THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE SHORTAGE OF BLACK FEMALE TEACHERS

WORK-IN-PROGRESS: This article is still under construction. Please bear with me. ~ HCNII

The training of children is a task on which an infinity of weal or woe depends.

~ Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South (1892)

The Problem: Biased White Female Teachers are Crippling Black Communities

The critical need for Black male teachers notwithstanding, there is an encroaching nationwide shortage of Black American female teachers that does not bode well for Black American students who attend public schools in the United States. Among the factors influencing Black American female teachers to leave the public school classroom are lack of administrative support, lack of collegiality from a White female-dominated faculty, and lack of support from Black American parents. According to the National Center for Education Statistics [NCES] (2021), only seven percent of the public school teachers in the U.S. are Black Americans, and of that seven percent, 78% are women.?While it is true that we must get more Black Men into the classroom as teachers, we cannot afford to continue losing Black American female teachers because, with the hegemonic predominance of White female teachers in the U.S. public school teaching force, Black American students are unreasonably, unfairly, and unnecessarily disadvantaged in a way that negatively impacts the economy and well-being of Black American communities and cities at large throughout the United States.

How Black American Boys are Oppressed in U.S. Public Schools

White female teachers, who dominate public education in the United States, tend to hold deficit narratives about Black American boys that are driven by anti-Black racism, cultural bias, and misandry]. Subsequently, the bodies of Black American boys are frequently monitored by White female teachers, who fear losing control of their classroom (Bryan, 2017). This has led to Black American boys being disproportionately subjected to exclusionary discipline for the slightest infractions at a very early age, depriving them of critical learning time during their formative academic years (Bryan, 2017). To put this problem into perspective, Black American boys represent only 9% of the kindergarten population in the U.S.; yet they represent 48-50% of all suspensions and expulsions at that grade level in the U.S. (Bryan, 2017)" (p. 29).

Numerous U.S. public school district student populations are majority Black American, with a teaching force that is overwhelmingly White and female. Thus, Black American female teachers tend to be disproportionately underrepresented relative to the Black American student population. The underlying problem is that White female teachers constitute an entrenched majority in the teaching force and Teachers Unions. This is problematic because White female teachers tend to lack cultural proficiency, which is how people and organizations effectively and equitably respond to human diversity. The lack of cultural proficiency renders many White female teachers unable to manage, control, and effectively teach Black American students. Numerous studies have found that Black American students tend to have better academic achievement and behavioral outcomes with Black American female teachers than they do with White female teachers (eg., Gershenson et al., 2021; Redding, 2019; Yarnell & Bornstadt, 2017; Cherng & Halpin, 2016; Egalite et al., 2015; Dee, 2004).

The status quo of gendered racial disparity among female teachers in U.S. public schools is simply unsustainable. If the leadership of the public school districts in the United States is sincere about their commitment to fulfilling their lofty mission and vision statements, then it would behoove them to take effective and disruptive measures to establish demographic equity within their teaching force despite the pushback from White female teachers. The predominance of White female teachers hinders the development of Black American students and their communities and, by extension, it negatively impacts the ranking of the United States among the developed nations in education, which would be considerably higher if Black American students in U.S. public schools had culturally proficient Black American teachers with whom they could identify.