Study Finds Students of All Races Prefer Teachers of Color: Pushing Back on Anti-DEI, K-12 Senate Bill 12

Friends:

I'm attending the hearing right now on Senate Bill 12. I'm changing my testimony to share this earlier post as it is SO germane to the bill and discussions on the dais this morning. I want our legislators to know about this research.

If you want to listen right now to today's testimony, here is the link so that you can view this from the comfort of your home or office: https://house.texas.gov/videos/22103

-Angela Valenzuela

Earlier blog posted Nov. 9, 2019

Super interesting. Researchers Cherng and Halpin analyze data sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation involving "1,700 sixth- through ninth-grade teachers from more than 300 schools" and arrive at this finding of a preference by all students for teachers of color.
This finding might ruffle some feathers in light of the fact that most public teachers are white. However, this is consistent with a growing body of research which shows not only that students who are "ethnically matched" with their students register consistently higher levels of achievement, but that white children benefit from these environments, as well.
For example, read Dr. Easton-Brooks book titled, Ethnic Matching: Academic Success of Students of Color, as it supports the former claim. I refer to an earlier post to this blog on Easton-Brooks' findings, as well.
Regarding the latter, Meier, Wrinkle, and Polinard (1999) additionally found that the test scores of Anglo students also benefit from a large presence of teachers of color. I also address this in my book, Growing Critically Conscious Teachers at some length.
It's great to see additional confirmation for findings that are turning up in the research literature on teachers and students in classrooms. The evidence is increasingly pointing to a need for districts to actively recruit, hire, and retain teachers of color for the benefit of the whole.
Although this study provides insights through survey data, qualitative ethnographic research can get a better grasp of how race, class, and gender dynamics position teachers of color optimally for today's classroom. A deeper analysis would also examine the uniqueness of community-based educators such as those emanating from Grow Your Own (GYO) educator pathways.
Additionally, I can't help but wonder about the extent to which any of this maps on to university classroom contexts. That's for someone else to study.
Thanks to Dr. Greg Pulte for sharing.

-Angela Valenzuela


Study Finds Students of All Races Prefer Teachers of Color
October 7, 2016 7:00 AM ET


By Anya Kamenetz | NPR

LA Johnson/NPR

"Do you speak English?"

When Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng walked into his summer school classroom for the first time as a brand-new teacher, a student greeted him with this question. Nothing in his training had prepared him to address race and identity. But he was game, answering the student lightly, "Yes, I do, but this is a math class, so you don't have to worry about it."
"Oh my gosh, was that racist?" he says the girl asked, and quickly checked her own assumption: "'That's exactly like when I go into a store and people follow me around because I'm black.'"
During the time that Cherng, who is of Chinese descent, taught in an 85 percent African-American middle school in San Francisco, he enjoyed a good rapport with his students, and he wondered what role his own identity played in that.
Now Cherng is a sociologist at New York University and he's just published a paper with colleague Peter Halpin that addresses this question. It seems that students of all races — white, black, Latino, and Asian — have more positive perceptions of their black and Latino teachers than they do of their white teachers.

Cherng and Halpin analyzed data from the Measure of Effective Teaching study sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which also supports coverage of education at NPR.
They looked at a group of 1,700 sixth- through ninth-grade teachers from more than 300 schools in cities around the country. The students had completed 30-question surveys, asking about a variety of different dimensions of teaching.
For example:
· How much does this teacher challenge his students?
· How supportive is she?
· How well does he manage the classroom?
· How captivating does she make the subject?

Although NPR Ed has reported before on the pitfalls of student evaluations used in many undergraduate classrooms, this particular student self-report measure may be more valid because of its thoroughness; it's been independently linked to student learning gains on standardized tests.
Cherng and Halpin found that all the students, including white students, had significantly more favorable perceptions of Latino versus white teachers across the board, and had significantly more favorable perceptions of black versus white teachers on at least two or three of seven categories in the survey.
The strongest positive relationship was the flipside of what Cherng experienced in his own classroom: Asian-American students had very rosy views of their black teachers.
The relationship persisted after controlling for students' age, gender, their free and reduced-price lunch status and their academic performance. The researchers also controlled for other factors like the teacher's level of experience and education, their gender, and even outside expert ratings of the teachers' effectiveness, based on classroom observations.
No matter what, students had warmer perceptions of their teachers of color.
Cherng calls the findings "surprising."
"I thought student awareness of the racial hierarchy would influence the results," in favor of whites, he says.
Other studies have found evidence for "race matching," or the idea that students and teachers of the same race or ethnicity perceive each other more favorably. And NPR Ed recently covered research on "implicit bias," the idea that teachers of all races look less favorably on students of color.
"We're not done," investigating this finding, Cherng says.
His working theory is that teachers of color score more highly because of their ability to draw on their own experiences to address issues of race and gender, which, he says, can be highly germane even to teaching subjects like math, especially in America's majority-minority public schools. He's currently working on a series of studies that look at preservice teachers and teacher training, to provide more evidence about the relationship between teachers' multicultural beliefs and awareness and their effectiveness in the classroom.

As a math teacher, and now a sociology professor, Cherng was never prepared to really understand or address race or gender dynamics in the classroom. But, he says, there may be good evidence that these are essential tools to being a good teacher, period.

If you combine this article with the linked 2012 Rutgers University study also cited herein, you'll discover such wonderful and important nuance on the teaching of minoritized children and youth. The Ethnic Studies movement about which I have amply blogged is very much motivated by the burgeoning evidence to make the case for the teaching of African American Studies, Mexican American Studies, Native American Studies, and Asian American Studies in the schools.

That said, University of Maryland education policy and economics Professor David Blazar's findings are not only not exceptional, but part of a burgeoning body of research that is arriving at a consistent finding of how having a diverse teaching workforce is beneficial to ALL students. For minoritized youth, in particular, it helps avoid the "soft bigotry of low expectations" while ensuring a culturally resonant pedagogy. From this blog, also read: Study Finds Students of All Races Prefer Teachers of Color.

Enjoy!

-Angela Valenzuela

#EthnicStudiesNow

References

Blazar, D. (2021). Teachers of color, culturally responsive teaching, and student outcomes: Experimental evidence from the random assignment of teachers to classes. [PDF]

Teachers of Color Are Linked to Social-Emotional, Academic Gains for All Students

By Madeline Will — February 08, 2022

Teachers of color tend to bring specific practices and mindsets into the classroom that benefit all students, a new study finds—the latest addition to the body of research that emphasizes the importance of recruiting and retaining these teachers, who make up just 21 percent of the workforce.

The new study reaffirms thatteachers of color are linked to positive academic, social-emotional, and behavioral student outcomes and finds that these effects are driven, at least in part, by mindsets and practices aligned to what’s known as culturally responsive teaching.

“We think of culturally responsive teaching as being multidimensional, having multiple components to it,” said David Blazar, the study’s author and an assistant professor of education policy and economics at the University of Maryland.

For example, he said, culturally responsive teachers believe that all students can learn, so they are more likely to hold students to high expectations. They are more likely to build relationships with students’ families, so they understand students’ culture and can bring that into the classroom. They also work to differentiate their instruction by providing varied supports for all students to succeed.

“To me, that goes back to good teaching,” he said. “Some of the things I’m describing are very much components of good instruction. ... They on average seem to benefit a range of student outcomes.”

Blazar analyzed a dataset of 4th and 5th grade teachers that included their students’ academic, social-emotional, and behavioral outcomes, as well as observation data and surveys to gauge the teachers’ mindsets and practices. The dataset came from four school districts on the East Coast of the United States.

He found that when upper elementary students are randomly assigned to a teacher of color, they are better at completing tasks and are more engaged, score higher on end-of-year math and English/language arts test scores, and attend school more frequently. This effect holds true for both students of color and white students, and the effects on test-scores and chronic absenteeism persist up to six years later, when the students are in high school.

The impact teachers of color have on student outcomes is partially explained by the fact that teachers of color are more likely to practice culturally responsive teaching, Blazar found.

The analysis found that teachers of color are more likely than their white colleagues to view student intelligence as malleable instead of fixed, build relationships with students and their families, spend more time differentiating their instruction to fit individual students’ needs, and lead well-organized classrooms. All are components of culturally responsive teaching.

Blazar was not able to rule out other reasons why teachers of color might have positive effects on student outcomes. Past research has found that teachers of color serve as role models for students of color, which could also play a role in students’ academic or social-emotional success.

Still, he noted, if teachers of color are engaging in culturally responsive practices, that benefits both students of color and white students.

More than just diverse books

Culturally relevant, or responsive, teaching is a term that was first introduced by Gloria Ladson-Billings, a scholar and teacher-educator, in 1995.

“I think there’s a misconception that culturally responsive teaching is just about bringing in diverse books or having multiple perspectives [in the curriculum], but it’s more of a pedagogical approach to the way that you teach in the classroom,” said Nadine Sanchez, the principal of Livingston Elementary School in New Brunswick, N.J.

For instance, she said, a culturally responsive teacher makes sure that students feel connected to the content and are provided with the tools to be able to master it: “It’s really about the way you are with students, the way you approach content, and the way that you give students access.”

And high expectations for all students is a key component, Sanchez said. Past research has found that white teachers have lower expectations for Black students than they do for white students, and those can turn into “self-fulfilling prophecies” when students internalize them or when teachers change their approach to students as a result of their mindsets.

For instance, a 2012 study from Rutgers University-Newark found that when white teachers were presented with a poorly written essay, they provided more praise and less criticism if they thought the essay was written by a student of color than if they thought the essay was by a white student.

Teachers’ racial biases can also result in decreased access to advanced coursework and higher rates of suspensions, past research has found.

When teachers utilize the practices of culturally responsive pedagogy, students feel empowered and are more likely to thrive, Sanchez said.

“I see dramatic shifts in the way our students engage in the classroom,” she said. “I’ve noticed a tremendous difference [in particular] in my English-language learners and my students of color because they feel much more connected to their classrooms and their peers, and they’re more willing to take risks.”

White teachers can follow these practices, too

Of course, this work is not unique to teachers of color. White teachers can and do incorporate culturally responsive pedagogy into their classrooms. But they are less likely to do so than teachers of color, Blazar’s study found.

After all, for many teachers of color, this work is instinctive, Sanchez said. Many teachers of color remember feeling marginalized in classrooms when they were growing up, and they want to help their students have a better experience.

“I’m Latina, and I came in [to the classroom] already with that mindset—I’m coming in to empower my people,” she said.

Blazar said his study shows the need for professional development that focuses specifically on culturally responsive teaching. That could help train the mostly white teacher workforce to engage in these practices that benefit students, he said.

A supportive school leader also helps. For example, Sanchez encourages teachers in her school building to share positive stories about student success in an effort to make some of these practices visible. She also works to create a school climate where families are valued partners to educators.

Ultimately, the study reinforces the need for districts to recruit and retain teachers of color, Blazar said. He added that these findings also add some nuance to the heated national debate over “critical race theory,” as state legislators introduce bills seeking to limit discussion of race in the classroom and community members push to ban books about race and social identity.

“White students are benefitting from what is happening here, from having teachers of color, from culturally responsive teaching,” Blazar said. “This doesn’t need to be a them or us discussion.”

Study Finds Students of All Races Prefer Teachers of Color

Super interesting. Researchers Cherng and Halpin analyze data sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation involving "1,700 sixth- through ninth-grade teachers from more than 300 schools" and arrive at this finding of a preference by all students for teachers of color.

This finding might ruffle some feathers in light of the fact that most public teachers are white. However, this is consistent with a growing body of research which shows not only that students who are "ethnically matched" with their students register consistently higher levels of achievement, but that white children benefit from these environments, as well.

For example, read Dr. Easton-Brooks book titled, Ethnic Matching: Academic Success of Students of Color, as it supports the former claim. I refer to an earlier post to this blog on Easton-Brooks' findings, as well.

Regarding the latter, Meier, Wrinkle, and Polinard (1999) additionally found that the test scores of Anglo students also benefit from a large presence of teachers of color. I also address this in my book, Growing Critically Conscious Teachers at some length.

It's great to see additional confirmation for findings that are turning up in the research literature on teachers and students in classrooms. The evidence is increasingly pointing to a need for districts to actively recruit and retain teachers of color for the benefit of the whole.

Although this study provides insights through survey data, qualitative ethnographic research can get a better grasp of how race, class, and gender dynamics position teachers of color optimally for today's classroom. A deeper analysis would also examine the uniqueness of community-based educators such as those emanating from Grow Your Own (GYO) educator pathways.

Additionally, I can't help but wonder about the extent to which any of this maps on to university classroom contexts. That's for someone else to study.
Thanks to Dr. Greg Pulte for sharing.

-Angela Valenzuela


Study Finds Students of All Races Prefer Teachers of Color
October 7, 20167:00 AM ET

By Anya Kamenetz | NPR


LA Johnson/NPR

"Do you speak English?"

When Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng walked into his summer school classroom for the first time as a brand-new teacher, a student greeted him with this question. Nothing in his training had prepared him to address race and identity. But he was game, answering the student lightly, "Yes, I do, but this is a math class, so you don't have to worry about it."

"Oh my gosh, was that racist?" he says the girl asked, and quickly checked her own assumption: "'That's exactly like when I go into a store and people follow me around because I'm black.'"

During the time that Cherng, who is of Chinese descent, taught in an 85 percent African-American middle school in San Francisco, he enjoyed a good rapport with his students, and he wondered what role his own identity played in that.

Now Cherng is a sociologist at New York University and he's just published a paper with colleague Peter Halpin that addresses this question. It seems that students of all races — white, black, Latino, and Asian — have more positive perceptions of their black and Latino teachers than they do of their white teachers.

Cherng and Halpin analyzed data from the Measure of Effective Teaching study sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which also supports coverage of education at NPR.
They looked at a group of 1,700 sixth- through ninth-grade teachers from more than 300 schools in cities around the country. The students had completed 30-question surveys, asking about a variety of different dimensions of teaching.

For example:
· How much does this teacher challenge his students?
· How supportive is she?
· How well does he manage the classroom?
· How captivating does she make the subject?

Although NPR Ed has reported before on the pitfalls of student evaluations used in many undergraduate classrooms, this particular student self-report measure may be more valid because of its thoroughness; it's been independently linked to student learning gains on standardized tests.

Cherng and Halpin found that all the students, including white students, had significantly more favorable perceptions of Latino versus white teachers across the board, and had significantly more favorable perceptions of black versus white teachers on at least two or three of seven categories in the survey.

The strongest positive relationship was the flipside of what Cherng experienced in his own classroom: Asian-American students had very rosy views of their black teachers.

The relationship persisted after controlling for students' age, gender, their free and reduced-price lunch status and their academic performance. The researchers also controlled for other factors like the teacher's level of experience and education, their gender, and even outside expert ratings of the teachers' effectiveness, based on classroom observations.

No matter what, students had warmer perceptions of their teachers of color.

Cherng calls the findings "surprising."

"I thought student awareness of the racial hierarchy would influence the results," in favor of whites, he says.

Other studies have found evidence for "race matching," or the idea that students and teachers of the same race or ethnicity perceive each other more favorably. And NPR Ed recently covered research on "implicit bias," the idea that teachers of all races look less favorably on students of color.

"We're not done," investigating this finding, Cherng says.

His working theory is that teachers of color score more highly because of their ability to draw on their own experiences to address issues of race and gender, which, he says, can be highly germane even to teaching subjects like math, especially in America's majority-minority public schools. He's currently working on a series of studies that look at preservice teachers and teacher training, to provide more evidence about the relationship between teachers' multicultural beliefs and awareness and their effectiveness in the classroom.

As a math teacher, and now a sociology professor, Cherng was never prepared to really understand or address race or gender dynamics in the classroom. But, he says, there may be good evidence that these are essential tools to being a good teacher, period.

Students can benefit from 'ethnic matching,' says dean of UNR's College of Education

This research by Dr. Easton-Brooks is consistent with a growing body of research which shows strong, positive, and consistent correlations to achievement when teachers share the same race/ethnicity as their students.  Research by Dr. Kenneth Meier further shows that Anglo students benefit as much from diverse environments, as well.

Dr. Easton-Brooks' recently-published book is titled, Ethnic Matching: Academic Success of Students of Color.  I look forward to reading it.

-Angela Valenzuela


Students can benefit from 'ethnic matching,'says dean of UNR's College of Education

Donald Easton-BrooksPublished 12:07 p.m. PT May 21, 2019 | Updated 12:11 p.m. PT May 21, 2019| Reno Gazzette Journal

Donald Easton-Brooks (Photo: Provided by Donald Easton-Brooks)

I am excited to be the incoming dean of the College of Education at the University of Nevada-Reno and to work with the schools and their ever-changing demographics. I also feel that my new book, "Ethnic Matching: Academic Success of Students of Color," can provide districts like Washoe and others insightful ways to provide equitable education for all students.

When talking about ethnic matching, what I often hear is, “What is ethnic matching?” Ethnic matching is when you pair a student of color with a teacher of the same race/ethnicity. The research in my book shows that students of color tend to perform better academically when they encounter at least one teacher of color. Similar research found this to be true in human resources, counseling, management/supervision and higher education. 

So is it safe to say we feel more comfortable with people of our own race than we do with people of other races? If so, why not just hire the same race of people who match the demographics of the people we serve, or simply bring back segregation? I would argue that ethnic matching is not that simplistic, and if we were to only hire those who fit our demographics or move back to segregation practices, we would be breaking a number of civil rights and labor laws.

Additionally, ethnic matching is not to imply that we segregate ourselves from one another or create a homogeneous work environment. Yet the findings around this work can be complex. For instance, why do students do better when interacting with teachers of their same race/ethnicity? One argument can be that when engaging in a stressful, possibly unfamiliar situation — like learning new information, stressing over test, or feeling out of place — it can be subconsciously comforting to be around others who share some semblance of normality. One other argument is that there can be social cues, words, phrases or expressions that are culturally significant that set us at a level of comfort.

I understand this because, being in a field that is 2 percent Black, there are interactions and social comforts that I can find and share with other Black colleagues in higher education in the same way I witnessed two White males in the airport, from two different parts of the country, talk about deer hunting. The same as East Oregonians talk about “jockey-boxes,” or Rhode Islanders talk about “cabinets or frappes,” or Southerners talk about “grits with or without sugar.”

These comforts or interactions do not suggest that one likes people from other races/ethnicities less or that they cannot have a best friend or favorite teacher whose race is different from their own. On a subconscious or conscious level, there can be similarities that make a situation more comfortable, less stressing, or more relaxing. Since we are in the U.S. and race is very talked about in our country, it is understandable how ethnic matching carries such significant weight.

However, what I would argue and do in my book is that ethnic matching produces significant findings that are worth exploring. We must ask ourselves, what is the research really telling us?

1.  We do not pay attention to one another as much as we think we do, meaning we are not intentional in our actions to understand one another
2.  We pay more attention to those things that we are most familiar with than with those with which we are not
3.  Diversifying the education workforce is critical.

Related to the latter, in many large cities, the White population makes up about 25 percent or less of the student population in public schools. In the top20 largest suburban schools, nearly half of the students are students of color, and rural schools are now 25 percent students of color. Yet teachers of color make up only 16 percent of the public-school teacher workforce.

The example here is based on the three points above. Research in my book found that even though 98 percent of teachers of color and 96 percent of White teachers took a course in multicultural education or culturally responsive practice, 88 to 94 percent teachers of color used culturally responsive practices in their classroom. In comparison, 76 percent of White teachers used this practice in their classroom. Teachers acknowledge that they did not use culturally responsive practice in their class because there was no support by their district or school leaders, they were not trained, they were not sure what to do, and a small percentage stated that they were not sure it mattered. 

Further, I found that professionals of color who attended public schools had a different interaction with White teachers depending on the number of teachers of color they encountered when attending public school growing up. I found that 88 percent of professionals of color had positive interactions with White teachers if they had at least four teachers of color. In comparison, only 56 percent of these professionals of color had a positive interaction with White teachers if they had one or fewer teachers of color. Another relevant finding in the book is that when White teachers worked with at least 30 percent of the workforce being teachers of color, White teachers were more willing and better able to effectively use culturally responsive practice with their students, regardless of the level of professional development.

Therefore, we know that segregation is not the answer; rather, we must diversify the teacher workforce to provide all students with representation in  schools and to enhance educators’ ability and motivation to implement culturally responsive practices. As I articulate in the book "Ethnic Matching: Academic Success of Students of Color," ethnic matching can provide an insight into understanding students  of diverse backgrounds, enhance the ability of educators to communicate within a diverse work environment, and create a more diverse learning environment in which teachers, students, families and communities benefit.

Donald Easton-Brooks, Ph.D., is the incoming dean of the College of Education at UNR. He is the author of "Ethnic Matching: Academic Success of Students of Color."