Black women teachers need better working conditions to improve education in the cities
Reductions in the number of black women who teach can never lead to the academic success of black children.
The ability to hold on to black women in the teaching profession is an essential indicator of quality. The Albert Shanker Institute’s recent report on The State of Teacher Diversity in American Education essentially asserts that more must be done to improve working conditions and help retain teachers of color. But the Shanker report can go further.
Improving teachers’ work conditions for the benefit of students really means improving conditions for black women in urban schools.
Recruitment is not the primary reason for a lack of diversity, the report found. The overall share of minority teachers increased from 1987 to 2012, but the attrition rate for teachers of color negated those gains.
In addition, the share of black, brown and Asian students outpaced the recruitment of teachers from those populations.
The Shanker report names all the reasons why this problem must be fixed. Black and brown teachers are more motivated to work with disadvantaged youth, have higher expectations, and these teachers rebut stereotypes. Diversity in the workforce is the ultimate standard of educational success.
Using the conventional black-white achievement gap is a deceptive and harmful way to measure quality. Whenever we use white people as a referent, we are essentially saying they are the model or standard of quality. Actually, a healthy public educational system produces diverse teachers.
Contrary to equity standards is the “race of the teacher doesn’t Black women teachers need better working conditions to improve education in the cities - The Hechinger Report:
