Lower-paid teachers often paired with poorest kids

[The Straight Story]

Lower-paid teachers often paired with poorest kids

Teachers with lower salaries are concentrated in the highest-poverty elementary schools in most of Ohio's largest districts, according to a report released yesterday by the Education Trust.

The study conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based education-policy group concluded that students with the greatest needs are in classrooms with the lowest paid -- and presumably least experienced -- teachers. In 11 of the 14 largest Ohio districts, the average teacher salary in the highest-poverty schools was lower than in buildings with the fewest low-income kids.

Dublin was one of the three districts that broke that pattern; in the other five central Ohio school systems included in the report, there was at least a $1,000 gap in average salaries.

"The truth is, right now, district-to-school practices are dysfunctional, but they are also deeply entrenched," said Ross Wiener, who wrote the report for the Education Trust. "We have to establish better ways of funding schools that promote fairness and efficiency."

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/12/23/unequal.ART_ART_12-23-08_B1_0RCAMNA.html?sid=101

[DS1]

1. Ric Romero reporting!

[sandnsea]

2. They merit more pay

which is exactly what Obama has been saying. There are teachers out there who are doing the toughest jobs and not getting compensated for it because of the pay system.