Dive Brief:
- Most states have developed plans to make sure high poverty schools are getting highly qualified educators, in response to a call from President Obama last year.
- The plans were originally a part of the No Child Left Behind waiver process and have since been partitioned off and required of all states, not just those with waivers.
- How exactly the plans will be enforced or what stakes will be attached to them by the Department of Education is not yet clear.
Dive Insight:
Many of the plans restated ongoing initiatives, rather than developing plans for new efforts to ensure equitable teacher distributions. But a few did decide to lay out some new steps. Massachusetts, for example, found teachers were inequitably distributed even within schools, with veteran teachers receiving "easier" students. In response, the state is creating reports for each school that look how much exposure students have to new, under-qualified or low-rated teachers.
Other examples of new initiatives included a plan in Missouri to provide incentives for better trained teachers to work in hard-to-staff schools and an Ohio index intended to help district leaders figure out which schools need the most teaching help.