Recruitment, Retention, and the Minority Teacher Shortage

Abstract

Using nationally representative data, this study empirically grounds the debate over minority teacher shortages by examining trends in recruitment, employment and retention of minority teachers. The study's findings reveal that a gap continues to persist between the percentage of minority students and the percentage of minority teachers in U.S. schools, but contrary to widespread belief this gap is not due to a failure to recruit new minority teachers. The data show that efforts over recent decades to recruit more minority teachers, and place them in disadvantaged schools, have been very successful. But, these efforts have also been undermined because minority teachers have lower retention -largely because of poor working conditions in their schools.The research presented in this report was co-sponsored by CPRE and the Center for Educational Research in the Interest of Underserved Students at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Disciplines Educational Administration and Supervision | Race and Ethnicity CommentsView on the CPRE website. Established in 1985, CPRE unites researchers from seven of the nation's leading research institutions in efforts to improve elementary and secondary education through practical research on policy, finance, school reform, and school governance. CPRE studies alternative approaches to education reform to determine how state and local policies can promote student learning. The Consortium's member institutions are the

Black Teachers’ Retention and Transfer Patterns in North Carolina: How Do Patterns Vary by Teacher Effectiveness, Subject, and School Conditions?

“…I observed that Black and White teachers had about 3.6 percentage points of average annual retention gap in NC elementary and middle schools from 2004 to 2014. This retention gap is consistent with the national pattern for the years when teacher mobility and attrition data are available from the National Center for Education Statistics (Ingersoll & May, 2011;Marvel et al, 2006). Consistent with prior studies, I found that Black teachers tended to work in hardto-staff schools that serve a larger proportion of students of color or underperforming students, have poorer school supports, and are in lower SES communities.…”

“…Among all groups, African American males and White females had the highest annual attrition rate. Ingersoll and May (2011) also identified a higher turnover rate for male teachers of color than for other teachers.…”

“…For example, Ingersoll (2001) analyzed the 1990-1991 SASS (Schools and Staffing Survey) and 1991-1992 TFS (Teacher Follow-Up Survey) and found that teachers of color were less likely to depart than White teachers, although the coefficients were small and not statistically significant. However, Ingersoll and May's (2011) study, which included more recent cohorts of teachers up to 2009, showed a higher turnover rate among teachers of color, both when changing schools and when leaving teaching altogether. Breaking out subgroups further, Marvel, Lyter, Peltola, Strizek, and Morton (2006) reported that the 2003-2004 cohort of Black teachers had a higher turnover rate (e.g., 20.7%) than Hispanics (19.4%) nationwide.…”

“…Although school demographic characteristics may be important factors in initial employment decisions for teachers of color, these characteristics do not necessarily influence their later decisions to stay or depart. Neither students' socioeconomic status (SES), nor the percentage of students of color, nor the percentage of peer colleagues of color, nor a school's location in an urban setting seems to consistently and significantly predict the departure of teachers of color (Ingersoll & May, 2011).…”

Recruiting STEM Students into Middle/High School Teaching

“…1 Furthermore, employers claim that there shortages of qualified workers in STEM areas. 2 National Science Board identifies that the students will be required to develop their STEM capabilities at higher level as compared to the levels in the past, even for low skilled jobs.…”