Title: Government Is Not the Solution to Educational Inequality - Foundation for Economic Education
Headings: Government Is Not the Solution to Educational Inequality
Government Is Not the Solution to Educational Inequality
Income Inequality, Schools Edition
Good Teachers Get Promoted Away from Those Who Need Them Most
The Separation of School and State
Corey DeAngelis

Content: Clearly, this only works to exacerbate educational inequality. One way to reverse this trend is to financially reward high-quality teachers for going to schools that serve disadvantaged groups. Another way would be to offer bonuses for teachers that improve student learning over time. However, sadly, both of these reforms would also likely fail to address the problem of inequity in the system of government-run schools. There are a couple of reasons for this: In the current system, experts would need to come up with a measure of teacher quality. The measure that is currently preferred by the state is standardized test scores, which are not strong predictors of long-term success. Rewarding teachers based on test scores could actually harm students that need character development. Disadvantaged children coming from single-parent families, or households that do not have the time to focus on behavioral development, would be harmed the most by such policies. In order for such reforms to pass – and persist – constituents need political power.