Using High-Stakes Test Scores To Provide Outstanding Responsive Teachers to Disadvantaged Kids.

N

30

Academic Achievement; Access to Education; College School Cooperation; Disadvantaged Youth; Educational Quality; Elementary Education; Elementary Secondary Education; Equal Education; High Stakes Tests; Higher Education; Middle Schools; Minority Group Children; Partnerships in Education; Preservice Teacher Education; Public Education; Scores; Student Evaluation; Teacher Effectiveness; Teacher Qualifications; Teachers

This paper examines the latest elementary, middle school, and district level Maryland student achievement and teacher experience data to argue that schools today are segregated not only along student backgrounds, but also along teacher expertise. The very students who need school the most to break out of the intergenerational cycle of poverty and diminished opportunities also lack access to teachers who have the expertise to provide them quality teaching. The paper describes the School-University Partnership to Prepare Outstanding Responsive Teachers (SUPPORT) Project between a Maryland university and four of the five largest local educational agencies in Maryland, which begins to redress a number of these structural inequities. Project SUPPORT uses tests and access to teacher data to better prepare teachers and to more equitably allocate educational resources to schools. Finally, the paper proposes a number of recommendations to provide disadvantaged students access to quality teachers, including (1) revamping teacher education by moving to an apprenticeship model of teacher preparation, (2) connecting public school teaching rewards to teaching assignment difficulty, and (3) holding universities accountable for the quality of teachers they produce. (Contains 22 references.) (SM)

1999

ED430917