Modern education's "cycle of poverty".

• Position: Urban schools, skilled teachers - Brief article

Urban schools and those with lower-performing students tend to employ the least-qualified teachers but, contrary to popular belief, this might not just be because teachers prefer working with higher-performing students. Research shows that teachers seeking their first jobs overwhelmingly choose to work in school districts near where they grew up. Thus, the fact that certain schools or areas are not producing a lot of college graduates--and that the college graduates they are producing are not as skilled as the college graduates in other place--is leading to a "cycle of poverty" in education.

"It's not just the specific preferences of teachers for certain kinds of kids, but the fact that history plays a role in the labor market that is causing this;' suggests Susanna Loeb, associate professor in the School of Education at Stanford (Calif.) University.

A full 61% of teachers first work in schools located within 15 miles of their...