WASHINGTON (NNPA) – A new study suggests that access to “excellent teachers” should be a civil right and that students should be able to “take legal action” to get better results.
The Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan Washington think tank, partnered with Public Impact on the report that recommends a number of federal policy reforms designed to increase the influence of excellent teachers in American classrooms. Public Impact is a research and advocacy group focused on the educational needs of underserved students.
“Excellent teachers – those in the top 20 percent to 25 percent of the profession in terms of student progress – produce well more than a year of student-learning growth for each year they spend instructing a cohort of students,” stated CAP/PI joint study.
The study found that one way to ensure that the highest-performing teachers instructed more students would be to make it a federal law.
“If schools and districts do not provide such a child with an excellent teacher, the child should be empowered to take legal action to enforce the right,” stated the report. “Legislating a new civil right to excellent teachers obligates federal and state governments to enforce what should be a fundamental guarantee.”
For poor students who often inherit poorly-trained teachers in poverty-stricken schools, getting access to excellent teachers could mean the difference in educational outcomes that have wide-ranging consequences for the economy.
According to the Center for American Progress, nearly 43 percent of Black children under age five live in poverty. The Children’s Defense Fund reported that about one in five Black children survive life in extreme poverty in 2012 compared to one in 18 White children.
Schools with a 90 percent White student body outspent 90 percent minority schools by $733 per student. A CAP report on public school spending estimated that those funds could pay for nine veteran teachers or technology upgrades and resource staffers.
As the United States grows ever-dependent on a well-educated, diverse workforce, the need to fix the academic achievement gap becomes even more critical. By 2050, Blacks and Hispanics will account for 42 percent of the labor force.
“Had we closed the academic-performance gaps of African American and Hispanic students in 2008, the United States would have gained between $310 billion and $525 billion in gross domestic product, or GDP,” stated a CAP brief on the school-readiness gap and preschool benefits for minorities.
According to the brief, in less than five years, one will need an associate’s degree or better to work in almost half (45 percent) of all jobs in the U.S., a rung on the education ladder that nearly 75 percent of Blacks haven’t reached.
Closing the achievement gap will take innovative strategies and great teachers.
About Post Author
