Contact: David N. Plank, Education Policy Center, (517) 355-4494, dnplank@msu.edu; or Victor Inzunza, College of Education, (517) 355-1826, inzunza@msu.edu
3/8/2004
EAST LANSING, Mich. � Teachers in the nation's charter schools have half the experience of traditional public school teachers and are far less likely to be certified, according to an analysis released today by the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University.
Drawing on data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the report found that traditional public school teachers had an average of 14.6 years of experience in comparison to 7.1 years for charter school educators.
In addition, 73 percent of charter school teachers were certified, well below the level of public school teachers at 93 percent. Of the certified charter school teachers, only 68 percent were certified to teach in their main teaching assignment. That compares to 92 percent of traditional public school teachers who were certified in their main teaching assignment.
"What emerges from the data is a clear difference between charter and traditional public school teachers on a number of measures of teacher quality," said David N. Plank, co-director of the Education Policy Center. "This doesn't mean that charter school teachers are not as good or capable as traditional public school teachers, but it clearly shows that charter schools are making very different hiring decisions."
NCES data was collected during 1999-2000 and includes the responses of more than 20,000 traditional and charter public school teachers.
The report notes that it appears that charter schools are generally taking advantage of opportunities to be innovative in their hiring. They are placing more of an emphasis on the selectivity of the teachers' undergraduate institution and less on their certification and experience when making hiring decisions.
In fact, charter school teachers were more likely to have attended selective colleges than traditional public school teachers (35 percent to 29 percent).
The analysis also showed the influence of state laws on the differences between charter and traditional public school teachers.
For instance, when charter school teachers are included in traditional collective bargaining agreements, their qualifications are more similar to those of their counterparts in traditional public schools than when contracts are negotiated separately.
In states where school districts are the only group allowed to authorize charters, the charter schools tend to have teachers who are more similar to educators in traditional public schools with similar demographics.
When local school districts have a significant role in the funding of charter schools, it appears that the charters have more difficulty competing with similar traditional public schools for experienced, certified teachers than when funding is controlled by the state.
"It is up to local policymakers to decide what qualifications they feel are important and then establish regulations that encourage charter school operators to select teachers with those qualifications without discouraging innovative hiring practices," the report states.
The report is available at www.epc.msu.edu