A survey of nearly 7,000 school districts nationwide revealed teachers at schools with more Latino and African-American students are paid $2,500 less on average than other teachers in their school district. The results were drawn from 2,217 of those districts in which more than 20 percent but less than 80 percent of the student population was made up of minority students.
"America has been battling inequity in education for decades but these data show that we cannot let up," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement. "Children who need the most too often get the least. It's a civil rights issue, an economic security issue and a moral issue."
There is little research available on fiscal equality between schools, according to a department press release. This information, part of the 2009-2010 Civil Rights Data Collection, should be a "valuable tool" for the department, Russlynn Ali, the assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement.
Darren Briscoe, an Education Department spokesman, tells Governing the department hasn't yet developed a plan to deal with the issue.
"This is a starting point. We have to identify the problem before we craft a remedy," Briscoe says.
