Erie’s diversity is the path to prosperity: tackling the teacher-to-student mismatch
The recently released census data presents a clear trend: The nation is becoming more diverse and blending. Like the nation, the edges of Erie's ethnic and racial definitions are softening. Erie's shared richness is counted both in the more mixed ways people define themselves and in the rising numbers of diverse people.
More: Refugees, immigrants offset population slide, increase Erie County's diversity
The global economy increasingly favors diverse, equitable regions. Accordingly, Erie's future fortunes are to be found in its growing advantage — racial and ethnic diversity.
When it comes to talent retention and attraction throughout Erie, the name of the prosperity game is to nurture these trends of growing more diverse in order for Erie to reverse its population decline and to be economically and culturally vibrant. There are many areas upon which to focus civic attention to build strength and leverage diversity for advantage. One such opportunity and need is the composition of school teachers.
Significant benefits accrue to Erie's youth and community (particularly material to economics) where students and their teachers share racial and ethnic similarities. However, the long-standing teacher-to-student diversity mismatch is an imperative to be redressed in Erie's quest to prosper and compete.
Teachers and students
While Erie is becoming more diverse, the Erie School District has a long way to go in narrowing the racial mismatch between teachers and students. This issue is central to Erie's fortunes as the costs and benefits associated with student achievement, dropout rates, and numbers who go on to college (three outcomes that directly relate to economics and social determinants) have been substantiated by a wealth of national-scale research.
Overall, in 2019-20, 61% of the 10,438 students were nonwhite (34% of students were Black; 12% Hispanic; 9% two or more races; 6% Asian) and 39% white. Conversely, of the 742 teachers, only 3% were nonwhite. (Source: Teacher Diversity in Pennsylvania from 2013-14 to 2019-20 — Research for Action) This disparity is in step with performance across Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Department of Education states on its website: "While Pennsylvania has more than 120,000 teachers, 96% are white, making the state's educator workforce the least diverse in the country."
This puts the state and Erie at a disadvantage. There is a mountain of validation that, as stated by the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Research shows the benefits of diversity among the teaching ranks. Having at least one Black teacher early on reduces a Black student’s likelihood of dropping out and increases Black students’ likelihood of going to college." Research further shows this association of student motivation and achievement to their perceptions of teachers can help close long-standing racial achievement gaps.
Remedies to the diversity mismatch between teachers and students
The Erie School District is focused on this challenging problem. Below is a sampling of the targeted initiatives being pursued to bring more teachers of color to the district's classrooms. The initiatives are strategic and in step with best practices. However, while the strategies show promise in recruitment of diverse teachers, the numbers are modest compared to the gulf in representation. The key question is: What more could be done to scale up these efforts for systems change if the community provided more support?
Erie School District initiatives
Measuring and investing: Acknowledging the need to address teaching diversity, soon after taking the superintendent reins in early 2017, Brian Polito hired Ken Nickson as the Erie School District's first coordinator of educational diversity, equity and inclusion. Diversification of teachers is one of Nickson’s leading responsibilities as an express strategy to improve learning for students of color and close persistent academic achievement gaps.
More: Polito speeds up Erie School District’s anti-racism efforts
Nickson’s focus on teacher diversity is accelerated through facilitation of a district team focused on equity, fairness and justice, which is composed of 20 internal and community members. Monthly meetings include evaluation and advancement of the district's specific teacher diversity action plan.
Recruitment — diverse teacher pipeline strategies: The strategies for bringing on new teachers who represent diversity are multifold. Among innovations to make Erie competitive in hiring and retention are:
• Substitute teachers are approached and cultivated to apply to teach. This includes substitutes at Erie schools and from districts within an eight-hour driving distance from Erie.
• College students from institutions near and far are targeted to become teachers, both traditional colleges, historically Black colleges and universities, and those with teaching specialties.
• Teacher residency: 30 local Erie professionals, many with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, along with soon-to-be college graduates are being cultivated and some have been hired through a district education specialist (DES) placement. This enables classroom experience in hopes the they will commit to obtaining a teaching certification.
• In-house students: Students at all grade levels are being introduced to the human services academic pathway, which emphasizes an education focus. This includes two elective courses taught at and by faculty at Erie High School. Students at Collegiate Academy, the other high school, have the ability to participate too. Also offered are dual enrollment courses through the Frederick Douglass Institute at Edinboro where a teacher fellow acts as an adjunct professor and teaches a college-level education class at Erie High School every semester.
Recommendations
The following recommendations are intended to recognize and raise awareness of the Erie School District's efforts on teacher diversity and grow resources to scale up existing and new strategies:
• Organizing: Examine the composition of the district's existing strategic plan Goal 4 (equity, fairness and justice for all learners) and Urban STEM teams to ensure support among Erie's leaders who command the resources and political clout to help scale up success in numbers of teachers of color successfully recruited and retained. Elevate the teacher diversity action plan in step with Erie's high stakes challenge to be a leading, prosperous city. Also, raise the profile of the urgency by setting goals and tracking and reporting related data together with holding press conferences to highlight wins in hiring of teachers of color.
• Financial incentives: For the Erie School District to compete in an extremely tight market for diverse teacher candidates, the Erie community could level the field by developing a pool of funding for use by the Erie district to match signing bonuses and housing incentives being provided by other school districts to new teachers. Also develop funding to subsidize the costs of teachers for their education and to earn their certifications or defray debt for the same.
• ARPA funding: Provide funding to retain additional support staff and outreach so that the district's Office of Educational Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has more capacity to implement the many strategies needed to recruit and retain diverse teachers. This should begin now with use of the district's American Rescue Plan Act funds. "Districts can use federal relief money in multiple ways to help improve teacher diversity: for recruiting and hiring, setting up mentoring programs to encourage students of color to become teachers and programs between veteran and new teachers, and for improving employee benefits to boost teacher retention rates," said Tanya Garcia, deputy secretary for higher education for the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
• Erie County Community College: Engage with the new community college to establish teacher education among its next core offerings. Seek to add to the existing articulation agreement between Edinboro University and the Erie County Community College (on other degree tracks) so that teaching-track students can eventually transfer easily from the community college to Edinboro.
More: Building bridges: Erie teachers discuss becoming 'culturally responsive' to Black students
As the census data show, Erie's best future is found in accentuating and building off its diversity. Growth through increasing diversity and blurring of racial and cultural lines raises appreciation of people's similarities and interconnections as well as interdependence. Erie's economy and quality of life is in the balance and affected by its teacher/student makeup. More quickly closing the gap in teacher-to-student representation will further distinguish Erie as a place that is intent to prosper by growing more closely together.
Court Gould, who lives in downtown Erie, is a sustainable solutions consultant. (An expanded version of this article was first published by the Jefferson Educational Society on September 24, 2021, and remains available free to download at JESErie.org.)
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Tackling Erie's long-standing teacher-to-student diversity mismatch
