[ Study inside Michigan’s teacher preparation programs sheds
light on some of the reasons for the scarcity of Black teachers in
America]
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PLENTY OF BLACK COLLEGE STUDENTS WANT TO BE TEACHERS, BUT SOMETHING
KEEPS DERAILING THEM  
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Jill Barshay
July 10, 2023
The Hechinger Report
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_ Study inside Michigan’s teacher preparation programs sheds light
on some of the reasons for the scarcity of Black teachers in America _


Pictured is Jarvis Ragland, a teacher in Milwaukee, Wsconsin., ANGELA
PETERSON/MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL

 

Agrowing problem in American classrooms is that teachers don’t
resemble the students they teach. Eighty percent of the
nation’s 3.8 million public school teachers
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white, but over half of their students are Black, Hispanic, Asian,
Native American and mixed races. The small slice of Black teachers has
actually shrunk slightly over the past decade from 7 percent in
2011–12 to 6 percent
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2020–21, while Black students make up a much larger 15 percent share
of the public school student population. 

A Black teacher can make a positive difference for Black children.
Research has shown that Black students are less likely to be
suspended
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more likely to be placed in gifted classes
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they are taught by Black teachers. Studies have often found that Black
students learn more from same race teachers
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TEACHER DIVERSITY STATISTICS IN 2020-21. PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS ARE
OVERWHELMINGLY WHITE BUT MOST STUDENTS ARE NOT.

Chart from the website of the National Center for Education
Statistics. (2023). Characteristics of Public School
Teachers. _Condition of Education_. U.S. Department of Education,
Institute of Education Sciences. Retrieved
from [link removed]
[[link removed]].

There are many reasons for the paucity of Black teachers. But a June
2023 analysis of college students in Michigan highlights a
particularly leaky part of the teacher pipeline: teacher preparation
programs inside colleges and universities.

At the start of college, Michigan’s Black students are almost as
interested in teaching as white students, the report found. But Black
students are far less likely to complete teacher preparation programs
and become certified teachers. There’s a surprisingly large drop in
prospective Black teachers as they’re finishing their coursework and
about to start teaching internships in classrooms. 

“There are a lot of potentially great educators who just aren’t
making it to the classroom,” said Tara Kilbride, lead author of the
analysis conducted by Education Policy Innovation Collaborative
(EPIC), a research center at  Michigan State University.

The June 2023 research report, “Tracking Progress Through
Michigan’s Teacher Pipeline
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analyzed prospective teachers of all races, and found that enrollment
in education courses has been declining since 2010.  But two data
points on Black undergraduates jumped out at me: their relatively high
rates of curiosity about teaching and their extremely low completion
rates in teacher certification. 

Kilbride and her colleagues analyzed 12 years of college student data,
from 2010-11 to 2021-22, at 15 public colleges and universities in
Michigan, where the majority of Michigan’s teachers receive their
training. Researchers noticed that Black undergraduates were almost as
likely as white students to take a teacher education class (13 percent
of Black students versus 14 percent of white students). 

Only a fraction of the 34,000 Michigan students who took an initial
education course progressed to student teachers, either by majoring in
education or by adding a teacher preparation program to another field
of study, often in the subject that they intend to teach. But the
completion gap between Black and white students was large and
striking. A mere 7 percent of the Black students who took a teacher
education course in Michigan became student teachers, compared to 30
percent of white students who took these courses. To be sure, many
students change their minds about becoming a teacher, but there’s no
obvious reason why Black students would be changing their minds at
such high rates.  

 

Researchers drilled into the data to try to understand what is going
on. Part of the explanation is that Black students are dropping out of
college in higher numbers. But students were abandoning teacher
preparation in higher rates than they were leaving school. (In other
words, the decline in prospective Black teachers far exceeded the
Black college dropout rate.) Many of these Black students are staying
in college and earning degrees. They’re just not completing their
teacher training.

The researchers next looked at the timing of Black students’
departure from the pathway to teaching. During introductory 100-level
courses and intermediate 200-level courses, Black students are
sticking with education at almost the same rate as white students. But
as students progress to advanced coursework in 300- and 400-level
courses, Black students abandon teacher training in much larger
numbers. Many Black students have completed five or more semester-long
courses in education at this point. It adds up to thousands of wasted
hours and tuition dollars.

THE LEAKY TEACHER PIPELINE. COURSE PROGRESSION RATES FOR
UNDERGRADUATES IN EDUCATION IN MICHIGAN’S PUBLIC COLLEGES AND
UNIVERSITIES BY RACE AND ETHNICITY.

Only 7 percent of Black undergraduates who take an initial education
class make it through to student teaching, a prerequisite for becoming
a certified teacher in Michigan. Source: Figure 5 of “Tracking
Progress Through Michigan’s Teacher Pipeline
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a June 2023 report of the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative
(EPIC) at Michigan State University.

Kilbride suspects that several hurdles are disproportionately impeding
the progress of prospective Black teachers as they near the end of
their coursework. High among them is a state requirement to
complete 600 “clinical” hours
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apprenticeships and student teaching, which are usually unpaid. Some
university programs require more. That’s both a scheduling and
financial challenge for Black students, many of whom are low-income
and juggling a substantial part-time job alongside college.

“There’s also a time cost,” said Kilbride, EPIC’s assistant
director of research. “Some of these programs require a fifth year
for students to complete these clinical experiences. So that’s an
extra year that they’re spending on their education, and not earning
a wage.”  

Tuition alone for a fifth year of teacher preparation at Michigan
State University, for example, runs $16,700
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Another obstacle is Michigan’s teacher licensure tests. The pass
rates for Black students are much lower, and it’s unclear why. (Only
54 percent of Black test-takers passed the Michigan Test for Teacher
Certification, compared to 90 percent, 87 percent, and 83 percent of
their White, Asian, and Hispanic counterparts, respectively.) 
Despite completing all or nearly all of their teacher training
coursework, many Black students fail the test and leave the teacher
preparation program before they even start their student teaching
hours. 

Though the study took place only in Michigan, Kilbride says the loss
of Black teacher candidates while still in college is likely a
widespread phenomenon around the country. Michigan is a particularly
good place to study the scarcity of Black teachers given the imbalance
between the large Black population, the largest minority in the state,
and the small number of Black teachers. Eighteen percent of public
school students in Michigan are Black but only 7 percent
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its teachers are.

Kilbride told me about several initiatives underway in Michigan to
address the problems that Black prospective teachers are facing. There
are new stipends
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up to $9,600 a semester – to help low-income students with their
bills while they are student teaching. Michigan State University
recently shortened its five-year teacher preparation program to four
year
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for all students who start in the fall of 2023. Kilbride says these
and other reforms should be monitored to see if they help boost the
number of Black teachers. 

The good news is that Black college students who overcome all the
obstacles and make it across the finish line to become certified
teachers are more likely to get jobs in public schools and stay in the
profession. Almost three quarters of newly certified Black teachers
taught in a Michigan public school within five years of becoming
certified (compared to fewer than 70 percent of white teachers), and
44 percent taught for at least five years (compared to 38 percent of
white teachers).

There are many approaches to boosting the number of teachers of color
in U.S. classrooms. Of course, it makes sense to focus on doing more
to retain the few Black teachers
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are already there. But this Michigan report points to systemic
problems that hinder the development of future Black teachers. They
won’t be simple or cheap to fix. Defining the obstacles – as this
study does  – is a good first step.

_Jill Barshay writes the weekly “Proof Points” column about
education research and data, covering a range of topics from early
childhood to higher education. She taught algebra to ninth-graders for
the 2013-14 school year._

_This story about teacher diversity statistics
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written by Jill Barshay and produced by _The Hechinger Report
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nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and
innovation in education. Sign up for __Proof Points_
[[link removed]]_ and other __Hechinger
newsletters_ [[link removed]]_._ 

* Black students
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* Black teachers
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* Scarcity
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