The Lemons' Last Dance?

This summer, the Department of Education required states to include Equity Plans with their Highly Qualified Teachers Plans as part of NCLB compliance. Between the NCLB attention and groups like The Education Trust pushing the issue, teacher equity is increasingly becoming a top concern for states.

That’s why this California law, signed by Schwarzenegger on September 28^th, could be a harbinger of things to come. As states move to comply with the teacher equity provision of NCLB, they may look more closely at the impact of teacher transfer and hiring rules, especially if typical strategies like incentives, targeted recruitment, and mentoring are insufficient in addressing the teacher equity problem.

This law underscores the need for high quality and independent research on the "Dancing Lemons" issue - research that examines the real impact of collective bargaining on teacher quality relative to the impact of other important factors, such as working conditions and pay.