teachers of color – ��Ӱ��

More Black Teachers: A Push to Revive Schools in Nation’s Fastest-Shrinking City

Marianna McMurdock — Wed, 08 May 2024 16:30:00 +0000

Pine Bluff, Arkansas

When TyKesha and Dedrick Cross met in fifth grade, neither of them could have known that decades later they’d be married and working as dedicated educators serving kids that look like them in .

In Pine Bluff, Arkansas, people see education as a way out. Many of the Cross’s classmates moved on to nearby Little Rock, to Texas.

Their city has changed drastically over the last decade, its population dwindling from 49,000 to between 2010 and 2020. Businesses left alongside residents, leaving rusting signs and boarded windows in what once was a thriving . Two main school districts consolidated; school buildings remain vacant.

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But for educators who’ve stayed to hold down the fort like the Crosses, there’s no question why Pine Bluff is still, as TyKesha calls it, a “diamond in the rough,” where they’ve raised their own and their neighbors’ children.

“The community and the kids we serve is why we stick around. This is home,” said Dedrick, now an assistant principal at James Matthew Elementary. “Rearing these students and trying to have them beat the odds is what keeps us in this area.”

TyKesha Cross looks on at her grandparent’s old home, where she spent much of her childhood. All around Pine Bluff, decaying homes and businesses stand as stark reminders of its past and current economic challenges and population decline. But local educators and leaders feel a new era of revitalization has begun. (Marianna McMurdock/��Ӱ��)

The Cross’s spirit is not unique. Countless local educators and leaders, retired and early career, reared in Pine Bluff or not, share it and are beginning to see signs that stronger schools are not wishful thinking.

In a sprint to make schools families can trust, Pine Bluff is learning what it takes to build up their core: a strong educator workforce.

Educators are quick to point to the : Quality teachers are the most important factor for student success. Local alternative and traditional university preparation programs are making teaching more financially and emotionally sustainable — expanding class offerings, child care or mental health grants. Programs are leaning into grow-your-own models, too, recruiting locals who understand students’ lived experiences to teach and lead schools.

The momentum to revitalize has never been stronger. The district has regained control after a state takeover. The district’s new superintendent is committed to making the community a part of changes. A pandemic, local gun violence and new statewide investments have lit a fire for better quality education.

While many rural schools nationwide face persistent challenges in staffing schools, Pine Bluff offers a different story, starting the 2023-24 school year 99% staffed.

Pine Bluff’s educators admit there’s much more to be done, like ensuring training matches what teachers are struggling with, most recently student behavior and discipline.

And superintendent Jennifer Barbaree is not one to sugar coat.

“Systematically, our academic achievement is very poor. Classroom instruction is not where it needs to be. We have parents telling us that, we have community members telling us that,” Barbaree said. “It’s a process … We’re not going to go from an F school from the last 10 years to suddenly an A school.”

Though many were skeptical at first, when a white woman from out of town took the reins, Dedrick thinks it is fading. “We needed somebody with some vision and some transparency.”

The Crosses remember their first meeting with Barbaree fondly. Her frankness was the “breath of fresh air” Dedrick had been yearning for, especially from administrators.

“She said, I’m gonna tell you, we ain’t got no money,” Dedrick recalled.

“That’s exactly how she said it, ebonics and all,” TyKesha added, smiling.

TyKesha is hopeful for the future — in their small but mighty district of about 3,300, “love and untapped potential,” are abundant.

She and Dedrick know intimately why investing in educators, particularly Black educators and those who reflect the student body’s demographic, is critical for student success.

“It’s a process … We’re not going to go from an F school from the last 10 years to suddenly an A school.”
Jennifer Barbaree, Pine Bluff Superintendent

After surviving a gunshot wound to the head and becoming pregnant by her senior year, it was an educator who knocked on her grandparent’s door and urged TyKesha to come back and finish high school. The same person recruited her to become an educator two decades later.

Now a 9th grade business teacher, TyKesha introduces the next generation of homeowners and entrepreneurs to the pillars of marketing and finance. Her family members were some of the first free Black farmers in Arkansas, to this day running one of Pine Bluff’s oldest businesses and local favorite for fried catfish: .

Carpenter’s Produce & Fish (Marianna McMurdock/��Ӱ��)

Before teaching, she and Dedrick had careers in banking, real estate and counseling, and job offers out of state. But instead of joining the thousands who have left their hometown, they forged new careers in education.

Having worked for a decade as a parole and substance abuse counselor, Dedrick knows the range of experiences children have in Pine Bluff, too. Some, he said, have been in survival mode since they were ten. Passing through the front door of one student’s home, he stepped on a dirt floor.

Knowing what students go home to has reinforced their decision to stay and make their schools a safe haven for the next generations. Dedrick, now in his first year as an administrator after eight years teaching, has one rule for James

Madison Elementary’s teachers: that they get to know their students and not holler at them. They get enough of that, he said.

The couple still wrestle with big questions, like how to curb the gun violence that claimed the lives of one of their students and nearly a child a month last school year. But, Dedrick said, “it keeps tugging on us to make that impact here.”

He’s not alone in his dedication and optimism. More and more, signs show Pine Bluff is rising to strengthen schools’ core.

Pathways to bring in more local talent are growing. This fall, more candidates than ever applied to the same 3-year preparation program the Crosses completed: Arkansas Teacher Corps. The partnership with the University of Arkansas provides community members, many already working in schools as paraprofessionals or substitutes, a path to being licensed.

The district re-assessed all uncertified or emergency certified teachers to ensure they were completing preparation programs or exams. Those without adequate progress by the end of last school year were let go.

And Barbaree’s candor has shifted how the district has built partnerships with traditional university preparation programs. With a doctorate in the science of reading, she’s started asking: what textbooks are you using in your reading foundations courses?

Superintendent Jennifer Barbaree (left) and local HBCU education dean Kimberley Davis (right) have ignited a rare friendship to reshape Pine Bluff’s next generation of teachers. (Marianna McMurdock/��Ӱ��)

“We need to do a better job partnering with universities and saying,” she said, “what do your teacher prep courses look like? How does that meet the needs of what we need in our districts?”

Kimberley Davis feels the Pine Bluff difference. Dean of the education college at University of Arkansas Pine Bluff, the local HBCU, Davis is no stranger to teacher preparation, having worked at four other universities.

She and Barbaree are on a texting basis. This is what she calls her first “true partnership” with a K-12 district.

“We need them, and they need us,” Davis said.

Recruitment for rural realities

Eyes are on Arkansas’s teacher workforce in part because of the state’s 2023 LEARNS Act, which boosted the salary floor from $36,000 to $50,000, requiring all teachers complete a yearlong residency guided by a mentor.

“[LEARNS] was a huge wake up call … It disrupted the status quo enough that now people are trying something different,” said Brandon Lucius, Arkansas Teacher Corps’s executive director.

Instead of recruiting far and wide, local preparation programs are now leaning into a grow-your-own approach to help capture community members working in and around schools, local leaders like the Crosses.

Offering social-emotional support from the start of teacher preparation has made the difference for educators like TyKesha. Between her network of Arkansas Teacher Corps alumni, local mentors, and tools learned through ATC including yoga certification, she’s feeling a “five year fire,” not an itch to leave as many do by this milestone.

More day classes, hybrid offerings and a free multi-day bootcamp for required licensure exams has become the norm at the local HBCU to ensure candidates graduate classroom ready.

The district is switching things up, too, recruiting at the state’s flagship public university in Fayetteville and keeping a close feedback loop with local ones. Job posts in key subject areas stay open all year, in anticipation of vacancies. A teacher cadet program helps interested high schoolers matriculate into education classes at local colleges.

Before its historic population decline, Pine Bluff’s teacher pool were mostly white graduates from traditional 4-year programs. Now, they usually come out of programs bringing career changers, parents and community members to the classroom through shorter, and more affordable teaching residencies like Arkansas Teacher Corps.

After embracing the grow-your-own model, the district’s pool flipped to nearly 75% parents of color, 97% first generation college graduates and older career shifters. The program now offers a $2,500 stipend; candidates can apply for grants for mental health services, child care, or personal computers.

A similar transformation is happening in the administrator pipeline.

“We’re saying we don’t want to drop someone in and hope that they stick,” said IMPACT Arkansas director John Bacon. The 18-month fellowship prepares teachers to become administrators in low-income districts, heavily subsidizing a masters in educational leadership.

‘The time has always been now’

To ensure Pine Bluff’s educators can stay in the field for the long haul, rising and longstanding teacher leaders name two needs: mentorship and social-emotional support.

Burnout is the common culprit for departures or a dip in teaching quality — combinations of financial strain, frustration with student behavior that grew more concerning during COVID, and grief from trauma in the community.

Local teachers in training have heard tales of Mattie Collins, one of Pine Bluff High School’s revered history teachers known for her firm but fair approach.

She, like many informal mentors reared in Pine Bluff before and after her, was never interested in waiting for local or state leadership to catch up to the investment she saw as critical — teachers.

“Well, the time has always been now to Ms. Collins,” said Collins, who retired after 35 years and now leads a nonprofit for youth to explore STEM careers and prepare for the ACT.

History teacher Mattie Collins (Marianna McMurdock/��Ӱ��)

Her solution to some of the burnout and behavior concerns is relatively simple: have good lesson plans that keep everyone engaged, and make sure that young people know their teacher respects them.

“It’s a two way street. It’s not just, respect Ms. Collins cause she’s the older person in the room. It’s that Ms. Collins respects you and thinks you’re great and wants you to do your best. They’ll do anything for you if they know that you really care.”

That pedagogy lives on in the classroom through her former students turned teachers like Kendra Jones. The type to “snatch you up,” in a caring way.

Alongside classics, she uses literature she knows will keep attention and speak to what students care about. Dear Martin and Dear Justyce, two books focused on the experiences of young Black teens experiencing police brutality and navigating the justice system, are on the syllabus this semester.

But even the beloved Jones has had thoughts about leaving, perhaps to be an administrator and make bigger waves or earn more. To sustain her family, she’s done hair and meal prepping on the side.

Many Pine Bluff teachers work multiple jobs. Though LEARNS boosted the floor for teachers, it didn’t bake in funding or planning to level set pay for more experienced educators. With a master’s, Jones now makes the same as a first year teacher. Once she finishes her doctorate, she’d only see about a $3,000 increase annually.

On top of it all, Pine Bluff is a community in grieving.

Jones went to five student funerals last year alone. In the back of her classroom shines a framed photo of one student, murdered six days after his birthday, a gift from his mother.

“I look at the crime rate. I look at how our babies are being taken from us,” she said. “It’s things like that that make you say I can’t do this.”

In those moments, she calls on her mentors. “But then you have people that have been here who also had those opportunities to leave like Ms. Collins and Mattie Glover and Virginia Hines. They’re retired and could be at home on the beach, but they’re still advocating.”

So is Jones, who has a reputation as the “trouble teacher” for making noise on behalf of students. When people speak ill of Pine Bluff, she’s quick to remind them where their roots are.

“Somebody’s got to say something because right now what we need for our kids is not what it should be,” said Jones. “… I know what it could be and I have positive aspirations that greater is coming.”

To TyKesha, who teaches down the hall, the common denominator that anchors her, Jones and Pine Bluff’s “community of fighters” is love.

Many of her students grew up in the same projects she did. Her classes start in the dark — a few minutes of free time with overhead lights off: listen to a song, watch a game, just pause for a moment. The only sound is the slow drip of water from a decorative fountain on her desk.

TyKesha Cross smiles at a family member inside Carpenter’s Produce and Fish (Marianna McMurdock/��Ӱ��)

As students settled in one morning, Cross asked for a weather report — a social-emotional check-in learned from the Arkansas Teacher Corps. She’ll never forget one response: “acid rain,” with things falling from the sky. The phrase raised red flags for Cross, her innate sense of familiarity with her community’s challenges kicking in.

She quickly emailed the student’s counselor, then the principal: their class was headed outside.

Chalk in hand, students took turns writing on the sidewalk: “you’re not alone,” and “yesterday is not ours to recover but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”

It wasn’t until later the student whose response sparked the activity shared what was on his mind that day— he had thoughts of taking his own life. The activity gave him encouragement, he said, and opened the door to talking more about his life with Cross and his counselor.

For Cross, the incident confirmed why she became a teacher in the first place — to make schools the safe haven they were for her growing up. It’s a stark reminder, too, of the impact of investing in teacher development, to develop talent whose radar would go off like hers did that day.

“Why do people stay here? That’s why,” Cross said tearfully. “To know that something I did, passed on to me from a program … I could have left and went to another big town or city and found another bank to work for, probably made $200,000. But I wouldn’t have been here for that day.”

‘State of the States’: New Report Highlights Teacher Diversity Strategies

Beth Hawkins — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 11:15:00 +0000

Research consistently shows that having one or more teachers of color has a dramatic, positive impact on students of color, including higher academic achievement, better attendance and higher rates of high school graduation and college-going. Yet just 20% of teachers are people of color, compared with 50% of public school students.

With an eye toward changing this, the National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit focused on educator quality, has issued “,” a report detailing the size of the gaps throughout the country and summarizing promising policies. To diversify the ranks of their teachers, the group’s researchers say, states need to attend to every aspect of training and hiring people from underrepresented communities and making the schools where they work more hospitable.

“Data suggests there is a profoundly leaky pipeline of potential teachers of color into the classroom, with candidates leaving the pipeline at every point from high school through teacher preparation,” the report states. “States can slow the leak by shoring up the pipeline at each point where potential teachers of color slip through.”

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Here are five top takeaways from the report:

States should set explicit diversification goals and collect data tracking progress toward meeting those targets.

An appropriate goal might be increasing the diversity of the teacher workforce to match the population of students of color. Officials should both district- and school-level data outlining progress — something only a handful of states currently do.

In the same spirit, states should use data to evaluate all their efforts to diversify the teacher workforce, with an eye toward identifying — and investing in — the most effective strategies. Nearly every state has created programs to encourage high school students to consider teaching careers, for example, yet little evidence has been published showing how well this strategy works.

The figure above shows changes in the diversity of enrollment in traditional teacher preparation programs over the last 10 years. Darker red indicates greater declines in the diversity of enrollment while darker blue indicates greater increases in the diversity of enrollment. In this time, enrollment appears to have increased across most states, with dramatic exceptions in several states, where enrollment has dropped precipitously. (NCTQ)

Unless education officials fund efforts to increase racial equity at every stage of teacher training, recruitment and retention, they are unlikely to reach their goals, the researchers warn.

Track how well early career teachers are faring using retention data disaggregated by race and ethnicity at the individual school level.

This should include surveying educators in their first five years on the job — a time when many struggle and leave — on working conditions and satisfaction. Currently, just one state, Delaware, collects information on how many new teachers of color stay at each school.

Surveys of working conditions are also important sources of information on teachers’ success and satisfaction. Understanding the factors that cause new educators to quit is important if school leaders are to address their challenges.

The report also recommends improving school climate and leadership and training human resources staff to respond to concerns raised by educators of color.

Every state and the District of Columbia has a higher percentage of students of color than teachers of color in public K-12 schools. In the above map, we show the relative gap (or percent difference) between teachers of color and students of color in each state, compared to the population of students of color, with darker blue colors indicating larger gaps. For example, in Maine, 4% of public school teachers identify as people of color and 13% of Maine’s public K-12 students identify as people of color. While the percentage point gap is -9 percentage points, the relative gap is 66.2%6, showing that Maine has three times more students of color than teachers of color. States with a larger relative gap often have a less diverse teacher workforce to start with and so may face greater challenges in building a more representative workforce, indicated by a darker blue color in the map. (NCTQ)

Pay teachers more to work in hard-to-staff schools.

Teachers of color are more likely than their white counterparts to work in schools that struggle to attract and retain top talent, and are more likely to serve large numbers of students who look like them and would benefit from more diverse staff. The NCTQ researchers pointed to a RAND Corp. study that found that for every $1,000 increase in pay for teachers working in these schools, attrition fell by 6%.

“While not specific to teachers of color, this policy would have an immediate impact on those educators (who are more likely to be people of color) already working in schools with the highest need,” the report notes.

Change layoff policies so teachers of color are no longer disproportionately impacted.

In many places, teachers of color are much more likely to have probationary status or to be at the bottom of seniority rolls, making them much more vulnerable to losing their jobs when budgets must be cut. States should make sure that decisions about educator layoffs incorporate multiple factors, rather than using seniority as the top or only criterion.

According to the report, research suggests that making decisions about layoff priorities locally, using information about a community’s needs, can be helpful.

Teachers of color should be at the policymaking table.

Educators of color have different ideas about what it will take to diversify teaching than white teachers and education experts do. When asked about barriers to diversification, non-white teachers named better pay, loan forgiveness and supportive administrators, for example, and were less likely to say they want “Grow Your Own” programs where schools and districts seek to train future staff.

Disclosure: Charles & Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, The Joyce Foundation and Walton Family Foundation provide funding to the National Council on Teacher Quality and ��Ӱ��.

Breaking Down the Walls to Teaching: Alternative Pipelines Boom

Marianna McMurdock — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 12:15:00 +0000

From recruiting high school students to expanding programs similar to medical residencies, states are spending millions in federal aid to recruit teachers as regional shortages continue, particularly people of color who may find traditional programs costly or inaccessible.

Teaching residencies have exploded in popularity in recent years, with the National Center for Teacher Residencies’ network nearly since 2018. Nationwide, at least 2,025 candidates are enrolled in residencies this school year, a sharp increase from the 792 four years ago — with 57% of candidates being people of color. By comparison, just of the nation’s teaching staff is made up of educators who are not white.

Maryland, Texas, Missouri, Nevada, Georgia and Tennessee are among states using federal funds to boost recruitment via community-focused grow-your-own programs, according to a from the Education Trust.

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The residencies and grow your own models are and advocates as promising ways to recruit and retain teaching candidates and lower financial barriers to enter the profession as some regions are urgently looking to fill vacancies. The models are considered a far cry from other certification programs run by organizations which sometimes provide just weeks of training before new teachers are responsible for their own classrooms, and often result in higher turnover.

A 2019 report from the Learning Policy Institute and UCLA found the residency model, “holds promise for both recruiting diverse individuals and retaining effective teachers.”

Grow-your-own programs in particular target staff already working in schools, a more diverse group than current teachers, who often have a . This includes individuals such as parent volunteers or paraprofessionals, said Meg Caven, an education sociologist with the Education Development Center, a global health and education nonprofit.

“How do you create a career ladder for the adults who are more likely to be folks of color,” said Caven, “from those uncertified positions into the classroom?”

Some may have had years of experience with students as education assistants, as is the case with many of . The 300-plus cohort now in the two-year program receive paid leave to complete bachelor’s degree coursework and coaching to pursue licensure. Currently, 17 are building experience as instructional aids in Zuni Public schools.

“And the majority of those are local individuals who are part of the Zuni Pueblo, and so that is a move to begin to have more representation in our classrooms,” said Amber Romero, program director. , though at least of public students statewide are Native American.

The efforts come at a critical moment, particularly as rural and urban districts face acute shortages in special education, math, foreign language and English language learner positions. Early analysis of states’ American Rescue Plan funding revealed staffing to be a priority nationwide.

are among the 27 nationally utilizing a State Department program to welcome foreign language exchange teachers this fall, sponsoring teachers’ travel, salary, and living expenses.

South Carolina and Iowa are looking to another force already entrenched in classrooms: . South Carolina’s Teaching Fellows Program, funded by $1.2 million in relief aid, provides up to $6,000 in annual scholarships for young people pursuing teaching careers. Nineteen in Iowa will support high school students and existing paraeducators in earning credentials through the state’s “Earn & Learn” Registered Apprenticeship.

The strategy — recruiting younger adults to stay in their community — is appealing for states with large rural populations, where shortages are even more severe. Roughly said too few candidates applied to vacancies for the 2022-23 school year.

“Part of the problem in Pennsylvania is we have teacher preparation program deserts, where it might be four counties over to the nearest college, so if you send somebody to college, they may never come back,” said Ed Fuller, education and professor at Pennsylvania State University. “They may want to stay near their college, so [districts] have been trying to recruit their own K-12 students. But that’s a long-term solution.”

In California’s rural central valley, serving many students in poverty has seemingly combined approaches — seeding interest among high schoolers, launching a grow-your-own program for staff and a residency program for recent grads. Lindsay Unified’s yearlong residency supports educators to complete a master’s in teaching and full credential.

Staff and students can have their loans forgiven after teaching in Lindsay for 5 years; 120 have taken them up on the offer.

Apart from encouraging growth in the pipeline, the interpersonal benefits of residencies have impacted communities for years.

CREATE, a three-year residency hosted by Georgia State University since 2015, has seen of new Black teachers stay in the profession by their fifth year, the point at which .

Because residencies are grounded in their specific local context, programs can dig deep to understand what priorities are for families and schools in the district as opposed to a whole state. Seattle, for instance, hones elementary teachers to support Title I schools serving high proportions of students in poverty.

“Providing a fellowship and stipend to these future educators opens doors to teachers who would not have been able to acquire the appropriate classroom credentials otherwise,” said founding director of the Seattle Teacher Residency Marisa Bier. “This work has proven imperative in bridging the demographic divide between teachers and students by recruiting and retaining BIPOC educators in the Seattle community.”

New York University’s one-year residency, which has grown from about 12 prospective educators in 2016 to now 160, similarly stays focused on districts’ and families’ priorities. About half of their current cohort are specializing in special education and many more are seeking TESOL certification because of NYC’s student population and priorities.

“It’s sort of a needs-based shuffle,” said professor and residency co-director Frank Pignatosi. At NYU, as with many higher-ed housed residencies, there is no GRE requirement for applicants. The decision is intentional, an acknowledgement of the resources, financial and otherwise, involved.

The reality is not lost on New Mexico’s Romero, who supports educator assistants exceptional at their work, eager to become teachers, yet navigating economic and family realities.

“Many of them are women of color. Many of them are mothers and so they don’t have the luxury of not working and going to school. They have to have this job for the benefits,” she said. “And then they can only take one or two classes at night while they’re trying to raise a family.”

Stipends, personalized professional development, and social support can make all the difference for prospective educators looking for a way in, and for the districts eager to receive them.

“It doesn’t make it easy,” Romero said, “but it certainly makes it possible.”

Black, Latino Students Disproportionately Taught by Inexperienced Teachers

Marianna McMurdock — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 19:01:00 +0000

Black and Latino students nationwide are disproportionately learning from inexperienced and uncertified teachers, according to new research.

Across the country, schools serving predominantly Black students have 5 percent than schools with fewer Black students, according to analysis from education advocacy nonprofit The Education Trust.

In a quarter of states, gaps are even wider: Predominantly Black schools have at least twice as many novice teachers as schools serving the fewest.

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In two particularly egregious cases, researchers found in Mississippi, a quarter of Black students attended schools with high percentages of novice teachers, compared to just 7 percent of non-Black students. And in Louisiana, one in three Black students attend schools with high percentages of inexperienced teachers.

“Our findings reveal that our education system is failing Black students, as they find themselves more likely than any other group of students to be in classrooms with teachers who are in their first years of teaching or teachers who are uncertified,” the focused on Black and Latino students separately, stated.

Little progress in efforts to retain teachers in these schools has been made since federal data showed similar disparities in 2014 — so stark then that the .

The Education Trust

Novice teachers said they leave their posts because they receive little training or mentoring. As a result, students could go years without an experienced educator — the .

Gaps in access to quality teachers can have long-term consequences on students’ .

Without action, the churn of inexperienced teachers will have long-term, negative impacts on students of color at a rate not experienced by their peers in predominantly white schools, Education Trust researchers said.

“…The pattern of Black and Latino students getting assigned to brand new teachers year after year after year — attending schools with a majority of teachers who haven’t had the time to master their craft and need more support — is at its heart a racial justice issue,” said Sarah Mehrotra, who co-authored the .

“If we care about equity in education, we have to pay attention to who is teaching our Black and Brown students, and what we can be doing differently to support them,” she said.

In 32 states, there are more first-year teachers in schools serving the most Latino students. Three – Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Washington – have the biggest gaps, with Latino students at least twice as likely to have a novice teacher.

The Education Trust

In Massachusetts, access to certified teachers is particularly inequitable: 29 percent of Latino students attend schools with high percentages of uncertified teachers, compared to just 12 percent of their peers.

The findings bring states’ commitment to teacher development into question at a time when many face educator shortages and allocate billions in pandemic relief aid to accelerate learning.

“This disparity… means that groups of students are missing out, by no fault of their own, on the critical learning opportunities necessary to prepare them for success in college and/or the workforce,” the reports stated, analyzing the U.S. Department of Education’s 2017-18 Civil Rights Data Collection.

In the predominantly Black and Latino schools analyzed, where there are fewer experienced educators, teachers of color are “over-represented” and have higher turnover rates than their peers — a “disruption” for students and communities, Mehrotra said.

Teachers of color experience “antagonistic school culture, [are] deprived of agency/autonomy, navigating unfavorable working conditions and carrying an “invisible tax” – the extra work they take on (being a translator for families, being a disciplinarian) without additional compensation,” she added. Vacancies are filled by substitutes or novice teachers.

One New Orleans teacher told the Education Trust: “The teaching profession was built on altruism, and many folks have taken advantage of this to bring in teachers on lower salaries.”

Though 2020-21 data is not available, Mehrotra predicted schools serving predominantly low-income students and students of color, where teachers double as counselors or manage larger classes, “are bearing the brunt of these pandemic related exits, teacher burnout and these alarming shortages.”

Stronger statewide data systems — to track teacher departures, demographic data and professional development opportunities — tops the reports’ policy recommendations to retain experienced teachers for students of color.

Researchers say while there are bright spots like — where new teachers enter a three-year mentorship program and can access loan forgiveness for working in high-needs schools — the problem and its solutions have been widespread and well-known.

“We could have predicted the data in a lot of ways,” Education Trust researcher Eric Duncan said, adding the have persisted for years. States and districts must double down on their commitment to engage teachers directly to, “go a little bit more under the hood and say, ?”

Further recommendations from the reports include investing in mentorship, and grow-your-own programs; incentivizing work in high-need schools and subjects; and hiring earlier in high-turnover districts.

Disclosure: Marianna McMurdock was an intern at the Education Trust-West in the summer of 2020.

America's Teacher Diversity Problem: Classrooms Don't Resemble Their Communities

Mebane Rash — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 15:01:00 +0000

Across North Carolina and around the country, work to diversify the teacher workforce continues at the local, state, and national level.

Meet Johnnie Moultrie, a second grade teacher at in . In 2019-20, the school 548 students, including 171 Black and 303 Hispanic students.

Moultrie found his way to this classroom through the district’s .

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“Track me,” says Moultrie to the class.

“Class, class,” he says.

“Yes, yes,” they reply in unison.

“Silent math,” he instructs.

“Shhh,” they all whisper collectively before settling in for the lesson.

To bring the class out of silent mode, Moultrie says to the students, “Go ahead and stand on your chairs. Are you ready to rock and roll?”

Welcome to Mr. Moultrie’s class.

For Moultrie, it’s all about the adventure of learning. Hear about his journey into the classroom.

“Over the past two decades, the K-12 student population has become much more racially diverse, but that same trend in diversity is not reflected in teachers and school leaders,” says Dr. Javaid Siddiqi, president and CEO of the .

Local programs like the in Charlotte or are addressing the issue one district at a time while they wait for systemwide policy change to take hold at the state and national level.

What’s happening statewide in North Carolina

“We need desperately more diverse public school teachers,” said Gov. Roy Cooper last week at a convening of leaders from the state’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

“Many of you participated in the task force I created — the DRIVE task force — which works to get more diversity among our public educators because the studies are pretty stark. Not only do minority students do better when their teachers are more diverse, but all students do better when their teachers are more diverse,” said the governor.

Gov. Roy Cooper addressing the NC 10. (Mebane Rash/EducationNC)

DRIVE stands for “Developing a Representative & Inclusive Vision for Education.” The task force was created by in December 2019. are the appointees.

The DRIVE task force, supported by the team at the Hunt Institute, is working now to .

Among the 10 recommendations in the , DRIVE the following:

Developing scholarships, loan forgiveness, and tuition reimbursement programs for educators of color;
Providing sustainable investments in educator preparation programs at North Carolina’s Historically Minority Serving Institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities; and
Releasing an annual statewide report on educator diversity.

, key stakeholders and policymakers will now begin the important work of building a more diverse educator workforce.

What’s happening nationally

Nationally, a coalition of eight organizations, including the Hunt Institute, are working to increase the number of teachers of color by 1 million and school leaders of color by 30,000 by 2030. is the website to learn more.

“DRIVE was our impetus for us being a part of this coalition,” says Daniella Doyle, director of strategic initiatives with the Hunt Institute. “How can we take the work we did in North Carolina and do it nationally?”

The (NABSE) held its 49th annual conference — the largest convening of Black educators — last week. There, the $9 million in grants to organizations working to train and support teachers and education leaders of color, including $1.25 million for the .

“We can — and must — do more to ensure our classrooms reflect the world around us,” said Sandra Liu Huang, head of education for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

The coalition includes, , , , , , and the .

Doyle notes that the data indicate ripple effects. More educators of color lead to higher graduation rates, more postsecondary degrees and credentials, better outcomes in terms of disciplines, and higher placement rates in advanced placement (AP) courses.

At the local, state, and national level, the team at the Hunt Institute says the goal of the work is to disrupt inequity in our schools once and for all.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

$9M of Chan Zuckerberg Grants to Bring in More Teachers, School Leaders of Color

Marianna McMurdock — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 20:01:00 +0000

To ensure classroom leaders better reflect and support racially diverse students, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is distributing .

The funding will cultivate career pathways for teachers and district leaders of color.

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CZI co-founder and co-CEO Priscilla Chan announced the grants for racial diversity in education during the 49th annual National Alliance of Black School Educators conference late last week.

“Not only do you help your students learn, but you also help them feel a deep sense of belonging in helping them become the young people who are curious, confident, and caring members of their own communities,” Chan said on Nov. 11.

From pre-service teacher education to professional , grants ranging $175,000 to $2 million will support organizations in preparing and supporting historically excluded populations in K-12 leadership.

Though , nearly half of schools are operating without any teachers of color.

CZI’s funding will also support The Hunt Institute in its policy advocacy to add 1 million teachers of color to schools by 2030 — the Institute will work with gubernatorial candidates on their education platforms and offer its in more regions. The campaign, which launched during the social justice movements of summer 2020, .

A more diverse teacher workforce could result in for an . Having had a Black teacher, from higher expectations, experience fewer suspensions and graduate high school at higher rates.

Some grantees will also focus initiatives on helping teachers move into district, board and state leadership, and in turn, be able to support teachers of color implementing change.

“My experience has been you get a phenomenal principal, or you get a handful of really great teachers or you have an out-of-this-world superintendent, and then when they retire or they move on or for whatever number reason, sometimes those great initiatives fall by the wayside. This is really about creating leader-full communities where, even as people move on … the work continues because the whole community is invested,” said Jonathan Santos Silva, executive director of The Liber Institute, which works with rural communities.

The Institute is receiving $800,000 to train Indigenous students, families and leaders to competitively run for school board and district leadership. Their new programming has encouraged thought partnerships with , the and, soon, tribal colleges and universities.

And for the Equity Institute, a Rhode Island-based nonprofit working with teachers to sustain antiracist learning and teaching environments, their $800,000 CZI grant means long-term growth. They’ll be able to hire more staff, enhance technology, evaluate and spread their work at a time it’s needed most.

“We’re in a space and time where — because of COVID, because of the high profile incidents of police brutality and deaths at the hands of officers — that we have to be very, very intentional about how we share leadership and invite people to the table, into spaces where they have historically been neglected, isolated, disenfranchised,” Chief Impact Officer and Co-Founder Carlon Howard told ��Ӱ��.

Disclosure: The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative provides financial support to ��Ӱ��.

teachers of color – ����Ӱ��

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Recruitment for rural realities

‘The time has always been now’

‘State of the States’: New Report Highlights Teacher Diversity Strategies

States should set explicit diversification goals and collect data tracking progress toward meeting those targets.

Track how well early career teachers are faring using retention data disaggregated by race and ethnicity at the individual school level.

Pay teachers more to work in hard-to-staff schools.

Change layoff policies so teachers of color are no longer disproportionately impacted.

Teachers of color should be at the policymaking table.

Breaking Down the Walls to Teaching: Alternative Pipelines Boom

Black, Latino Students Disproportionately Taught by Inexperienced Teachers

America's Teacher Diversity Problem: Classrooms Don't Resemble Their Communities

What’s happening statewide in North Carolina

What’s happening nationally

$9M of Chan Zuckerberg Grants to Bring in More Teachers, School Leaders of Color

teachers of color – ��Ӱ��