Adding teacher diversity into accountability measures could boost student achievement, especially for students of color.

Accountability and equity have not always been aligned. However, with the introduction of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001, student performance was disaggregated by student groups, making gaps in performance more evident. This public reporting of data was a first step in using student information to focus attention on equity. Since then, the gaps have been widely examined and reported on, but little has changed. Review of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores over time show some immediate increases in mathematics performance for students of color, but a later flattening. English language arts (ELA) scores showed more modest increases (Hansen et al., 2018). Post-pandemic scores showed new gap concerns with 9-year-old Black students’ math scores dropping 13 points compared to 5 points for white students (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022).

NCLB had other impacts. The unintended but clearly visible consequences have been a narrowing of the curriculum to focus on tested content areas, specifically ELA and math. The passing of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015 led to some tweaking of the accountability framework but no real change that impacted equity. Test scores continue to be most of the measures, but now they are examined as both an annual performance snapshot and an indicator of improvement or change over time. ESSA also includes some nonacademic measures, such as chronic absence, but the focus remains on test scores and student measures.

If not test scores, then what?

If the goal is to improve student outcomes, accountability measures need to focus on the factors that impact student achievement. Research has shown that one way to impact Black and Latinx students is to have a matched-race teacher (NewSchools, 2020). Black and Latinx students with teachers of the same race or ethnicity are less likely to be disciplined, more likely to be identified for gifted programs, and more likely to graduate high school. They have higher personal aspirations for college and academics and higher academic performance as measured on state assessments (NewSchools, 2020).

As we focused on and measured student test scores, the demographics of our student population shifted. In 2020, 45.8% of students were white, no longer the majority (Statista, 2022). For comparison, in 2019, 72.3% of teachers were white, and 71.2% were female (Zippia, 2022). The pandemic has exacerbated staffing issues in unanticipated ways. Districts are scrambling to find individuals interested in entering the classroom, and without effective support and retention plans in place, teachers of color are leaving the profession at higher rates than their peers (Steiner & Woo, 2021).

If the goal is to improve student outcomes, accountability measures need to focus on the factors that impact student achievement. Research has shown that one way to impact Black and Latinx students is to have a matched-race teacher.

Yet, where is the federal or state policy to bring more teachers of color to schools and classrooms and help them to stay? There currently are many discussions on diversification of teaching staff, but not as part of accountability. Might it be possible to hold schools accountable for ensuring students have access to same-race teachers?

Numerous organizations have called for and launched initiatives to support building a teaching workforce that matches the demographics of students, with limited progress to date and no reportable statistics nationally. According to a 2020 analysis by The Education Trust, only seven states even make available visible and actionable data on teacher diversity.

Measuring what matters

As we well know from NCLB, what gets measured gets changed. As schools and districts replenish their staffs, we propose a new accountability measure that captures the percentage of students in a school who have a teacher of a similar ethnic or racial background. Basically, it would hold school districts accountable for hiring and retaining teachers who reflect their students’ racial and ethnic backgrounds. As a first step toward that goal, districts could report how school staff diversity compares to that of students. Over time, there could be an improvement component that captures schools’ efforts to increase staff diversity.

The percentage could be calculated using the official Sept. 30 enrollment number, alongside a similar staff reporting. The percentage of students with teachers of the same race could be averaged across the school or disaggregated by grade or content area. This information would inform families and communities about efforts to support their children, and it would help schools prioritize hiring and retaining teachers who reflect the diversity of their student populations.

References

Hansen, M., Levesque, E.M., Valant, J., & Quintero, D. (2018). Brown Center report on American education: Trends in NAEP math, reading, and civics scores. Brookings Institution.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2022). Reading and mathematics scores decline during COVID-19 pandemic. Nation’s Report Card.

NewSchools. (2020). Summary of research studies demonstrating the impact of same-race teacher match on student outcomes. Author.

Statista. (2022). Share of students enrolled in K-12 public schools in the United States in 2020, by ethnicity and state. Author.

Steiner, E.D. & Woo, A. (2021). Job-related stress threatens the teacher supply: Key findings from the 2021 State of the U.S. Teacher Survey. RAND Corporation.

The Education Trust. (2020). Is your state prioritizing teacher diversity and equity? Author.

Zippia. (2022). Teacher demographics and statistics in the U.S. Author.

This article appears in the November 2022 issue of Kappan, Vol. 104, No. 3, pp. 22-23.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Rudy Ruiz

Rudy Ruiz is an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, Baltimore, MD, and founder and CEO of Edifying Teachers, Ellicott City, MD.