Concerned about Black teacher attrition? Pa. already has tools to address the problem.

Each year in August, many district leaders find themselves in a crunch to get well-qualified teachers into every classroom.

That annual ambition is often met by the increasing reality that well-qualified teachers are a finite resource. There is a persistent shortage of teachers, particularly in urban districts and certain specialties like math, English as a second language, and special education. Some cities and states are taking any adult they can get; last school year, more than a quarter million positions were staffed by “underqualified” teachers.

Fortunately, thanks to a bill sponsored by State Sens. Ryan Aument (R., Lancaster) and Vincent Hughes (D., Philadelphia) and signed into law by former Gov. Tom Wolf, Pennsylvania has new data to help inform efforts to bolster our teacher ranks. Published by the Pennsylvania Educator Diversity Consortium, these data provide decision-makers and education leaders with a more detailed understanding of our educator workforce. The findings can drive policy to attract and retain great teachers in the state going forward.

More than a decade of lagging enrollment nationally in teacher preparation programs seems to be slowly reversing itself. The number of newly certified teachers from Pennsylvania teacher preparation programs reached a five-year high of 5,577 in 2023, but we’re still a long way off from producing the number of great teachers our students need. Districts with 65% or more students of color had a substantially greater vacancy rate — more than eight times higher than districts with fewer than 5% students of color.

We need to preserve the ranks of those excellent Black and brown teachers who are already in our classrooms.

In working to address shortage of talent, it’s best to focus on supporting current teachers by helping them become optimally effective and feel professionally respected and valued. Teacher attrition, the percentage of those leaving the profession, declined in the commonwealth from an all-time high of 7.7% in school year 2022-23 to 6.7% in school year 2023-24. That’s the second biggest decline since 2014, according to a Penn State Center for Evaluation and Education Policy Analysis (CEEPA) research brief.

Peeling back that onion, however, there are signals that we need to not only continue to advance our efforts to retain educators broadly but focus even more on keeping Black and brown teachers on the job.

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The data, analyzed by CEEPA, show that Black teachers continue to have the highest rates of attrition. The average annual attrition rate for Black teachers is about 13%. Over five years, that figure balloons to 33% — or one in three — Black teachers exiting the profession. Compare that with the annual 5.8% and five-year 19% rate for white teachers (who comprise a supermajority of the workforce in the state).

It’s clear that far more urgency is required if we hope to actually bring more Black teachers into classrooms.

And while there was a slight increase in the percentage of teachers of color (7.9% overall), we are still a long way off from having the kind of diversity in our teaching workforce that a raft of evidence shows benefits all students in a variety of academic and social indicators.

We need more well-qualified Black teachers, we need more teachers with the cultural competency to effectively serve students of all backgrounds, and we need to preserve the ranks of those excellent Black and brown teachers who are already in our classrooms. Finally and fully addressing these dynamics requires an ecosystem approach.

We have the solutions, we just need to put them in motion.

Five years ago, research from Education Trust and Teach Plus found that teachers of color face specific challenges to staying in the field. Specifically, the study found five key factors: antagonistic school culture, feeling undervalued, being deprived of agency and autonomy, navigating unfavorable working conditions, and bearing the high cost of being a teacher of color.

Other investigations have yielded similar findings, including one jointly produced by the organization I lead. All of which shows that Black educators have higher student loan debt, are more likely to work in a school with fewer resources, and experience workplace conditions that do not affirm their identities.

That toxic brew pushes good folks out of the work and makes recruiting more of them understandably difficult. Research for Action’s researchers recently shone a light on the 1,100-plus Black teachers who left the profession in Philadelphia alone between 2000-2020. Jarring. Gut-wrenching. Destructive to student achievement.

So, what’s to be done?

First, school and system leaders need to take stock of their current culture, policies, and practices, and their impact on the existing teacher workforce. “The Anti-Racist Guide to Teacher Retention” by the Center for Black Educator Development and the Pennsylvania Educator Diversity Consortium is a powerful tool to use in achieving that end.

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Second, the state should move to require all principal certification and superintendent licensure to include a deep learning thread on teacher retention, particularly retention of teachers of color.

Third, new data being produced by the state should inform broader policy — from school funding to educator preparation accreditation to teacher compensation and benefits. Data are essential. Data coupled with action are transformational.

We’re starting the school year in a more knowledgeable place about our teaching force than we have been in years past. Whether we take the steps necessary to ensure that future school years begin with a better-prepared, supported, and sustained teacher workforce is an open question.

We have the solutions, we just need to put them in motion.

Sharif El-Mekki served as a Philadelphia teacher and principal for 26 years before launching the Fellowship: Black Male Educators for Social Justice and Philly’s 7th Ward. He is a member of the “8 Black Hands” and “Freedom Friday” podcasts and currently serves as the CEO of the Center for Black Educator Development.