Level teaching field

A poor or minority student in the Newport-Mesa Unified School

District has an unusually good chance of working under a highly

credentialed teacher, according to a statewide report released

Wednesday.

The findings, compiled by an Oakland-based school research group,

are in sharp contrast to those in most large districts in the state,

in which the best-qualified -- and, hence, highest-earning --

teachers tend to go to the schools with affluent students, largely

white populations and attractive neighborhoods.

“We’re seeing exactly what we’d expect to see,” said Newport-Mesa

spokeswoman Jane Garland about the report. “There’s very much a level

playing field with our teachers and what we do to educate our

students.”

In February, the Education Trust-West put out a report titled

“California’s Hidden Teacher Spending Gap: How State and District

Budgeting Practices Shortchange Poor and Minority Students and Their

Schools.” The report analyzed the differences in salary between

teachers who worked in high-poverty and high-minority schools, and

those who worked in more affluent and less diverse ones. It found

that Newport-Mesa’s disparities in pay were far less than the state

average.

This week, the Education Trust-West launched a website in which

parents can dig closer to the truth. The site,

o7www.hiddengap.orgf7, posts estimated average salaries for every

school site in California as of the 2003-04 school year. The figures

for Newport-Mesa show that, contrary to the state norm, the district

often employs prestigious teachers for its neediest students.

Whittier Elementary, which leads the district with 99% of students

in poverty, has an average teacher salary of $64,362 -- one of the

highest in Newport-Mesa. The average instructor at Pomona or College

Park Elementary also makes more than one at Eastbluff or Newport

Coast, among the district’s wealthiest areas.

The numbers suggest that unlike many California districts,

Newport-Mesa teachers with top credentials and long years of

experience are often willing to stay at the most challenging schools.

“We have former teachers come back to visit us,” said Margaret

Anderson, a third-grade teacher for 16 years at Whittier. “We have

former students come back to work for us. There’s some- thing about

this community.”

Anderson and several of her colleagues, some of whom had worked at

Whittier for more than three decades, opted to stay at the school

even as they confronted problems -- including a high percentage of

English-learner students -- that their contemporaries in other parts

of town did not. Sharon Ball, another Whittier veteran, said she

requested a job at the low-income school in the 1970s because it would help her pay off her student loans. Once she started work,

however, she knew she was there to stay.

“After one year, they wouldn’t have moved me without a tow truck,”

she said.

The experience and salary levels at Newport-Mesa’s lower income

schools make it a rarity in the state. The Education Trust-West

initiated the study to prove that California teachers tend to shy

away from difficult assignments as they advance in years and

credentials.

According to the report, the average teacher in a high-poverty

school earns $2,576 less than a teacher in a low-poverty one; the

difference for high- and low-minority schools is $3,014. The numbers

for Newport-Mesa still show a disparity, but a smaller one: $1,352

for poverty, $801 for minorities.

By contrast, a high school teacher in the Sacramento City Unified

School District makes an average of $11,447 less in a high-minority

site than a low-minority one. In San Francisco Unified, the gap was

$8,355.

While the researchers did not have actual teacher salary data for

each site, they estimated their numbers by combining 2003-04 data

from the state Department of Education with district-level teacher

salary schedules. The state Assembly and Senate recently passed a

bill, currently awaiting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature, that

would require schools to publicly post average teacher salaries.

Garland said the estimated salaries in the report were probably

accurate, but noted that other factors, including stipends for

leading after-school clubs, contribute to a teacher’s pay. Also, she

said, higher salaries are not always the mark of effectiveness.

“When you look at salaries, you’re not looking at teaching

ability,” she stated. “You may have a fantastic teacher on his sixth

year with a ... [bachelor’s degree], and one who’s been here much

longer who’s not as powerful.”