Minority Teacher Recruitment, Development, and Retention

Minority Teacher Recruitment, Development, and Retention THE EDUCATION ALLIANCE at Brown University Minority Teacher Recruitment, Development, and Retention THE EDUCATION ALLIANCE at Brown University THE EDUCATION ALLIANCE at Brown University Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory (LAB) The Education Alliance at Brown University is home to the Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory (LAB), one of ten educational laboratories funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. Our goals are to improve teaching and learning, advance school improvement, build capacity for reform, and develop strategic alliances with key members of the region’s education and policymaking community. The LAB develops educational products and services for school administrators, policymakers, teachers, and parents in New England, New York, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Central to our efforts is a commitment to equity and excellence. Information about all Alliance programs and services is available by contacting: The Education Alliance Phone: 800.521.9550 at Brown University Fax: 401.421.7650 222 Richmond Street, Suite 300 E-mail: [email protected] Providence, RI 02903-4226 Web: www.alliance.brown.edu Authors: Designer: Judith Torres, Janet Santos, Sherri King-Rodrigues Nancy L. Peck, Lydia Cortes Editors: Photo Credits: Kristin Latina, Jessica Swedlow Cover Photographs by David H. Wells, Narrative Photography, Providence, RI; John Abramowski, Providence, RI; and Bridgit Besaw Gorman, New York, NY To download this document electronically, or to check for updated versions, visit http://www.alliance.brown.edu/tdl/minteachrcrt.shtml at The Education Alliance’s Teaching Diverse Learners Web site (http://www. alliance.brown.edu/tdl/). Copyright © 2004 Brown University. All rights reserved. This publication is based on work supported by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), U.S. Department of Education, under Contract Number ED-01-CO-0010. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of IES, the U.S. Department of Education, or any other agency of the U.S. Government. Completion of Minority Teacher Recruitment, Development, and Retention was made possible by the leadership and coordination of Maria Pacheco, director of Equity and Diversity Programs for The Education Alliance at Brown University, who oversees the LAB’s national leadership area of teaching diverse learners. Members of the LAB’s National Leadership Advisory Panel contributed to the review of this document. Their recommendations help assure that the LAB’s work concerning equity and diversity is appropriate, effective, and useful in the field, particularly in improving educational outcomes for students with diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Karla Lewis and Dean Stecker provided important insights and suggestions. Ellen Swartz and Ana Maria Villegas served as outside reviewers and provided invaluable feedback. At the “Minority Teacher Recruitment, Development, and Retention” research symposium sponsored by The Education Alliance on June 3-4, 2004, researchers and practitioners from throughout the country offered comments and observations about the resources, policies, and practices needed to recruit, develop, and retain minority teachers from diverse cultural backgrounds. We are grateful to the participants for their discussion of the complexity and challenges of recruiting, supporting, and retaining minority teachers in the classroom. National Leadership Advisory Panel María Estela Brisk Delia Pompa Joyce L. Epstein Warren Simmons Sandra Fradd Dean Stecker Kris Gutíerrez Adam Urbanski Gloria Ladson-Billings Charles V. Willie Karla Lewis Lily Wong Fillmore Annette López de Mendez Table of Contents Introduction .....................................................................................................................................................................................3 Part I. The Condition of the Minority Teacher in the United States .........................................................................9 Part II. Research Questions ....................................................................................................................................................23 1. What factors infl uence minority students’ decisions to enter teaching? What does the research tell us about the opportunities or impediments they encounter? ....23 2. What recruitment strategies and supports are most helpful in encouraging and preparing minorities to enter the teaching profession? .......................................................................41 3. What does the research tell us about the effectiveness of preservice programs designed to prepare minority students? ....................................................................................................61 4. What are the experiences of minority teacher candidates in preservice programs? .................83 5. What do the available data tell us about patterns of minority teacher retention? What inservice experiences support or discourage minority teachers? ......................................103 Part III. Bibliography ...............................................................................................................................................................117 Part IV. Appendix A Insights from Economic and Business Literature ..................................................................................135 Appendix B Templates of Research for Introduction ...................................................................................................145 Templates of Research for Parts I and II ....................................................................................................161 Table of Contents 1 2 Minority Teacher Recruitment, Development, and Retention Introduction When school systems began to desegregate after Brown v. Board of Education, 80% of the school population was white and 20% was minority. By 1996, the number of minority students had risen to approximately 35% of the student population, and today it stands at nearly 40% and growing. These students continue to achieve well below white students in most subject areas and at virtually all grade levels (Williams, 1996). Low achievement overlaps signifi cantly with poverty, and poverty often correlates with race. Test score results, schooling expenditure rates, dropout statistics, and related data indicate that many minority students are at risk of academic failure. Student diversity is in stark contrast to diversity in teaching staff. In 1997, the vast majority of teachers in our schools and teacher preparation programs were white (87%) and female (74%) (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, 2002). In 1977, minority teachers constituted approximately 12.2% of the total number of teachers. More recent estimates indicate that the percentage of white teachers in public schools is as high as 90%, meaning that the percentage of minority teachers has dropped as low as 9% (Digest of Educational Statistics, 1998). Though quality teaching for diverse student populations depends on many factors, there are too few qualifi ed teachers for diverse student populations and too few teachers with specifi c training in culturally responsive pedagogies. In urban schools with diverse enrollments, districts continue to experience immediate need for special education teachers, bilingual and ESL teachers, and math and science teachers (Haselkorn, 2000). It is important that we synthesize and interpret our best current knowledge about recruiting, preparing, and retaining minority teachers so that we can make the most effective use of policy tools and human resources to meet the educational needs of all of America’s children. As the demographic data indicate, the trend in education is towards a more diverse student (and U.S.) population. But when we set about exploring issues related to minority teacher recruitment, preparation, and retention, we found more questions that needed to be answered. Why are there disproportionately few minority teachers right now? Was this always the case? And, issues of proportional representation aside, why is it so important to have minority teachers as opposed to simply “better qualifi ed” teachers for diverse populations? Introduction 3 Through our search, we found emerging research from multiple sectors1 indicating that diversity does indeed matter. “Research done in the private sector provides rather compelling evidence about the ways in which diversity enhances organizational effectiveness” (Milem, in press, p. 13). These benefi ts for businesses include higher levels of creativity and innovation, better problem-solving abilities, and greater organizational fl exibility. There is good reason to believe that similar benefi ts apply to students, teachers, and schools as well. In our review of the education research literature, we found that large-scale studies of the contributions of same-race teachers to majority and minority student achievement are emerging but are still limited in number. On the other hand, there is a body of rich and promising literature—much of it from scholars of color—that offers productive avenues for further investigation. About This Report The Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University (LAB) has prepared this review with the understanding

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