Out-of-field teaching is more common in high-poverty schools and lower tracks, concentrating the least qualified teachers with disadvantaged students¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causalr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2002 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2007: baselines and conditions change
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? High-poverty schools received distinctively more out-of-field teaching than low-poverty schools in several fields, and minority and poor students are disproportionately placed in lower tracks taught by the least qualified. → ingersoll-poverty-1
Evidence¶
Laczko-Kerr 2002¶
Laczko-Kerr, I., & Berliner, D. C. (2002, September 6). The Effectiveness of "Teach for America" and Other Under-certified Teachers on Student Academic Achievement: A Case of Harmful Public Policy. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 10(37). http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n37/
q2 · i? · causal · r2
This review reports, citing Ingersoll (1996) analysis of the School and Staffing Survey, that out-of-field teaching relates to school poverty levels. No effect size is printed for this contrast, so impact is null. It also notes minority and poor students are disproportionately placed in lower-track courses critics claim are taught by the least qualified.
"in no fields did high-poverty schools have less out-of-field teaching than did low poverty schools, while in several fields, students in high poverty schools received distinctively more out-of-field teaching than in low poverty schools"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Schools serving large numbers of students of color and students from low-income families have significantly fewer resources than schools serving more affluent White students
- Shortage districts fill vacancies with substandard-credential teachers (55%), substitutes (24%), and out-of-field assignments (22%), with high-poverty districts using substandard credentials most — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
- Poor, minority, and low-achieving students are disproportionately exposed to mid-year entry — related
- Students in the highest-poverty schools are almost twice as likely to be taught by inexperienced teachers — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
out-of-field-teaching-poverty-concentration |
title |
Out-of-field teaching is more common in high-poverty schools and lower tracks, concentrating the least qualified teachers with disadvantaged students |
description |
Out-of-field teaching is more common in high-poverty schools and lower tracks, concentrating the least qualified teachers with disadvantaged students |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
weak |
newest_evidence |
2002 |
recheck_by |
2007 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-16 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — laczko-kerr-2002 |
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