As states contemplate how best to address educational inequities exposed by the pandemic, it is time to take an important first step: equitable assignment of teachers. It is well known that high-poverty and chronically low-performing schools have higher proportions of teachers who are temporarily certified, teaching out of their field or are less experienced. This inequitable assignment of teachers persists in districts across the country, and it cries out for state policy to help districts.

As such, ExcelinEd has developed a model policy that pulls from best practice and research, starting with Florida’s prohibition on districts disproportionately assigning temporarily certified, out of field, poorly evaluated and less experienced teachers to high-needs schools. The policy includes both chronically low-performing schools and Title I schools. It also requires districts to report on the percentages of these teachers by school, and for a state to have an interactive website that allows parents and the public to compare assignment of teachers in low-performing and Title I schools to other schools.