Recruiting and Retaining Teachers and Administrators with DEI in Mind

Apr 8

SPECIAL EDITION

〰️

SPECIAL EDITION 〰️

This article was commissioned by an education NGO for print in their membership journal. However, after several revisions, they found the content to be too politically risky for their organization. It contained too many words being weaponized against school systems by those opposed to diversity and equity. So they chose not to print it. I present that article here, in its original form and entirety.

DEI. Currently, these three little letters pack plenty of social, psychological, and political punch. Some say they are "doing DEI" but often can't articulate what that means. So, let's start with a bit of foundational understanding.

The "D" is for diversity. Diversity in the context of DEI is not about diversifying the geographic origins of people. It's more than the simple diversification of gender or gender identity. And it's certainly not simply a diversification of alma mater or school of thought. This "D" is about diversifying a group's racial and ethnic composition. And for this conversation, “the group” is made up of those who stand before our children every day to teach them to become productive citizens and lifelong learners as well as those who hire and supervise them. And they are those that decide which disciplinary actions against children are called for and meted out.

The "E" is for equity. Equity is simply freedom from bias against or favoritism for. This includes freedom from discrimination against any racial or ethnic group, and freedom from favoritism for any racial or ethnic group. Equity is about fairness and impartiality.

The "I" is for inclusion. Inclusion is a mindset, a culture. It's a state of being where everyone feels a sense of belonging in your school. Inclusion is much more elusive than diversity or equity. Because those things are a matter of policy and planning, they are matters of structure and restructuring to meet specific goals and indicators that readily, quantitatively measured; think key performance indicators. Inclusion is a matter of people's feelings, emotions, and psychological states. Inclusion is a matter of culture. And reculturing is much more complex and time-consuming than restructuring. Still, creating an inclusive district must be done for the children.

Why Diversity Matters in Faculty Composition

I am a Black woman. I grew up in racially diverse neighborhoods and attended schools with a very racially diverse student composition. I was in the sixth grade before I had a teacher of record who was a person of color, Mrs. Brown, who was Black/African American, at Madison Elementary in Stockton, California. Then, in seventh grade, I had Mrs. Lopez, my Latina science teacher. And finally, in tenth grade, I met Mr. Huey, my Asian geometry teacher. I sat in the classrooms of those three outstanding educators between 1974 and 1979. I can't name most of my K-12 teachers off the top of my head, but the experiences in those classrooms were meaningful enough that I can. There was an intangible difference in their classrooms that, as an adolescent, I probably couldn't have named.

For children of color, seeing people who look like themselves, as teachers and leaders, has a profound and lifelong effect. Research informs us that "access to same-race/ethnicity teachers is a critical resource for supporting the educational experiences and outcomes of Black, Hispanic, and other students of color" (Blazer, 2021). Teacher mindset explains some of this. Teachers and school leaders of color tend to have greater belief in the innate abilities of children of color. As a result, they do not hold negative implicit biases against children of color as frequently.

From a socio-anthropological perspective, "the intellectual denigration of children of color is a mechanism that affects the collective efficacy of children of color" (Berry 2021). The constant criticism of the so-called underachievement of children of color creates a mindset that children of color cannot learn. It creates a mindset in adults that learners of color will not learn or are not worth the time and effort to teach them so that they may. In truth, children of color's actual innate abilities are no different from those of white children. Intellectually we know this. Psychologically, implicit bias overrides the facts.

Our country has created a system of public education in which 79% of all teachers are white. Yet, they serve in a system where 55% of students are of color (U.S. Department of Education). You needn't look hard to find disproportionality and inequity in academic and disciplinary outcomes. The achievement gaps are fueled by provision gaps that occur when we allow the mindset, the culture, that children of color are less capable of learning.

But research tells us amazing things about the impact of teachers of color on outcomes for students of color. In those classrooms, students of color

are less likely to be perceived as inattentive (Dee, 2005);
are more likely to be held to high academic expectations (Gershenson et al., 2016);
have higher rates of attendance (Gottfried et al., 2021; Holt & Gershenson, 2019);
are less likely to be perceived as disciplinary challenges (Dee, 2005); and
have lower rates of suspensions (Lindsay & Hart, 2017; Shirrell et al., 2021).

If that's not enough, consider that a district could eliminate one-third of the Black-White test score gap by having Black students who have one or more Black teachers (Fryer & Levitt, 2004; Jencks & Phillips, 2011).

Now perhaps you're wondering about the impact of white students seeing more teachers of color. Here's the exciting thing: white students fare no worse by having teachers of color. And students of all races report socioemotional benefits as well as feeling more challenged academically in the classrooms of teachers of color (Cherng & Halpin, 2016).

Effecting Change for Equity

Proximity breeds empathy. Distance and segregation breeds ignorance and fear. When your teachers reflect the diversity of races and cultures of your learners, the understanding, compassion, and cultural awareness they bring into their schools and classrooms result in more inclusive spaces.

Mindsets tainted with privilege, whether one recognizes they exercise privilege or not, impact the children with whom they come into contact. As a leader, it will take courage to run counter to the calls of those who would have you think that DEI is something that it is not; to have you believe that working to increase diversity is reverse racism. That is the voice of privilege. And when you are accustomed to privilege, equity feels like tyranny.

The challenge is quantifying equity when it comes to people, particularly in the recruiting, hiring, and retaining of people who have a tremendous impact on our children's everyday lives and life trajectories.

Employee recruitment, retention, development, and advancement are the most critical components of a district's success in becoming an equity leader. Human capital in an equity-focused organization is a matter of having the right people in the right positions skilled in doing the right things to produce the outcomes leadership desires. Recruitment of new talent means more than filling open headcount. Hiring the right people means developing and implementing practices that address the inequities currently present in your district.

Trustees should enact policies that require their HR departments to go beyond the existing HR recruitment and retention best practices. Superintendents should demand professional development to help recruiters and supervisors eliminate implicit bias from decisions about hiring and advancement.

A Thought Experiment

As a thought experiment, I'd like you to think about a regular workday and view it from a particular lens: a lens of racial diversity. From the time you get up in the morning until you go back to bed at night:

Who do you see? Are they the same race as you?
Who provides supervision and guidance to you?
To whom do you provide supervision and guidance?
How often are you the only person of your race in the room?
How often are the positive images reflective of your race when you look at media? What about the negative ones?
Was someone you met with for the first time surprised to find out your racial identity?
Did anyone ask if they could touch your hair?
Did you hear derogatory remarks about people of your race being disciplinary problems and unable to achieve academically?

Now, flip it. What if

none or very few people you see are of your race?
all your supervisors are of another race?
in meeting after meeting, you are the only person of your race in the room?
you are asked to give the opinion or insight into the mindset of every person of your race?
the images you see in the media of people who look like you are disproportionately negative?
new people that you meet are shocked to find out your racial identity?
a stranger in the coffee shop asks if they can touch your hair?
you hear derogatory remarks about people of your race being disciplinary problems and unable to achieve academically?

Now imagine being a person whose lived experience is that of the flip. Day after day. Year after year.

Seek out teachers and leaders from institutions with greater racial and ethnic diversity levels, like historically Black colleges and universities. Leverage educational affinity organizations like the National Alliance of Black School Educators, found at www.nabse.org, and the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents, found at www.alasedu.org.

What You Can Do

You can easily tackle this first recommendation at the local level. Districts can work towards establishing internships or teacher residency programs. Research reports from the Brookings Institution and The Education Trust based on data from the Survey of Consumer Finances validate the historic race-based economic inequities in the U.S. result in teachers of color being more likely to graduate college with debt than their white peers (Addo & Darity, 2020; Addo & Darity, 2021; Perry, Barr & Romer, 2021; Perry, Steinbaum, & Romer, 2021).

Residency programs allow teacher candidates to work as classroom teachers while completing their certification. For example, I worked as a long-term substitute while finishing my first teaching credential. That was my district's approach to residency. It gave me the financial stability to finish that first credential without additional student loan debt. It also kept me from taking a job in the private sector that might have paid more but would have kept me out of the classroom.

A second recommendation is to create teacher pipelines from within your communities. You have two pathways here. The first pathway is akin to a middle college model. Districts can create high schools of choice that offer a 9-12 curriculum inclusive of coursework focused on pedagogy and socio-emotional support. Partner with a local university so that juniors and seniors can enroll in college credit courses in an education major. Follow it up with fellowship programs to provide full scholarships for historically marginalized high school students to complete a teacher preparation program. Several models exist. They're even planning a middle school in Brooklyn where those high school pipeliners will begin student teaching.

The other pathway is to grow paraprofessionals and other non-licensed staff into classroom teachers. Again, this calls for a partnership with a local university and perhaps working with your state legislature. Check out the Multiple Pathways to Teaching Program at the University of Minnesota, available at www.cehd.umn.edu/teaching/mpt/.

The third recommendation is to create new or improved structural and cultural systems. These systems would provide specific training and support for teachers of color who face disproportionately higher attrition rates, are more frequently challenged about their teaching styles, and are assigned more extracurricular duties than their white peers (Kohli, 2019; Burcuiaga & Kohli, 2018). In my first two teaching assignments at a middle school and a comprehensive high school, I was the only teacher of color. Yet the student population was bordering on becoming a majority of color. It can be professionally and culturally isolating to be in those assignments. Affinity groups are a start. Professional learning on cultural competence for every member of faculty and staff and further training for principals and other administrators will help recognize and address issues that may arise.

The final recommendation requires a coalition. Take a look at your teacher certification exam. Some states require candidates pass the Praxis. Yet it is estimated to screen out almost half of the candidates of color compared to about 27% of white candidates. Like many other standardized tests, it is a widely held belief among academicians that the PRAXIS is culturally biased. Results show wide gaps between candidates of color and white candidates. Work towards finding alternate ways for candidates to prove their competency in the classroom.

Knowledge and Mindset Check

Working to change mindsets and shift cultures takes time. First, take a look at where you are as a district. Set a vision for what you want diversity and equity to look like in your district. Create reasonable but audacious goals for creating a diverse faculty in an inclusive culture. Then, prioritize those elements that will result in the most significant positive impact.

As you go about the work, consider these five questions on the impact of recruiting, retaining, and mentoring educators and administrators of color in your district:

1. How many students are positively impacted by diversifying the faculty?

2. If we prioritize diversity in recruitment and retention, to what extent will it contribute to our district's goals?

3. Do we need to develop and implement an action plan, or will diversity happen without interference over time?

4. How big is the gap between our current state of diversity and our desired state?

5. To what extent would recruitment and retention of faculty of color positively impact other areas?

Then consider one question on feasibility:

1. To what extent is the district willing to commit to creating and supporting systems to actively recruit, retain, and mentor the teachers and leaders of color in our schools?

References

Addo, F.R., & Darity, W. (2020) To tackle the black student debt crisis, target the racial wealth gap. The Education Trust. Retrieved from https://edtrust.org/resource/to-tackle-the-black-student-debt-crisis-target-the-racial-wealth-gap/

Addo, F. R., & Darity, W. A., Jr. (2021). Disparate Recoveries: Wealth, Race, and the Working Class after the Great Recession. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 695, 173–192. https://doi.org/http://ann.sagepub.com/content/by/year

Berry, A. L. (2022). Effecting change for culturally and linguistically diverse learners, 2nd Edition; Shell Education, Huntington Beach, CA

Berry, A. L. (2022). Not Under, Just Not. The Paradox of Privilege. Paper presented at the Texas Alliance of Black School Educators Conference, Dallas, Texas.

Blazar, David. (2021). Teachers of Color, Culturally Responsive Teaching, and Student Outcomes: Experimental Evidence from the Random Assignment of Teachers to Classes. (EdWorkingPaper: 21-501). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/jym0-wz02

Burciaga, R., & Kohli, R. (2018). Disrupting Whitestream Measures of Quality Teaching: The Community Cultural Wealth of Teachers of Color. Multicultural Perspectives, 20(1), 5–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/15210960.2017.1400915

How do Educators Feel About Staff Diversity? (2021). Education Week, 41(16), 4-5.

Kohli, R. (2019). Lessons for Teacher Education: The Role of Critical Professional Development in Teacher of Color Retention. Journal of Teacher Education, 70(1), 39. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487118767645

Perry, A.M., Barr, A., & Romer, C. (2021). Three lessons for boosting postsecondary education and wages in Black-majority cities. The Brookings Institution. Retrieved from: https://www.brookings.edu/research/three-lessons-for-boosting-postsecondary-education-and-wages-in-black-majority-cities/

Perry, A.M., Steinbaum, M., & Romer, C. (2021). Student loans, the racial wealth divide, and why we need full student debt cancellation. The Brookings Institution. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/student-loans-the-racial-wealth-divide-and-why-we-need-full-student-debt-cancellation/

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), "Public School Teacher Data File," 2017–18.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), National Elementary and Secondary Enrollment by Race/Ethnicity Projection Model, 1972 through 2029. Retrieved from: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_203.50.asp

Almitra Berry http://www.alberryconsulting.com