A high quality, highly motivated and well-supported teacher can make the difference between success and failure for most students. Yet low-income children and children of color are disproportionately taught by teachers who are inexperienced, burnt-out or insufficiently supported by the school or the district. One study found that students in high-poverty schools were nearly twice as likely to be taught by teachers lacking certification in their field than students in more affluent schools.
What's a Good Teacher?
It's difficult to quantify what exactly makes one teacher more or less effective than another. Teaching is pretty close to rocket science --standing in front of a classroom of individual students with different needs and learning styles and figuring out how to keep them engaged and excited about learning is no easy task. It takes motivation and energy for sure.
But there are measurable characteristics of highly effective teachers as well. They have achieved high academic skills; they are teaching in the field in which they received their training; they have more than a few years of experience; and they are constantly being supported to refine, improve and assess their work.
 The Center for Community Change published Individual School Report Cards: Empowering Parents and Communities to Hold Schools Accountable, in April, 2001. To receive a free copy of this report, write to:
Jamaal Ferguson -- CCC
1000 Wisconsin Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20007
Phone orders: Call Jamaal Ferguson in the publications department at (202) 339-9338.
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Are Your Teachers Highly Qualified?
The new federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (also known as the No Child Left Behind Act) requires that schools provide parents - on request - information about the qualifications of their children's teachers. The new law also requires that individual school report cards or school profiles include information about teacher qualifications. In addition, parents must be notified if their child has been taught for more than four consecutive weeks by a substitute teacher, an uncertified teacher, or a teacher placed out of their field of training.
Some schools report this information in the aggregate, but parents have a right to specific information about their children's teachers. In Indiana, school profiles include a list of teachers by name, and include their years of experience, degree attained, teaching periods per week at the school, and the grade level or subjects they teach.
The new school report cards provide families with tools for assessing the quality of their children's teachers. Parents and community members can work with their local school and district to make sure that all teachers are qualified and that they are supported with strong, site-based professional development.
Leigh Dingerson is a policy specialist for the Center for Community Change in Washington D.C. She also works as an organizer and writer for the Center's Policy Unit on welfare reform work, and public school reform programs. She edits both CCC's "Organizing" and "Education Organizing" newsletters. Leigh formerly served as executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and a community organizer with ACORN. She is the co-author of the Co/Motion Guide to Youth-Led Social Change (1998, Alliance for Justice).
