Williams, a first-grade teacher at Valerie Elementary School in Dayton Public Schools, was doing more than teaching kids how to read.
She also looks like many of her students, something that many students of color don’t have. While the student population in Ohio is increasingly diverse, both locally and nationally, most teachers are still white women, a Dayton Daily News analysis of state education data found.
For students of color, this matters because seeing a figure in their everyday lives who looks like them can be key for building relationships. Black male teachers are in demand to show young Black men a model for success, experts said.
For white students, being taught by teachers who don’t look like them can show different perspectives and expose them to someone different from themselves.
“Teachers from different backgrounds can dispel stereotypes and biases formed and perpetuated in monolithic communities,” said Devon Berry, human resources director for West Carrollton and a former teacher. “Diverse teachers bring first-hand knowledge to students that better prepare them for an ever-increasing pluralistic society.”
This is why for teachers’ unions, education colleges and school districts, recruiting and retaining a diverse group of teachers, in particular Black men, has become increasingly important. But success has been limited.
About 91% of teachers in Ohio are white, according to the Ohio Department of Education. About 4% of teachers are Black, and less than 1% of teachers identified as either Asian-American, Native American, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander or Hispanic, while about 3% of teachers identified as more than one race or declined to answer.
By comparison, about 68% of Ohio’s students are white, while 17% are Black, about 7% are Hispanic, about 6% are multiracial, about 3% are Asian-American and less than 1% are Native American, according to ODE.
“The population in Dayton is quite diverse,” said Lillian Drakeford, interim dean at the College of Education at Central State University, the state’s historically Black public university. “So it would make sense that in schools, we would want to encourage everyone to embrace the values of diversity, equity and inclusion so everyone feels an integral, welcomed part of the education process.”
Increasingly, suburban districts, urban districts and rural districts are interested in recruiting candidates who are diverse in race, gender and experience.
A diversity problem
Experts say having a diverse group of teachers brings different perspectives to the education world, reflects students’ experiences better and can expose students to new ideas.
“It’s interesting that we remain in a profession that doesn’t reflect the population that it serves and inherently ingrained in that is a disconnect,” said Rochonda Nenonene, an education professor at the University of Dayton whose work, along with fellow education professor Novea McIntosh, centers around training new teachers to be culturally responsive.
Nenonene noted there is research showing that white teachers can view Black students from a deficit perspective. While she stressed not all white teachers do that, it is important, she said, to train all young teachers to understand cultural differences and respond to them, while simultaneously increasing the number of teachers entering the profession who are not white.
“Even if it’s unintentional, bias is still bias; even if it’s an unintentional microaggression, it is still a microaggression,” she said.
That can have long-term academic impacts on the student, she said, as those students may miss out on opportunities because the teacher just isn’t offering them to certain students.
McIntosh said more diverse teachers can bring more than just a diverse face to the classroom. They can bring their own set of experiences and feelings, which can help them connect to students.
“They bring the diverse family histories, orientation, experiences of students in the classroom, and these are attributes that we do not find in textbooks, for you know, they’re omitted from a lot of textbooks,” McIntosh said.
Diversifying in college
Getting a more diverse teaching workforce is complicated. Multiple institutions of higher education, including the University of Dayton, Wright State University, Sinclair Community College, Central State University and Miami University are working together to help diversify the teaching profession by recruiting people into the profession young, in high school and middle school.
Drakeford said Central State’s online education program could also help recruit more teachers of color, and CSU is working with several area schools, including Dayton Public Schools and Trotwood-Madison, to develop pipelines for students in high school and middle school to consider teaching as a profession and take classes in high school to prepare.
Teachers’ unions, including the Ohio Education Association and the Ohio Federation of Teachers, have prioritized recruiting more people of color into the profession.
Melissa Cropper, president of the OFT, said a program through the OFT in Cleveland is focused on recruiting more Black men into the teaching profession, mostly pulling on the existing groups of paraprofessionals — school staff with an associate’s degree in education — to complete a bachelor’s degree in teaching.
A similar program has been proposed for Dayton Public Schools, where Dayton paraprofessionals could finish their degrees in education and become teachers in Dayton Public Schools through Central State University.
Scott DiMauro, the president of the OEA, said programs that recruit based on paraprofessionals can be helpful because paraprofessionals often come from the same neighborhoods as the students do.
“That kind of personal connection that exists between the educator and the students is invaluable when it comes to really helping students succeed because students are going to thrive academically when they know their teachers really care about them and are invested in their success,” DiMauro said.
District solutions
An effort launched last year from West Carrollton and Oakwood’s public school districts, along with Learn to Earn Dayton, a nonprofit that works to make sure all children in the Dayton region are successful in school, pools resources with school districts in the region to recruit and retain teachers, including help mentoring teachers of color from teachers in other districts.
The Diversity Recruitment Educators Association for Miami Valley, or D.R.E.A.M, is a $70,000 per year, three-year effort. Allyson Couch, Oakwood’s interim superintendent and one of the people leading the initiative, said this is the third year of the project and more than 22 school districts have joined.
“Learn to Earn Dayton is committed to equity as we implement initiatives across the cradle-to-career continuum,” said Learn to Earn Dayton CEO Stacy Schweikhart. “We are collaborating with partners like the MCESC, Preschool Promise, DREAM, Sinclair, University of Dayton and Wright State University to recruit, train and support high-quality teachers that reflect the diversity of our communities. This is important because we know that increasing the diversity of educators across Montgomery County will result in better outcomes for our students.”
Multiple districts, including West Carrollton and Centerville, have also started mentoring programs, using their existing teachers to work with new teachers still in college. Across the board, education professionals said mentoring is a key part of keeping young teachers in the profession.
McIntosh said those relationships can be key to building long-term success for minority teachers.
“Having a community, a collaborative community, where you can support each other and dialogue, share ideas, exchange, your experiences and get a space for healing... that’s vital to not only recruiting these teachers but also sustaining them within the profession,” McIntosh said.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Throughout February, the Dayton Daily News is highlighting the impact of Black trailblazers and leaders on our area, showcasing Black Daytonians’ contributions to the arts, and elevating Black perspectives on solutions to shared challenges. Read all of this coverage at daytondailynews.com/black-history.
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