Poor areas=inexperienced teachers

A report in the Washington Post Monday was specific to the D.C. area, but it points out something that is true around the country: poorer areas have a greater number of inexperienced teachers:

...studies show that inexperienced teachers tend to be less effective, especially in their first two years. That is when they learn to tame an unruly bunch into a class, prepare six hours of daily lessons and grade 25 homework assignments without working through dinner. The concentration of new teachers in low-income communities is "remarkably consistent" across the nation, said James Wyckoff, a University of Virginia economist. Many teachers leave jobs in low-income communities after a year or two. Their flight leaves openings in struggling schools, which are filled by more new teachers.

NCLB was supposed to force states to deal with this, but there hasn't been very much behind the requirement that the states take steps to fix it:

Margaret Spellings, who was education secretary under President George W. Bush, said she strove to make students, not teachers, the focus of federal policy. The more important issue, she said, was "how the kids are doing, not how qualified the teachers are." Spellings said seniority preferences in contracts, which allow experienced teachers to choose assignments, magnify disparities because "teachers tend to pick cream-puff schools."

(thanks for that, former Secretary!)