The Most Serious Inequities in Access to Great Teachers and Leaders

Stakeholders should consider the following questions to focus their efforts to address equity gaps.

Regional Center Considerations

  • Which of your states have the most serious challenges in ensuring that students of color, low-income students, English language learners, rural students, and students with disabilities have access to excellent teachers and leaders?
  • Which of your states currently have the capacity to address inequitable access?
  • Which of your states are furthest behind in having the data necessary to determine equity in acess?
  • What are the essential elements your states need to prepare to address inequitable access?

State Education Agency Considerations

  • Is inequitable access a problem for all local education agencies?  Or is it concentrated in only certain local education agencies in your state?  If the latter, which ones?
  • Where do the greatest equity gaps lie? Do particular school districts have less effective teachers whereas more affluent neighboring districts have more effective teachers and leaders? Or do the inequities occur within local education agencies, with some schools having more qualified teachers than other schools?

Educator Preparation Program Considerations

  • Is the educator preparation program preparing candidates to be effective with students of color, low-income students, English language learners, rural students, and students with disabilities?
  • Is the educator preparation program helping to identify and fill critical teacher and leader shortage areas?

Local Education Agency Considerations

  • In your district, are there particular schools that have high concentrations of low-income or minority students with less qualified or effective teachers and leaders?
  • For beginning teachers or for teachers who are not highly qualified, what is the student composition of the classes they are assigned to teach? Is the composition more likely to be high minority or high poverty, or include high percentages of students with disabilities or English language learners? What is the student composition for highly qualified teachers?

School Building Considerations

  • Which aspects of inequitable access are most critically in need of being addressed? Consider characteristics of both educators and students.
  • Which students in your school have the least experienced teachers?  What are the characteristics of those students?  Are they disproportionately from low-income or non-White families?  Are they likely to start out the year further behind academically?
  • How many teachers in your school are teaching out of their field of expertise?  Where are they teaching?
  • Which students in your school have the least effective teachers?  What are their characteristics?