Laura Goe, Education Policy Analysis Archives
October 14, 2002
Another California-specific study, this one by Berkeley doctoral candidate Laura Goe is a slightly more refined version of the point that "emergency" permit teachers are more apt to be found in lower achieving schools. There's an implication that they cause that low achievement, but the data show nothing of the sort. Causation isn't provable, at least not without an experimental study, which this isn't. The larger point, not made here, is that, because conventionally credentialed teachers are (rightly or not) more attractive to schools and thus more apt to be able to land more attractive jobs, when demand for teachers exceeds the supply of conventional candidates (which is the case in California due to overall enrollment growth as well as purposeful class size reduction), less appealing (and lower achieving) schools are more apt to wind up with unconventional teachers. Though this problem could be eased by reducing the demand for teachers, that's not what Ms. Goe recommends. Rather, she suggests more of the hair of the dog that bit us. You can view it at http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n42/.
