While it may not be news that schools serving poor children are more likely to employ teachers with less experience and lower academic qualifications, it is news that teachers in these schools are also more likely to have had a few scrapes with the law. According to a recent St. Petersburg Times article, teachers sanctioned by the state for misconduct--ranging from shoplifting to having sex with students--are more likely to have worked in high-poverty schools.

The article looks at statistics for three Florida counties. Going back to the year 2000 a clear pattern emerges. In both Pinellas County and Hillsborough County, misbehaving teachers are more likely to be assigned to those districts' high poverty schools at rates ranging from 14 to 57 percent. The stats look slightly different in Orange County but the conclusion is the same: 28 of the 30 sanctioned teachers work in the district's high poverty schools, which make up two-thirds of the total number.

When it comes to teacher quality, St. Petersburg Times reporter Ron Matus, who penned the misconduct story, is on a tear. In another expose, he found that the schools in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties with the most rookie teachers were almost all high poverty schools. (A similar article in the Tennessean also reported recently that the state's least experienced teachers work in the poorest schools.)

And hats off to Matus for a story he didn't write. He got a hold of a ranking of tens of thousands of Florida teachers derived from the test scores of their students and was sorely tempted to publish the list. Avoiding the mistake made by his more hasty colleagues at The Houston Chronicle, Matus and his editors showed some common sense. Not only would the data have unfairly damaged the reputations of many teachers as they were based on only a year's worth of test scores, the Times saw plenty of evidence that the rankings were not in sparkling shape.