ABSTRACT
The typical explanation of why 15 million children and youth in poverty are not achieving as they should be blames the victims, their families, their ethnicity, and their lack of valuing of and commitment to education. This explanation, however, does not explain why low-income students do achieve in the classrooms of effective (star) teachers who comprise approximately 8% of the teaching force. The need for more effective teachers cannot be met by university-controlled teacher education, which provides continuous rewards to programs and faculty for producing individuals who do not deign to work in challenging schools or who quit or fail if they do. Similarly, the alternative certification programs (AC programs) that provide most of the teachers for the major urban districts serving children and youth in poverty cannot provide sufficient numbers of effective teachers and are continually rewarded for hiring quitters/failures.
