2002 - Teacher Sorting and the Plight of Urban Schools: A Descriptive Analysis

Attribution: Lankford, Hamilton, Loeb Susanna, & Wyckoff, James
Researchers: Hamilton LankfordJamesWyckoff Loeb Susanna
University Affiliation: SUNY, Albany
Email: hamp@albany.edu
Research Question:
Determine how much variation in the average attributes of teachers currently exists across schools.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
Journal Entry: Vol. 24, No.1, pp. 37-62
Year: 2002
Findings:
  • Results show striking differences in the qualifications of teachers across schools. Urban schools, in particular, have lesser-qualified teachers, and New York City stands out among urban areas.
  • Low-income, low-achieving and non-White students, particularly those in urban areas, find themselves in classes with many of the least skilled teachers.
  • Salary variation rarely compensates for the apparent difficulties of teaching in urban settings and, in some cases, contributes to the inequities in teacher resources across schools.
  • Policies that aim to improve the achievement of low-performing students but ignore teacher labor-market dynamics are unlikely to impact the sorting of teachers that appears to strongly disadvantage poor, urban students.
Keywords: CompositionRacial CompositionSchool QualityTeachersUrban SchoolsRegions: NortheastMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: Secondary Survey DataAnalysis Methods: Descriptive Statistics Sampling Frame:NY Public School Teachers
Sampling Types: PopulationAnalysis Units: EducatorData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
  • Database links 7 administrative datasets and various other information characterizing districts, communities, and local labor markets.
  • The core data comes from the Personnel Master File (PMF), part of the Basic Education Data System of the New York State Education Department.
  • It includes information for every teacher and administrator employed in a New York public school at any time from 1984-85 through 1999-2000.
  • Heart of analysis –> measures of teacher skills
  • DV: Teacher attributes (overall quality, experience, certification, competetiveness of BA institution)
  • IV: School district
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts