We need new Black teachers. Just as important, we need to keep the ones we already have.
Teachers of all backgrounds are leaving schools at increasingly high rates. In cities like Philadelphia, more than 15% of them quit each year, costing a district around $20,000 per lost educator in added recruitment and new training costs, not to mention disruptions to student learning, according to the Learning Policy Institute.
The overall teacher retention crisis is particularly acute when it comes to Black teachers, whose severe shortage has meant that most Black students go through 13 years of public education without having a single Black teacher — someone who can support and mirror a future of greater possibilities. A figure who continues the legacy of historic Black triumphs against seemingly insurmountable odds.
Yet when we of the Pennsylvania Educator Diversity Consortium sought to provide school and district leaders strategies to retain Black teachers, we found a scarcity of resources. Why educators of color leave their schools, if not the profession altogether, is well researched and documented. What’s confounding is there are no strategies focused specifically on their retention.
White teacher retention, for example, focuses on identifying, building and leveraging opportunities for belonging; experiences that make educators internalize their role in the school community as a part of their professional, if not also their personal identity. Research suggests a higher sense of belonging is directly linked to increased rates in not just retention but also job performance.
If the dominant school culture, celebrations, and norms skew towards white culture, for example, teachers, students and families of color may not feel welcomed or included. It can be a curriculum that only highlights white authors and heroes and excludes other groups or deems them as irrelevant; or it might be centering pedagogical and instructional frameworks that leverages the status quo but ignores the educational expertise of Black teachers. The result is the marginalization of key contributors with deep roots in the communities that schools across the country struggle to serve justly.
Research shows when a Black student has one Black teacher by third grade, they’re 13% more likely to enroll in college. With two Black teachers, that jumps to 32%. For Black boys from low-income households, their on-time high school graduation rates soar by almost 40%.
But does this type of retention strategy, focused on belonging, support educators of color in schools where the administration, faculty and culture are predominantly white and may be working at various points on an anti-racist continuum? Such strategies would work, presumably as designed, but only once a school culture is truly welcoming to all, where the teachers’ racial identities, histories, aspirations, and cultural backgrounds reflect that of the student body and surrounding community.
Until then, would Black teachers’ sense of “belonging” to the school’s culture make them want to stay more? Could they feel less themselves if they stayed in an antithetical culture? Would they have to compromise, sell out or deny who they are to fit in?
Based on my review of retention strategies, there was clearly a need for new ones with Black teachers in mind. Which is why we developed THE ANTI-RACIST GUIDE TO TEACHER RETENTION.
This toolkit provides school and district leaders with assessments, exercises and practical information to help make the changes that will entice teachers of color to stay in the profession. School leadership can use the strategies to focus on opportunities for respect, rather than belonging, since most schools have not achieved enough of a welcoming culture for their Black teachers to want to belong.
It is a truism in education that when a school has high staff turnover, that is an indictment of its leadership. Teachers don’t quit their schools, the saying goes, they quit their principals.
So how does school leadership avoid this? How do they create such a welcoming culture, and thereby create the conditions that would allow them to recruit and retain their Black teachers? How can school (and district) leaders develop policies and ongoing professional learning opportunities and practices that ensure Black teachers are respected, professionally effective, and fulfilled?
It’s not easy. It requires a commitment to change and a reexamination of all aspects of our schools’ cultures, recruitment and retention processes.
I recommend schools begin with cultural audits and insight surveys to gauge the current state of their climate. Leadership must model self-reflection in developing an anti-racist culture, directly asking Black teachers: “How are you experiencing my leadership? What should I change to show my respect for your experiences, expertise and aspirations?”
There must be ongoing professional development for all educators to examine the basic human condition that often enables biases (not only racial) to get in the way of leading classrooms, schools, and districts well. Schools and districts should ensure feedback loops that actually consider how to implement retention strategies that so many affinity groups recommend. Far too many school and district leaders give space for affinity groups, but block the participants from addressing cultures that undermine healthy, anti-racist working and learning spaces.
But these are only the first steps in what must be a broad-based approach. We hope school leaders across the country use the toolkit to jumpstart this hard, but meaningful and critical work. And we hope everyone will help us refine this unique, much needed resource.
We know how critical it is to rebuild the Black teacher pipeline, the mission of our Center for Black Educator Development. That is because Black teachers can save Black children’s lives, changing their future trajectories.
Research shows when a Black student has one Black teacher by third grade, they’re 13% more likely to enroll in college. With two Black teachers, that jumps to 32%. For Black boys from low-income households, their on-time high school graduation rates soar by almost 40%.
In fact, students of all racial identities and ethnicities benefit from increased educator diversity, while energizing the professional development of non-Black educators. An educator workforce that better reflects society brings more opportunities for school experiences that counter racism and negative stereotypes and promote cross-cultural understanding, preparing all our children for life in an increasingly diverse and complex world.
Sharif El-Mekki is the founder and chief executive officer of the Center for Black Educator Development. The Center’s mission is to build the Black Teacher Pipeline to achieve educational equity and racial justice. El-Mekki is a nationally-recognized principal and U.S. Department of Education Principal Ambassador Fellow. He’s also a blogger on Phillys7thWard, a member of the 8 Black Hands podcast, and serves on several boards and committees focused on educational and racial justice.
