Although there are slightly more teachers of color than there were a few years ago, the percentage of black teachers in major metropolitan cities has fallen. Between 2002 and 2012, the number black public school teachers dropped in Boston, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Cleveland, and Washington D.C. That was one finding in a paper on teacher diversity released by the Albert Shanker Institute, a think tank supported by the American Federation of Teachers. The percentage of minority teachers in the U.S. has increased slightly, from 16.5 percent in the 2007–2008 school year to 17.3 percent in 2011–2012.
The ASI paper also shows that although there has been substantial growth in the number of Hispanic and Asian teachers, black and Native American teachers lag behind. Some of the worst declines in the percentage of minority teachers were in Washington D.C. and New Orleans. In Washington D.C., the percentage of the teaching force who are black fell 36 percent from 2003 to 2011. Since pre-Katrina New Orleans, the percentage of black teachers fell 31 percent. New Orleans is unique from other cities in the respect that all public school teachers were laid off after the hurricane and traditional public schools were replaced with charter schools.
Although people of color are more likely to express interest in teaching and stay in the profession, they face more barriers to becoming a teacher, the report explains. Students of color are less likely to enroll in a four-year college or transfer to a four-year college compared to white students, according to a Center for American Progress report, “America’s Leaky Pipeline for Teachers of Color.” There are also gaps in test scores between students of color and white students for teacher certification exams, which have spurred lawsuits on racial bias. The New York Teachers Exam has been under scrutiny for many years. A federal judge recently ruled that the exam is racially biased because it did not properly measure skills relevant to all teachers.
Predominantly black high-poverty schools have high rates of teacher attrition and absences and are twice as likely to have inexperienced teachers. Research has shown that students of color achieve at higher levels, through academic performance and higher graduation rates, when taught by people of color. But in schools where 75 percent of the student population were students of color, only 40 percent of teachers were also people of color.
There is also a case for how white students could benefit from teachers of color. Because white students are socially segregated, as children tend to stop having cross-racial friendships at a young age, white students would benefit from having their point of view challenged or being asked to step outside their own experience.