"Ed Trust has once again peeled back what are complicated policy layers to reveal a simple, stark truth."
Eli Broad,
Founder of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation
Texas schools serving mostly poor and minority students often have less of everything that matters in education – especially strong teachers. Instead of providing these students with the kind of teachers they need to catch up to other students, low-income, Hispanic and African-American students in Texas are:
- less likely to be assigned to fully certified teachers,
- less likely to be in classrooms with experienced teachers, and
- less likely to attend a school with a stable teaching force.
And because of their inexperience, these teachers are often paid less than more experienced teachers working in other schools. As a result, teacher salary gaps between the schools serving high proportions of low-income, Hispanic and African-American children and the schools serving few or none of these children can add up to tens of thousands – sometimes hundreds of thousands – of dollars every year.
So, not only are these students less likely to get the strong teaching they need, their teachers get paid less, too. The deck is stacked against their success.
BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY.
Through this website, you'll learn more about the teacher quality and salary gaps in the 50 largest school districts in Texas. The site includes both district- and school-level information about teacher experience, teacher turnover rates and average teacher salaries.
Find out if students in your community are getting Their Fair Share
Left unattended, the current teacher quality and salary gaps in Texas guarantee that the state's large and growing numbers of Hispanic, African-American and low-income children will not get the education that they need to contribute to the state's future prosperity. And that spells trouble... for all of us.
Get the facts and learn what you can do to ensure that all Texas students get their fair share and that Texas as a whole has a fair shot a prosperous future.
