We need more Black teachers

When starting a public charter school in Washington, D.C., for Black and Latino boys, Statesmen College Preparatory Academy’s founder and CEO, Shawn Hardnett, wanted his teachers to be role models for their students and to develop strong bonds with them. The result at this wildly successful school is that “65% of my staff are Black men,” Hardnett said, adding that providing support and opportunity to vulnerable students begins with adults who look like them and are from their communities.

“We need to see ourselves in the teachers,” Hardnett said. “We need to see ourselves on the walls. We need to see ourselves in the curriculum and materials.”

While Black youth comprise 14% of the U.S. population, only 7% of teachers are Black, and 40% of the nation’s public schools have no teachers of color. In an era when initiatives promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are under attack, and affirmative action to remedy historical higher education inequities have been gutted, it is more important than ever that we focus on increasing the number of Black educators as a key part of improving Black student outcomes.

And those outcomes are dire, with 84% of Black fourth graders not reading at proficiency levels compared with 59% of their white peers. Academic gaps by race only widen as students progress through school.

What I know to be true is that improved academic outcomes are clearly correlated to a diverse teacher pipeline. Anti-DEI antagonists cast this as an either/or proposition, conveniently ignoring the data establishing the connection between the two.

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While 45% of Black elementary students are never taught by a Black teacher from kindergarten through fifth grade, Black boys from low-income families who have a Black teacher in third through fifth grades are 29% more interested in pursuing college and 39% less likely to drop out of high school.

In addition, Black students are more often subjected than their peers to punitive school discipline, resulting in loss of classroom time, which can create a cycle of academic regression. These disciplinary measures exacerbate the academic challenges at the root of many behavior issues. Suspension can double a student’s risk of dropping out of school, which, in turn, increases their chances three-fold of becoming involved in the justice system.

This disparity in discipline — and its disastrous repercussions — may be tied to teachers’ expectations of students based on their race.

If white teachers believe fewer Black students will attend and complete college than young people from other groups, that bias can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But when Black students have teachers who not only look like them but understand their life experiences, including the factors that can contribute to behavior, studies show they gain an advocate in the classroom.

Black students who have Black teachers do better academically and, just as importantly, show up to school more often. This tells us that Black students feel safer and more confident when they see themselves in classrooms and school leadership, and thus are more likely to attain positive academic outcomes we all aspire for them to achieve.

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Black students are positioned for success when they have access to teachers who can serve as mirrors, not just windows, to their world. And focusing on increasing the number of Black teachers and improving academic outcomes are not mutually exclusive, but rather inextricably linked.

To sustain academic success, we need to develop a pipeline of Black teachers.

I‘ve tried to do my part to create that pipeline. In 2018, my colleagues and I at the Center for Black Educator Development piloted our Teaching Academy, which works to foster a love of education in high school students and begins planting the idea in them that they can play a crucial role in the future of other Black youth.

Our center offers a career and technical education course about teaching Black students and historical frameworks about the education of Black people in this country. Participants are eligible for our center’s Black Teacher Pipeline Fellowship, which includes college scholarships, academic support, professional coaching, and retention bonuses.

Students in the program show increased interest in attending historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and take greater ownership and control of their academics and path to adulthood. With more than 336 participants to date, each student can go on to affect the course of thousands of Black students’ lives.

Black young people need financial support to attain degrees and credentials in education.

Black students’ academic and social outcomes are important not only to their futures but are also central to the success of our nation — a nation that has yet to fully embrace the productivity and potential of Black people. Racial disparities hinder American competitiveness on the global economic stage, whereas closing the racial wealth gap could add $1 trillion to the country’s financial system.

Nonprofits alone cannot shoulder the solutions to some of America’s most pressing problems.

Black young people need financial support to attain degrees and credentials in education. Teachers need to be paid higher salaries so that Black people who want to be educators know there are good jobs in education that can lead to viable, long-lasting careers.

We need more government initiatives like the Biden-Harris administration’s grants to HBCUs to diversify our education workforce. And we must create a public narrative that increasing the number of Black teachers benefits us all — because it does.

Sharif El-Mekki, who served as a teacher and principal in Philadelphia’s public schools for 26 years, is the CEO of the Center for Black Educator Development. He is the founder of the education blog, Philly’s 7th Ward, and a member of the “#FreedomFriday” podcast.