Teacher Pay Gap Hurts the Poor …

Teacher pay gap hurts the poor

… A new study documents the serious teacher pay gap that exists between rich and poor schools even within the same districts.

Education Trust-West, a nonprofit organization that advocates for school reforms … compiled teacher pay data from 12 California school districts. It found that the average annual pay for teachers working in high-poverty, heavily minority schools was thousands of dollars lower than the pay of teachers in schools with children from richer families.

For years, education reformers have tried to provide incentives to steer the best and most experienced teachers to schools with the most challenging students. Time and again, their efforts have been thwarted by teacher unions that have pushed for giving teachers the authority to assign themselves to schools based on seniority.

But unions aren’t the only impediment. To attract the best teachers to schools that serve poor students, school districts need to do a better job at making those campuses safer, cleaner and better equipped.

Ultimately, however, if teacher talent is to be distributed more equitably, if the best and most experienced teachers are to go to the most challenging students, districts need greater authority to make classroom teaching assignments. …

– The Sacramento Bee