwinners for their respective "households".
From memory. Detroit high schools admit to a 25% graduation rate. Half that do graduate, do not go on to any post HS education, and of those that do, half do not complete the fist year. So, 6% of Detroit HS students finish one year of post HS education.
I suspect the numbers are even worse.
Back of the envelope calculations, of admitted but not all expenses, of ‘student’ costs in major urban schools are running near $20,000 per year for each body.
If you put a price on what the ‘system’ costs to get a ‘student’ to be able to complete one year of post HS education, then the per year cost rises to 60-80 thousand dollars per student per year, in as much that you would be writing off the costs of all the money spent on the failed students and folding those costs into the few who come out of the soviet quality style education factories known as Public Schools.
No Union, no school system no Phd Admin will guarantee ANY LEVEL OF PERFORMACE. NONE. ZERO.
So...
A teacher may be ‘professional’ but teacherS are not profesional.
Perhaps that should be looked into. Just a suggestion.
Nope!
They claim to be “Christians”.
Of course they are rapid Obama fans.
The school is really hurting itself.
The Principal for the elementary school is new. He's from a lily white school and has no idea what he is doing with this double standard. He's got the mentality of, oh well, that's how they are ... in time (as if by magic) they'll suddenly stop this uncivilized behavior.
They're are not many blacks there. Blacks born here want NOTHING to do with them so of course the parents of the uncivilized ones want their kids to hang with the behaved white kids. Parents tip toe around this because they don't want their kids to have anything to do with them or their influence. It's an unspoken thing. At parties the Africans are excluded - it's because of their BEHAVIOR and the parents when they hear about their kid being excluded believe it is their “skin color”. Round and round it goes.
It's really a shame that this particular Principal believes they can't behave like other kids attending there - they need a lower standard or none at all to keep them there and appear “diversified”. S.A.T. scores aren't posted anymore since they have arrived ... heck we tune it out. I've got mine signed up with John Hopkins for the summer for math. The rest of their curriculum is for the birds - it's to the LEFT in a MAJOR way.
Well, sorta -- and that's the fundamental dishonesty of this little report. The author seems to imply that teachers' choices are essentially arbitrary on the matter, except for the matter of race.
In reality, their choices are almost certainly directly related to the behavior expected (through direct experience) from the student body of "mostly minority" schools. Those places have bad reputations for a reason ... the reason being that the student body tends to come from a toxic culture where bad behavior is the norm.
Why would a qualified teacher stay in a place where she is cursed at, threatened with bodily harm/rape, made fun of because of her skin color, and accused of racism with every word she utters?
No reason.
She will get out of there real quick. The only ones left will be unqualified.
I don't have the gift of patience required to make the difference you are making. I fell bad for them. As I mentioned in another post ... I don't want their influence or bad behavior being an influence here. We tried that with a little girl that wasn't black that has “issues”. The little girl is the victim of a divorce. She's spoiled, manipulative, precocious a bully, insecure, no confidence, gossipy, petty and very materialistic. It started to rub off on our daughter ... and we had to wean away from it. The mom is the same way.
It's a shame. I've seen other kids of divorce being fine - besides the hurt they experienced... . So divorce is not the sole reason ... . Allot of the parents out there have major "issues" and this trickles down to the kids.
I’ve had the opposite experience with black Africans in college. They are highly intelligent and they abhor the degenerate hip-hop culture of black Americans.
What I’ve seen of blacks directly from Africa is their “intelliegence” is more “street wise intelligence”. It’s not academic intelliegnce. Cademic intelligence is NOT where they excell. The bell shaped curve is right ... with a few exceptions - Condi Rice, Clawrence Thomas, Thomas Sowell ... etc.. And yes, I do believe to ba a conservative is more INTELLIGENT than to be a LIBERAL so factor that BIAS in there.
A friend of mine is a teacher at a city school. The stories I hear about these kids is horrific. Constant bomb threats, shootings outside the school, parents don’t care, principle doesn’t care. They are beyond controllable. One of the students said to her, “You’re just a white trash bitch. What are you going to do?” when she was trying to discipline him. These are 7th graders!!
Needless to say, she is looking for a new job.
Hence the frustrations expressed in this thread by so many. Perfectly understandable....
What I’ve seen of blacks directly from Africa is their “intelligence” is more “street wise intelligence”. It’s not academic intelliegnce. Academic intelligence is NOT where they excell. The bell shaped curve is right ... with a few exceptions - Condi Rice, Clawrence Thomas, Thomas Sowell ... etc.. And yes, I do believe to ba a conservative is more INTELLIGENT than to be a LIBERAL so factor that BIAS in there.
One more thing, most blacks get “accepted” at college based on color. They are part of a “quota”. Grades don't matter. In fact even if a college or a university REJECTS them there is a government program that FORCES the college or university to ACCEPT them and PROVIDE A TUTOR.
I have also seen how blacks GRAVITATE towards hip-hop, rap and other forms of degeneration. This is more the RULE. I'm always glad to hear some avoid it however I know it is NOT the norm for them to avoid it because of “skin color” pressure to conform to a “race mentality” or “race think”.
But the Bush family had the SAME option as the Obama family. The Bush family chose a public school. The Obama’s never had their kids in a public school - ever.
I have a friend who teaches math in a "large percentage minority" school hereabouts. I had the opportunity to speak to her AP calculus class -- mostly minority, and some of them clearly from the wrong side of the tracks.
I introduced myself as somebody who gets paid to do calculus, and I walked them through a bit of rocket science, including the derivatives and integrals.
It was a wonderful experience! The kids were bright, polite, and engaged ... and we walked through the calculus together, and they clearly got it. All that, despite the fact that they were seniors with only a couple of days of school left. Yeah, these were a self-selecting group of kids, but they were great. I really liked them.
The point being ... I don't think there's anything intrinsically horrible about most of the kids in those ghastly places; it's mostly that their environment has conditioned them badly.
Like many who spend their time looking for and bemoaning "racism" among teachers, Mr. C. Kirabo Jackson might do well to reflect on the flipside: is there something about the kids that makes teachers want to avoid them?
It's easier to cry racism than to address the actual problems, though.... and Mr. Jackson seems to make a good living through finding it.
A surface treatment of the issue - heaven forbid a researcher does any heavy lifting. How about “teachers leave schools where the bulk of the student population are dedicated under-achievers, believe that learning is - dare I say it - Whitey’s game, the parent (deliberately singular) could care less, there is no discipline, any attempt to bring order generates cries of racism ... to list just a few problem characteristics.” The sad state of affairs is the strong correlation of those factors with the racial make-up of the student population. Senator DPM called it correctly; take a bow, liberals, look what your policies have wrought.
>As tuition goes up so does the problem.<
It was our impression that the tuition went up exponentially because of the scholarships and discounts given, even in a private school atmosphere. We were not eligible for freebies, so we got good and tired of being in the cash cow population. We finally allowed our teenager to transfer to public school. She did just fine.
In addition, it galled us that scholarships were given to athletes to insure the school fathers could brag on its state championships. I have no problem whatsoever with giving scholarship money to bright, motivated inner city kids, but NOT with giving it to some kid just because he can throw a ball.
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