I Don’t Want To Work In The Hood

OK, I’m going to stick up for the teachers a bit on this one.

A report from the Education Trust, a widely known advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., released today a study that strongly decried practices that put weaker teachers in front of needier students nationwide and cited Milwaukee and Wisconsin as examples of the problem.

Using data from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the study said 26% of teachers in the state who work in schools with high rates of student poverty had less than three years of experience, compared to 12% of teachers in low-poverty schools. Similarly, 28% of teachers in schools with large minority populations had less than three years experience, compared to 11% in schools with few minority students.

The report said the same pattern held true within Milwaukee Public Schools, where the percent of teachers with limited experience in low-income, high-minority schools was much higher than in other schools.

The reason for this is very simple.  The schools dominated by poverty are also generally the crappiest schools to work in.  They are generally in bad neighborhoods where crime is an every day issue.  Also, the kids generally have less support for education outside of school, so the kids are less enthusiastic about learning and are more likely to have behavioral issues.  Did I put that gently enough?  To sum it up, it sucks to work in most of these schools.

As such, the teachers who work in these schools are those who just got out of college and will take the best job available to them given their lack of experience.  After they have a bit of experience and are (presumably) better teachers, they have a bit of market power to leverage their employer into transferring them to a better work environment. 

Furthermore, these young teachers are generally more willing to work in the crappy schools because they are more likely to be single.  Once they have a family, they are more likely to want to move to a better area, which usually goes hand in hand with a better school. 

Since it is unlikely that this natural phenomenon will change, there are really only two options.  The first option is to force more experienced teachers to work in the crappy schools.  The down side to this is that those teachers will be much less satisfied with their jobs are are more likely to quit or move to another district.  The second option is to provide incentives for more experienced teachers to work in the crappy school - “hazard pay,” if you will.  I’m sure that this option would violate all sorts of union contracts, plus it’s probably cost prohibitive. 

I can’t blame the teachers for wanting to work in a better environment and using their job experience to leverage a better work situation.  Everyone else does the same thing.