5/28/2003
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Teachers at the state's charter schools - which are more likely to serve urban, poor and minority children - are less qualified than their counterparts at traditional public schools, according to a report released today by the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University.
Michigan requires public schools to be staffed by certified teachers, but more than a quarter of charter school teachers are not certified in their main teaching assignment, with more than a third of secondary level charter school teachers teaching "out of field," the study found.
Using recently released data from the National Center for Educational Statistics for the 1999-2000 school year, the authors also found that:
- More than half of all charter school teachers were in the first three years of teaching, compared to only one in seven traditional school teachers
- Charter school teachers were more likely to have graduated from less competitive or noncompetitive undergraduate institutions than traditional school teachers (28 percent versus 18.2 percent)
- More than 56 percent of traditional public school teachers had master's degrees, compared to 21.8 percent of charter school teachers
About half of all charter schools in Michigan are located in urban centers, and a majority of those schools have more than 40 percent of their students participate in free and reduced lunch programs. This means that charter schools are "educating children who are most likely to be 'left behind' if they are not taught by highly qualified teachers," the authors wrote.
The analysis did find that charter schools are surpassing their traditional public school counterparts in one area: diversity. Charters have greater minority representation among their teachers than traditional public schools. In charter schools, three out of four teachers describe themselves as white, compared to eight out of nine teachers in traditional schools, the report found.
But the overall gaps between the average traditional public school and charter school teacher are worrisome, including lower salaries, even when experience levels are taken into consideration. The salary gap widens from 10 percent to nearly 40 percent as a teacher gains experience.
Another recent report from the Education Policy Center showed that traditional public schools that educate poor and minority students are the least likely to employ fully qualified teachers, and Michigan's charter schools display a similar pattern.
"We cannot promise success for all students if we do not provide them with highly qualified teachers," said David N. Plank, co-director of the Education Policy Center and one of the report's authors. "Right now, Michigan is failing in that responsibility, in charter schools and in urban schools more generally."
For more information, contact Plank at (517) 355-4494.