Teachers in the US are even more segregated than students
Editor's Note:
This post is part of "Teacher diversity in America," a series from the Brown Center on Education Policy that examines minority underrepresentation among public educators in the U.S.
An increasing amount of evidence shows that alignment in the racial or ethnic identity of teachers and students is associated with a range of positive student outcomes, from test scores to disciplinary actions to teacher expectations. Due to the underrepresentation of teachers of color in the current workforce, minority students stand to disproportionally benefit from efforts to increase teacher diversity.
With this evidence, it is easy for many practitioners and policymakers to take a next logical step, concluding that, because minority students tend to benefit uniquely from diverse teachers, teachers of color will be most beneficial in schools serving large numbers of minority students. Thus, any new teachers of color are often steered (whether covertly or overtly) toward high-minority schools. Taken to an extreme, given the tenacious grip of racial segregation on America’s schools, we could have a school system where the teacher workforce is every bit as diverse as its students—and perhaps every bit as segregated.
In addition to the risk of creating a racially segregated workforce, the logical leap above is misguided for at least two reasons. First, it ignores the evidence showing that teachers of color benefit white students—perhaps not always through test scores, but through pro-social beliefs and attitudes. Second, schools serving large numbers of minority students already tend to have the most racially diverse workforces, while many students of color in predominantly white schools have virtually no exposure to teachers of color.
As districts and states across the country pursue racial and ethnic diversity among teachers, we should pay attention to how teachers of color are distributed to avoid creating another layer of school segregation.
As districts and states across the country pursue racial and ethnic diversity among teachers, we should pay attention to how teachers of color are distributed to avoid creating another layer of school segregation. After briefly contextualizing segregation and its manifestations in schools, we report our findings that teachers are even more segregated than students in the U.S., suggesting the need for a new framework around the hiring of nonwhite teachers.
MANY TYPES OF SEGREGATION
School segregation does not exist in a vacuum, but is part of an interconnected structure of segregation that extends to residence and employment. Residential segregation can be primarily attributed not to self-segregation of minority racial groups but instead to decades of federal policy that prevented nonwhite families from acquiring mortgages, redlining practices, the strategic placement of interstates and highways throughout the 20th century, and individual actions of white families. Employment segregation takes the form of predominantly white jobs having an average salary four times higher than that of heavily black or Hispanic jobs. Furthermore, a 2017 meta-analysis of callback rates for fake resumes with racially coded names reveals the continued presence of simple employment discrimination.
Each of these factors significantly influences the racial segregation of Continue reading: Teachers in the US are even more segregated than students
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