Report: Teachers in poor schools less-experienced than in affluent schools

By: JULIET WILLIAMS - Associated Press | Wednesday, September 14, 2005 8:42 PM PDT ∞

SACRAMENTO -- Teachers whose students are poor and members of racial minorities are generally less experienced and earn less money than their counterparts at more affluent schools, even within the same districts, according to a report released Wednesday by a nonpartisan research group.

A bill now on the governor's desk would require districts to report per-pupil spending and teachers' salaries by school so parents can see if that's true at their children's school.

Education Trust-West, an Oakland-based policy and research organization, spent two years mapping teachers' credentials at schools around the state and comparing them with salary scales to figure out how much teachers make at each school, said the group's executive director, Russlynn Ali. The data are from the 2003-04 school year.

It found that students in the schools with the highest percentage of minority students were five times more likely to have an under-prepared teacher as those in schools with lower percentages.

But it's tough for parents to compare schools right now because districts are only required to give the state Department of Education the average of teachers' salaries in a district.

Senate Bill 687, which passed the senate 35-2, would force the districts to report the average salaries at each school as part of their annual School Accountability Report Cards, said its sponsor, Sen. Joe Simitian, D-San Mateo.

"An average tells us absolutely nothing about what is going on in any individual school for any individual kid," Simitian said Wednesday.

He said the measure coincides with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's pledge in his state-of-the-state address to provide "fiscal transparency so people know how every educational dollar is spent at their local schools."

Schwarzenegger has not taken a position on the bill. State Superintendent of Education Jack O'Connell supports it.

Ali said the current reporting method hides the inequalities from school to school. It "gives the illusion of a fair distribution of per-pupil funding, when in reality the distribution of teaching dollars is anything but fair and equitable," she said.

For example, Los Angeles Unified School District spends an estimated $1,589 less per teacher in its high-poverty elementary schools and $1,826 less in its high-poverty middle schools, the report said. But Education Trust-West acknowledged that L.A. spends $159 more on average for teachers at its high schools with mostly poor students.

Teachers' salaries typically make up 80 percent to 85 percent of district budgets, the group said.

On the Net:

Education Trust-West report: www.HiddenGap.org.