Episode 26: What happened to America’s Black teachers?

Are you doing these critical things to help your child succeed academically? Take the quiz now to find out the important actions you can take to enhance your child's education. Go to my website, liberationthrougheducation.com quiz and.

Take the quiz today. Foreign welcome to another episode of K12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr. Kim Fields, former corporate manager turned educational researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with with school educators and administrators, as well as the micro discriminations that I faced as an African American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. If you're looking to find out more about current topics in education that could affect you or your children, then then you're in the right place. In today's episode, I'll be discussing the plight of America's Black teaching workforce and its impact on children of color. Does having a black teacher positively impact the academic achievement of African American students? The research tends to indicate that this is the case. This would be great if it was a common occurrence. However, the number of black teachers in the American teaching workforce is so low it's abysmal. How can we better help black students achieve at higher levels if the likelihood of having a Black teacher is a rare occurrence? What are the reasons that there are so few black educators in the US Public school system? I discuss what the current research reveals about the current plight of America's black teaching workforce and and uncover issues and concerns about this critical topic in this episode. African Americans comprise roughly 12% of the general U.S. population. Although African American teachers make up only approximately 8% of the teaching workforce, Black teachers, especially black female teachers, represent 7.7% of the US teaching force, whereas white female teachers make up over 60% of the US teaching workforce. Given that there are more than 3 million public school teachers, 8% is a particularly alarming percentage. It's also worth noting that teachers of color tend to leave the profession at higher rates than their white peers. Culture is important in learning as it plays a major role in how a person acquires knowledge. In other words, culture affects how one learns. Research has shown that racial pairing positively influences the academic outcome of black students. This doesn't mean, however, that the mere presence of a black teacher alone will improve academic performance of a black student. Nor does this suggest that that a white teacher is incapable of improving the academic achievement of black students what's more pertinent is that a teacher's cultural competency is important when teaching Black students. This is also not to say that all Black teachers will share the same cultural background knowledge and experiences as their Black students, but many Black teachers are at least familiar with with the unique cultural norms and practices of the Black community. Given that the American teaching force is increasingly white, female, and middle class, and with a growing diverse student population, the current teaching workforce must be more reflective of a diverse student population and the American society as a whole. There's a plethora of research that attests to the fact that unique educational experiences are extended to students when they have a teacher that is of the same race or ethnicity as they are. Having a teacher that's the same race as a student is linked to more positive teacher perceptions of students, fewer disciplinary infractions, and higher student achievement. This is especially pronounced for for Black students. Given this information, it's interesting to note that teaching remains a predominantly White and female profession. In fact, in the 2011-2012 school year, 82.7% of teachers were white, but only 51% of students were White. Also worth noting is that the percentage of Black teachers decreased from 7.5% in the 1987-1988 school year to 6.4% in the 2011-2012 school year. While labor market discrimination and attrition among teachers of color may explain these variances, the underlying motivation based on historical trends is that the policies that are created for hiring seem to have the express purpose of minimizing the number of teachers of color. It's also worth noting that the lack of access to high quality educational opportunities for the traditionally underserved population of students results in lower rates of high school graduation, college attendance, persistence, and graduation. The particulars of the licensure in which prospective teachers who identify as Black or Latinx tend to score lower, and the hiring process may also restrict access to teaching for aspiring teachers of color. Also, teachers of color are more likely to work in hard to staff schools that have more challenging working conditions, and these poor working conditions often contribute to higher attrition rates. One of the reasons for the low number of teachers of color as well as the decline in the share of Black teachers when compared to teachers overall, is the fact that other occupations with higher salaries often attract this pool of potential applicants. Teachers of color are more likely to work in high need schools that have a significant number of students of color. Those who decide to pursue the profession do so because they often feel a desire to help other racial ethnic minority students have the opportunity to better their lives. A recent Johns Hopkins University study in 2018 found that if a Black student had just one or two Black teachers in elementary school, that student is significantly more likely to enroll in college. The study also found that Black students were who had only one black teacher by the third grade, were 13% more likely to enroll in college, and that Those who had two black teachers were 32% more likely to enroll in college. Further, the study revealed that a teacher's beliefs about a student's college potential can become a self fulfilling prophecy. Additionally, the study found that Black teachers were more likely than White teachers to have higher expectations of for Black students. When teachers have higher expectations for Black students, the students often feel more confident and have higher expectations about their own educational attainment. According to recent federal data, college enrollment among Black young adults lags quite a bit behind that of white, Asian and Hispanic students. The obvious question is why do Black teachers matter so much for Black students? College enrollment this could be due to two one that Black teachers are more skilled at teaching Black students when compared to their White counterparts, and two Black teachers serve as role models for the Black student often engaging in culturally relevant teaching, which seems to be beneficial for students of color. The teacher diversity gap is a difficult problem to fix, and the number of Black teachers that are needed to close that gap would be double the number that are currently teachers in order to properly align the demographics of the teaching workforce with the student body population. Yet, one of the reasons that it's difficult to recruit Black college graduates into the teaching profession is that it would require them to take a pay cut if they chose teaching over another profession. The average earnings for African Americans who were not teachers was roughly $49,000 a year in 2018, and the median salary for Black teachers in that same year was $45,000 a a year. So in order to resolve the teacher diversity gap, another gap is created, that of a widening wage gap that would be created in order to fix the educational gaps. One way to address the gap in the number of Black teachers may be to hire more principals of color. Approximately 20% of principals are people of color. A researcher, Jason Grissom at Vanderbilt University in 2019 found that having a Black principal at a school increases the likelihood that a newly hired teacher would be black by 5 to 7 percentage points. This research also found that Black teachers stayed in their roles longer in schools that were led by Black principals, thus reducing Black teacher mobility by 2 percentage points to 5%. Evidence suggests that Black and white principals were more likely to hire teachers who were the same race as they were. Further evidence found that having Black teachers increased academic achievement in math for black students, and even in the absence of hiring a black teacher, there was still positive math gains for black students under a black principal. One of the reasons for this may be that the principal was seen as a role model, a person in a position of authority. Another researcher, Diana d' Amico at George Mason University, posited that racial bias could be one of the reasons for the small percentage of black teachers in the teaching workforce. Her research pointed to the fact that there was discrimination in the hiring process, with black teacher applicants less likely to receive a job offer even when they had above average experience and advanced degrees as compared to white applicants. This was particularly prevalent in Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri, although there's a high probability that this occurs in all states in this country. Given that most principals are primarily drawn from the teaching ranks, hiring more principals of color could create a supply problem. Since teachers of color are in short supply, the goal toward reaching a diverse teacher workforce is more complex and much steeper than has been previously acknowledged. Students of color make up about half of all public school students, and only 18% of teachers are teachers of color. The likelihood of making significant progress on increasing the number of teachers of color is realistically very slim. Even Looking forward almost 50 years out, researchers in 2016 found that the difference in proportion between black teachers and black students in the US public schools, which currently is about a 9 percentage point difference in proportion, would remain about the same through 2060, while a gap between Hispanic teachers and Hispanic students currently at 8 percentage points difference would actually increase by 4 points. A report by the Brookings Institution found that simply hiring more black and Hispanic teachers from the pool of available teachers of color does very little to close the gap in having a diversified teaching workforce. If strategies such as encouraging more students of color to graduate with teaching degree, addressing discrepancies and biases in the hiring process, et cetera, were all combined and black and Hispanic prospective teachers go through the pipeline at the same rate as white prospective teachers, there would be parity between black teachers and Black students by 2044.

Have you had a chance to check out my interactive expert on my website? There are some great conversations and questions going on there. You can check it out at liberation through education.com forward/ask me anything. Again, check out the questions and conversations happening there ationthrougheducation.com askmenything.

Now let's get a little more specific about the number of Black male teachers in the US Public education system. Quite simply, Black male teachers are in short supply. As reported by Donald Nicholas in education week in 2014, an effective black male educator can have a tremendous impact in the classroom. Conversely, an ineffective Black male educator can be more detrimental on a school than perhaps a teacher from any other demographic. Black male educators are largely underrepresented in this country's classrooms. It has been widely reported that they made up less than 2% of the US teaching workforce, especially in pre K and elementary levels. One of the reasons that there's a dearth of black men in the classroom is because of fit. By this I mean that when hiring decisions are made within the school, they largely depend on quote, end quote fit, such as will this person fit in at our school? And how well a school's dynamics tend to automatically change when a Black man is added to the staff. In order to encourage more black male students to become black educators, those educators need to be mentored, supported and encouraged as they develop their professional careers. One key factor that was not mentioned in this article is the salary associated with teaching in the K12 publication education system. This salary needs to increase in order to attract qualified, effective black male teachers into those classrooms, especially those classrooms that have the neediest students. In order to bring in more black male teachers, urban districts need to pay more attention to retention. Non white teachers tend to be concentrated in school search serving high poverty communities where the focus is on raising test scores instead of on culturally responsive curriculum and social emotional learning. Non white teachers in these hard to staff schools often feel a lack of support and congeniality which then leads those teachers to leave the profession. Previous research has provided evidence that the implicit biases of mostly white teaching workforce contribute to a disproportionately high discipline rate for black students. Students are less likely to be suspended, expelled or placed in detention by teachers who were of the same race that they are. Students who had same race teachers were among 1 percentage point point less likely to be expelled, suspended or given detention than students who were taught by a different race teacher. This seems to be most profound for black male students whose discipline rate decreased 15% with the black female teacher and 18% with the black male teacher. The data for this research came from 1 million students in the first through fifth grades in North Carolina from 2008 to 2013 and was reported in 2016. Black teachers sometimes feel burdened by an expectation that they should be able to relate to every black child, even the ones who come from different socioeconomic backgrounds or cultures. This was discussed in an article in 2016 in the Education Week Journal. They also felt that they were slotted into the disciplinarian role for the school building, which takes away from their planning and instructional time. Further, Black teachers indicated that they rarely got an opportunity to teach gifted and talented students or honors or Advanced place placement classes. They felt as if they were shoehorned into teaching only black students, which is okay since this is the population that they were committed to, but they also wanted to be seen as professionals who could teach all students. These findings were from a report released in 2016 by the Education Trust. One downside of this report is that it did not provide recognition recommendations for districts or any other stakeholders. Because they claimed that Black teachers and their experiences were so nuanced and unique, the authors of the study suggested that the district leadership formed focus groups to listen to the experiences of their Black teachers. This just sounds like another idea that sounds good on paper but holds very little validity in implementing real change. Based on the feedback provided by any such focus group, here's a couple of things to think about as far as actions that you can take when you evaluate the staff and teachers at your child's school and notice that it is racially homogenous, then it may be time to question school administrators about their policies regarding diversity hiring. This is a situation in which you could ask the school principal how he or she encourages diverse perspectives so that teachers can teach content that reflects cultural values and experiences. It might also be helpful to point school leaders to talented adults in your own community who might serve as volunteer teachers as one way to demonstrate racial and ethnic diversity throughout the school campus. As a Black parent, you need to remain vigilant about being an advocate for your child by minimally having a consistent presence on the school campus. Here are this episode's takeaways. African Americans comprise roughly 12% of the general US population. Although African American teachers make up only approximately 8% of the teaching workforce, black female teachers represent 7.7% of the US teaching force, whereas white female teachers make up over 60% of the US teaching workforce. Given that there are more than 3 million public school teachers, 8% is a particularly alarming percentage. Black students need to learn by looking through windows and into mirrors. In other words, it's a reflective learning process for them. Black students need to build resilience, self confidence. Both of these can be ascertained by the very presence of a Black teacher or a black principal. A recent Johns Hopkins University study found that if a Black student had just one or two black teachers in elementary school, that student is significantly more likely to enroll in college. The study also found that black students who had only one black teacher by the third grade was 13% more likely to enroll in college and that Those who had two black teachers by the third grade were 32% more likely to enroll in college. An obvious question is why do black teachers matter so much for black students college enrollment and this could be due to two reasons, one that black teachers are more specific skilled at teaching black students when compared to their white counterparts and two Black teachers serve as role models for the black students, often engaging in cultural and relevant teaching, which seems to be beneficial for students of color. The diversity gap in teaching workforce seems to have more to do with retention rather than recruitment. Another reason for the low number of teachers across color, as well as the decline in the share of black teachers when compared to teachers overall, is the fact that other occupations with higher salaries often attract this pool of potential applicants. Additionally, teachers of color are more likely to work in high needs schools that have significant number of students of color. Those who decide to pursue the profession do so because because they often feel the desire to help other racial ethnic minority students at least have an opportunity to better their lives. At least one study found that black teachers were more likely than white teachers to have higher expectations for black students. Additional research pointed to the fact that there was discrimination in the hiring process with black teacher applicants less likely to to receive a job offer even when they had above average experience and advanced degrees as compared to white applicants. As one African American researcher eloquently stated quote we don't have a black problem, we have a white problem. End quote. If this is the type of subject matter and discussion that resonates with you, please subscribe to my podcast on whatever service you're listening to this also, I'd love to hear from you. So please leave me a rating, a review, or a comment and share this episode with anyone that you think would find it valuable. Be sure to tell your friends, family and community about my podcast. I'd really appreciate it if you would recommend my podcast to a friend directly on Twitter and to mention my show in your tweet. Additionally, you can connect with me on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook with the handle kimjfields. Thanks for listening today. I hope you'll come back for more K12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle. By the way, if you have a burning question about a current issue or a specific topic that you'd like for me to explore and discuss, shoot me a quick email at kimliberation through education.com to let me know what your question is. Anyone whose question is selected to be discussed on one podcast episode will receive a $25Amazon gift card. Be sure to stay tuned on the next episode of my podcast podcast I'll be reviewing another book from the Band Book list called Dear Martin. Until next time, aim to learn something new every day. Love my show. Consider being a regular subscriber. You can subscribe for as little as $3 per month. Just go to. There's no contractual obligation. You can cancel at any time. If you choose to subscribe, I'll give you a special shout out thanking you in in an upcoming episode. Remember, that's HTTPs tinyurl.com podcast support to subscribe.