Education

What Role does Race/Gender Play in Facilitating or Impending Academic Achievement in High School?

The Effect of Lesser Pay of Teachers to the Performance of the Students in Skyline High

Introduction:

Teachers play an important role in the overall achievement of every student. Every school in the country needs competent teachers not only academically but also culturally to teach students all the things that they need to learn to equip them with a better future. The country has a multi racial and culturally diverse population, does the requirement. Teachers should know how to deal with students that comes from different races and culture without any prejudice and discrimination. The qualified and competent teachers in the country are only a few. They are in-demand and they are easily enticed to transfer to schools that are offering them higher pay and good benefits. Schools that cannot provide them with these benefits are unable to stop them from leaving and to look for another job with a better pay and with better schedule. Skyline Highs School, located in Oakland got a lower academic performance in the year 2008-2009. The overall students enrolment per year is also declining. A number of possible reasons can be gleaned as to why the schools performance is declining. The teachers of the said school are earning lesser pay than their contemporaries from other schools. Competent teachers can easily find another job from other schools that provide them with higher pay and good benefits. With no competent teachers, the students overall performance in school will suffer.

Literature Review

A good school is known for their academically achieving students. How a school is rated will depend on how its students will fare on comparative exams provided to all students enrolled in public schools all over the country. The higher the score is, the higher is the possibility that it is due to the schools hiring of competent teachers. Because of it, schools are on the prowl of hiring highly competent teachers. Schools need to invest in highly competitive teachers to teach their students what they need to know and learn. Competitive teachers not only academically but culturally are only a few. That is one of the reasons why competent and highly skilled teachers are always in demand and they can even choose to name their price. This is also the reason why schools that are allocated with higher budget can hire the best teachers that they can afford for they know the importance of competent teachers to their end-products which are the students. Without competent teachers, the students academic performance will decline. Students from white middle class backgrounds will slowly transfer to other schools and the local board will further decrease their budget allocation to the school. The local school board is in charge with overseeing the finances, activities and finances of the schools within its jurisdiction. The overall impact is that the school will decline even more for it can no longer have enough finances to maintain its facilities.

Schools who cannot afford to pay for highly-competent and certified teachers will hire undercertified teachers to teach their students. Undercertified teachers are those teachers who are provided with an emergency certification to teach in schools. In California, as in many other states, one can earn an emergency certification is as few as nine content-specific graduate hours. A traditionally certified teacher will earn many more credits in addition to receiving specific pedagogical training. (Brown, Bendkovitz and Urban, 2010) (25) Most likely, it is the students in impoverished schools who do not have access to competent teachers. Thus, it is the students who belong in poor communities who are taught with not-so competent teachers. Thus, they are prone to losing momentum and their urge to learn. Majority of the students population from impoverished schools are multi-racial. Skyline Highs students population is saturated with Asian, African Americans, Pacific Islander and Latino. Further study will show in their students performance exam that they are underachieving. It is most likely that the teachers in Skyline High are not that competent academically or otherwise to handle and teach students as compared to the other teachers from other schools. (Lankford, Loeb and Wycoff had made a considerable study on the connection between Teacher Certification and Students Achievement. The three scholars gathered data from different states such as Arizona, California and New York. They have compare and contrast the result and data of the schools performance and overall impact to the students. The scholars have come to the conclusion that 20% to 50% of the teachers in urban and impoverished schools are undercertified. These students do not have access to learn and to train from the best teachers for the reason that the schools cannot afford to pay certified and good teachers. In their research, they have made a demographic comparison on the salaries of teachers from metropolitan regions. They have come to the conclusion that it nonwhite, poor and low performing students, particularly those in urban areas, attend schools with less qualified teachers. Transfer and quit behavior of teachers is consistent with the hypothesis that more qualified teachers seize opportunities to leave difficult working conditions and move to more appealing environments. Teachers are more likely to leave poor, urban schools and those who leave are likely to have greater skills than those who stay. (Lankford, Loeb & Wyckoff 2002) Teachers who do not have enough skills are less competent than those that are highly skilled and thus, ineffective in providing quality education to students.

What makes a good teacher? What are the qualities of a good teacher? The school will not be able to provide good and effective teachers if it does not have any idea what are the qualities of the good teacher. Dan Goldhaber made an essay that asks the question what makes a good teacher? In his studies, different qualities and competencies of a teacher is explored to define a good teacher. The teachers degree, pedagogical knowledge and the academic skills have to be considered in determining the capability of the teacher. However, Goldhaber also explore the possibility of lowering the class size is more effective than fostering good grades to students. The teachers competence will follow. In his conclusion, Goldhaber had made the following observation and conclusion.. The importance of teacher quality cannot be overstated. Teachers can have a profound effect on students, and school systems make a significant long-term investment when they hire teachers. Unlike other education investments, such as class size, which may be easily altered from year to year, the tenure system implies that the employment of an individual teacher is near permanent The Lack of clear evidence on the effectiveness of teacher certification suggests that policymakers should continue experiments, such as Teach for America, that allow individuals to enter the teaching profession through alternative routes.The compensation structure used by virtually all school districts is not well aligned to promote the acquisition of skills found to influence student outcomesThe compensation structures also does not provide policymakers with tools to address areas of shortage, to reward job performance or the acquisition of skills to be important, or to compensate for the difficulty of a teaching assignment. (Goldhaber, 2002) To understand more the difference between a not-so competent teacher and a skilled one, Oras in his research questions the difference between a novice and an expert teacher. Significant comparison has been made and he came up with the conclusion that The expert teachers have significantly higher sensitivity towards teacher activities related to (1) presenting new materials (2) guiding pupils learning and (3) enhancing retention and transfer, (4) general teaching strategy and classroom atmosphere than novice teachers. (397)

Local school boards have the power to increase and or decrease the funding of a government highs schools such as that of Skyline. The local school board may have withheld the increase of the budget allocated for the salaries of the teachers. It has the power to do so especially in instances that the school it is withholding appropriate benefits and salaries from is not performing well and there is considerable decline of white middle class population enrolling. Schools and local school board prefer to enroll white middle class students as compared to the non-white and impoverished students. Local school boards are content to focus on class sizes and to negotiate contracts setting teacher salaries exclusively on the basis of teacher education and experience. State legislators themselves also enter into regulating salaries and class sizes in different programs and mandating that teachers obtain a masters degree. (Hanushek1999 (49)

Haycock, in his research paper discusses how to close the achievement gap. Haycock also discussed that there is a clear relationship between low standards, low-level curriculum, undereducated teachers and poor results. According to her, Many leaders in teacher preparation programs say that they are doing the best they can- that low salaries and lower prestige make it impossible to attract able candidates, especially minorities, to the teaching profession and higher standards will make it worse. (Haycock)

Research Methodology

Observing students of Skyline High inside the classroom and within the campus for one whole semester is a necessity to determine the teachers competency in teaching and in dealing with students. This study is also to observe the behavior of the students. Notes will also be taken down in instances that there is an achievement test that the government wants to implement to every graduating student in the country. The notes will be compared from the previous years to check the progress of the students. The comparison is also needed to check whether or not the decline of the students performance had continued despite the proper diagnosis. Through direct observation, one will be able to determine if the teachers of the said school are competent to teach students everything that they need to learn. The qualities of a good/competent teacher have been discussed thoroughly in theory. Students will also be observed to check on their behavior, their interest in learning and their interest of doing homework and assignment. There is a possibility that it is not the competence of the teacher but the disinterest of the students to learn is the culprit why the students are underachieving. If the number of graduating students is a proof of the students interest in schooling, then the students of Skyline High are really interested to finish high school and hopefully, to enroll in college. But then, the number of delinquent studies and the number of multiracial graduates will be compared to check on whether or not it might be the possible cause why Skyline High is underachieving. Students will also be checked on the basis of their delinquencies and the number of students who have been subject to reprimand and punishment. Data will also be gathered to check on whether the teacher and students ratio in a classroom setting is conducive for learning. The number of absences of the teachers will also be checked to determine if it affects the overall performance of the students. Observation will also be done to determine the number of students who are impoverished. Other factors such as the number of students graduating in the current year will also be check and compared to the result of the previous years to determine if the number of graduating students have decreased due to lack of competent teachers.