Getting Black Students Better Access to Non-Novice Teachers

New York

EdTrust–New York is a statewide education policy and advocacy organization focused first and foremost on doing right by New York’s children. Although many organizations speak up for the adults employed by schools and colleges, we advocate for students, especially those whose needs and potential are often overlooked.

West

EdTrust–West is committed to dismantling the racial and economic barriers embedded in the California education system. Through our research and advocacy, EdTrust-West engages diverse communities dedicated to education equity and justice and increases political and public will to build an education system where students of color and multilingual learners, especially those experiencing poverty, will thrive.

Massachusetts

The Education Trust team in Massachusetts convenes and supports the Massachusetts Education Equity Partnership (MEEP), a collective effort of more than 20 social justice, civil rights and education organizations from across the Commonwealth working together to promote educational equity for historically underserved students in our state’s schools.

Students We Serve

P-12

Getting Black Students Better Access to Non-Novice Teachers

Every year, thousands of individuals take on one of the most important jobs: TEACHING. While new teachers bring energy…

December 15, 2021 by Sarah Mehrotra, Ivy Morgan, Allison Rose Socol, Ph.D.

Every year, thousands of individuals take on one of the most important jobs: TEACHING. While new teachers bring energy and passion into their classrooms and schools, they can find themselves incredibly challenged as they learn how to plan and implement lessons, collect, and use data to inform their instructional practices, build relationships with students and families, manage classroom behavior, and meet the varying academic, social, and emotional needs of their students.

Teachers can face a steep learning curve in their first few years of teaching, and a significant percentage of teacher growth occurs in that very first year. As they gain more experience, they can play a big part in increasing student motivation, increasing homework completion, and even reducing student absenteeism. Ultimately, teachers are the No.1 predictor of student success inside the classroom, estimated to have two to three times the effect of any other in-school factor.

This is why having a teacher with more than just a year or two of teaching experience matters. And yet, students of color and students from low-income backgrounds are more likely to attend schools with greater numbers of inexperienced teachers than their peers. This disparity, the result of a variety of factors (i.e., centuries of systemic racism, housing segregation, and resource inequity), means that groups of students are missing out, by no fault of their own, on the critical learning opportunities necessary to prepare them for success in college and/or the workforce.

Right now, many students attend schools where they have a brand -new teacher year after year after year. This “revolving door” of teachers can deeply affect student learning. High turnover creates instability, making it difficult for schools to create coherent instruction and to implement new initiatives. To no surprise, inexperienced teachers and high teacher turnover disproportionately affect the achievement of students who are most underserved.

In our report, Getting Black Students Better Access to Non-Novice Teachers, our findings reveal whether these inequities are due to varying levels of teacher experience between the districts in a particular state or within a particular district. In either case, these disparities are not inevitable.

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