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Changing Expectations for the K-12 Teacher Workforce: Policies, Preservice Education, Professional Development, and the Workplace (2020)

222 pages | 6 x 9 | PAPERBACK ISBN 978-0-309-49903-3 | DOI 10.17226/25603

Robert Floden, Amy Stephens, Layne Scherer, Editors; Committee on Understanding the Changing Structure of the K 12 Teacher Workforce; Board on Higher Education and Workforce; Policy and Global Affairs; Board on Science Education; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2020. Changing Expectations for the K-12 Teacher Workforce: Policies, Preservice Education, Professional Development, and the Workplace. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25603.

Changing Expectations for the K-12 Teacher Workforce: Policies, Preservice Education, Professional…

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19

2

Contextual Factors That Shape the Current Teacher Workforce

Changes to the national landscape of K–12 education over the past 20 years have shaped both the needs and dynamic nature of the current teacher workforce. Chief among these changes are revisions to fed-

eral policy, new rigorous national content standards, and an increasingly di- verse student population (including, e.g., race and ethnicity, culture, spoken language, disability). In this chapter, the committee provides an overview of these key changes and lays the groundwork for the next chapter’s closer look at how these changes in policy, standards, and increasing emphasis on classroom inclusion give rise to changes in expectations for teaching. The chapter begins by giving a clear picture of the current demographics of the teacher workforce. This discussion of teacher demographics is followed by an exploration of the makeup of the student population, including students who vary with respect to the home language and cultures they represent, their linguistic proficiency, socioeconomic status, and disability status. The increasing diversity of the classroom in terms of student demographics has outpaced the changes in the demographics of teachers, resulting in a deepening mismatch between the makeup of the teacher workforce and the student population in public schools. The chapter concludes with a discus- sion of changes in federal legislation related to elementary and secondary education since 2000. We explain how the recent (voluntary) adoption and implementation of more rigorous national content standards by some states has increased the expectations for both students and teachers.

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20 CHANGING EXPECTATIONS FOR THE K–12 TEACHER WORKFORCE

DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE TEACHER WORKFORCE

Before looking at factors that impact the work teachers do in the class- room, it is important to understand the current demographics of the teacher workforce. In this section, the committee presents demographic data on the current teacher workforce and discusses the relationship between these demographic characteristics and those of the population of K–12 public school students.1 We draw on the latest available nationally representative data on the trends in the K–12 teaching profession: the 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and the 2015–2016 National Teacher and Prin- cipal Survey (NTPS).2

In fall 2017, there were approximately 3.8 million full-time-equivalent public school elementary and secondary teachers in the country (McFarland et al., 2019). The majority of these K–12 teachers were White (80.1%), and the majority were women (76.6% of K–12 teachers in 2015). To contextualize the low proportion of Black teachers in the workforce, Box 2-1 unpacks the notable historical context including school desegrega- tion. Moreover, it should be noted that the committee was unable to find data related to the number of teachers with disabilities; that is, there are no data systems at the local, state, or national level that provide the number of teachers who identify themselves as having a disability.

Changes Over Time

Notably, the demographic makeup of the teacher workforce has un- dergone relatively small changes over the past 20 years (see Table 2-1). For example, as will be described in the subsequent section, the percentage of White teachers in 2003 was roughly 83 percent and fell to 80 percent by 2016. This is somewhat contrary to other notable claims in the field that have suggested bigger changes in the workforce (e.g., Ingersoll et al., 2018). However, the changes are more pronounced going back 30 years to 1987 where White teachers comprised 88 percent of the total workforce.

Race and Ethnicity3

Data in Table 2-1 show that the number of Black teachers has re- mained relatively steady over the past 20 years, whereas there has been an

1 All demographic data about the U.S. teacher workforce population cited in this chapter are from Goldring et al. (2013) and Taie and Goldring (2017), unless otherwise noted.

2 The 2015–2016 NTPS is a redesign and replacement of the SASS, which has served as one of the key sources of nationally representative data on a range of important education topics since the 1987–1988 school year.

3 When reporting the race and ethnicity demographics, the committee uses the nomenclature from the studies described throughout the report and recognizes that this leads to inconsisten- cies in reporting.

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CONTEXTUAL FACTORS THAT SHAPE THE CURRENT TEACHER WORKFORCE 21

BOX 2-1 Impact of School Desegregation for Black Teachers

The low proportion of Black teachers in the workforce is a cause of concern, and there are several factors that may be contributing to this trend. One potential cause is the long-term impact of school desegregation in the 1960s and 1970s, following the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, passage of the Civil Rights Acts (CRA) in 1964, and the federal desegregation guidelines of 1966. Notably, while the Brown decision and subsequent legislation and regula- tions sought to protect Black students, there were no provisions to prevent the displacement of Black educators.

A small number of studies take an empirical look at the impact of desegregation on employment of Black teachers. In general, they find that the impact of desegrega- tion varied by region. In the South, the number of Black teachers dropped signifi- cantly, whereas in the non-South, employment of Black teachers increased slightly.

In a study focused on staffing of elementary schools over the period from 1970 to 2000, Oakley et al. (2009) examined mandated desegregation in metro- politan areas across the country. They looked separately at trends from 1970 to 1990 and from 1990 to 2000. Results looking at metropolitan areas across the country overall show that greater segregation of White and Black students was associated with larger proportions of Black teachers. The authors suggest this is likely due to employment of Black teachers in schools with large populations of Black students. Further, mandated desegregation has a small, positive correla- tion with decreases in the proportion of Black teachers. The trends from 1990 to 2000 look different, whereas increases in the number of Black students overall are significantly related to the proportion of Black teachers; patterns of segregation or desegregation are not related to changes in the Black teaching force.

These overall results mask important regional trends. In the South from 1970 to 1990, there was a significant relationship between court-mandated desegrega- tion and decreases in the number of Black teachers. In the non-South, in contrast, mandated desegregation appears to be linked to an increase in the proportion of Black teachers.

Another study, focused only on the South, documented similar trends (Thompson, 2019). The study drew on archival data from 781 southern school districts between 1964 and 1972 as well as data from the 1960 and 1970 Decen- nial Censuses. The author found that the desegregation process following the CRA led to reductions in the employment of Black teachers in the south and that southern school districts both increased recruitment of white teachers following the loss of Black teachers, or reduced the number of teachers employed overall. Furthermore, approximately one-half of the Black teachers who left teaching jobs entered other, lower skilled professions in the South. The other half migrated out of the region to continue or to pursue teaching. The author stresses that these impacts on Black teachers were the result of how desegregation was implemented in these districts. These results suggest that, as for many aspects of the teacher workforce, the impact of desegregation varies by region.

That said, the causes of the current lack of Black teachers are complex and likely not solely due to the historical impact of desegregation. Other factors may include increased access to other career opportunities, biases in the competency testing used for certification, and dissatisfaction with the teaching profession.

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22 CHANGING EXPECTATIONS FOR THE K–12 TEACHER WORKFORCE

TABLE 2-1 Teacher Workforce Demographics from 1987 to 2016 in Percentages of Total Workforce, by Demographic Characteristic

1987–1988 2003–2004 2011–2012 2015–2016

Male 29.3 25.0 23.7 23.4

Female 70.2 75.0 76.3 76.6

American Indian/Native American 1.1 0.5 0.5 0.4

Asian/Pacific Islander 0.9 1.5 1.9 2.5

Black 8.2 7.9 6.8 6.7

White 88.3 83.1 81.9 80.1

Multiple Races n/a 0.7 1.0 1.4

Hispanic 2.9 6.2 7.6 8.8

Average Age — 42.5 42.4 41.4

Less Than 30 13.4 16.6 15.3 15.0

30–49 67.4 50.4 54.0 55.9

50 or More 17.9 33.0 30.7 29.0

NOTE: The data do not have equal spacing due to the reporting years available. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, NCES 2018-070. Available: https://nces.ed.gov/ programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_209.10.asp?referrer=report.

FIGURE 2-1 The percentage of teachers of color in the teacher workforce, 1987–2015. SOURCE: Carver-Thomas (2018). Available: https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/ default/files/product-files/Diversifying_Teaching_Profession_REPORT_0.pdf.

increase of roughly 2.5 percent in the number of Hispanic teachers over the same time period. As Figure 2-1 demonstrates, in the past decade, Latinx teachers have supplanted Black teachers as the most represented teachers of color: in 2015, 8.8 percent of teachers were Latinx, whereas Black teachers made up only 6.7 percent of the workforce. The issue of

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CONTEXTUAL FACTORS THAT SHAPE THE CURRENT TEACHER WORKFORCE 23

teacher demographics as it relates to the labor market is discussed in detail in Chapter 4.

The issue of underrepresentation of teachers of color occurs across grade bands and content areas. In a 2018 survey of teachers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) content areas, Banilower and colleagues disaggregated teachers by grade range (i.e., elementary, middle, and high school) and by subject taught to demonstrate that the percentage of teachers of color is even less prevalent in the STEM fields than it appears to be in the population of teachers at large (see Table 2-2). Among high school science and math teachers, 91 percent of teachers identify as White (Banilower et al., 2018). In addition, teachers of color are highly concentrated in certain geographical areas: in 2011 an estimated 40 percent of schools had no teachers of color, meaning students of color in those schools might never experience a teacher of their own race or ethnic- ity (Bireda and Chait, 2011).

Gender and Age

The teacher workforce has also remained relatively stable with re- spect to gender and age.4 There has been little change in the percentages

4 It should be noted that during the reporting period the survey instruments did not offer respondents an opportunity to identify as any gender other than male or female. Therefore, there are likely a population of non-binary teachers that are not represented in the data.

TABLE 2-2 Science and Math Teacher Demographics, by Teacher Characteristics (in percentage)

Science Math

Elementary Middle High Elementary Middle High

Sex

Female 94 71 57 94 70 60

Male 6 28 43 6 30 40

Race

White 88 91 91 89 89 91

Hispanic 9 7 6 10 8 7

Black or African American 8 8 5 7 8 5

Asian 2 2 5 3 3 4

American Indian or Alaskan Native

1 2 2 1 1 2

Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander

1 0 0 0 1 1

SOURCE: Banilower et al. (2018).

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24 CHANGING EXPECTATIONS FOR THE K–12 TEACHER WORKFORCE

of men and women in the teaching workforce since the early 2000s. The proportion of female teachers in public schools across the country was 75 percent in 2003–2004 and 76.6 percent in 2015–2016, while the per- centage of male teachers was 25 percent in 2003–2004 and 23.4 percent in 2015–2016. Whereas women make up the majority of the teaching staff at schools throughout the United States, the proportion of male teachers increases as grade level increases. This remains particularly true in the STEM content areas, with men making up 40 percent of high school math teachers and 43 percent of high school science teachers, as compared to 36 percent of high school teachers generally (Banilower et al., 2018; Taie and Goldring, 2017).

The average age of teachers has also remained consistent over time. In 2016, the average age of K–12 public school teachers was 41.4 years old, whereas in 2003–2004 that average was 42.5 years old. However, there were slight changes in the distribution of teachers’ ages from 1987 to 2015. There was a decrease in the percentage of teachers ages 30–49 and an in- crease in the percentage of teachers ages 50 and older (refer to Table 2-1). These changes in the ages over the broader timeframe is more consistent with data reported by Ingersoll and colleagues (2018). Similarly, teacher experience has also remained relatively consistent: in 2003–2004, 17.8 percent of all public school teachers reported less than 3 years of full-time teaching experience, while that number dropped to 15 percent in 2016.

The Importance of a Diverse Teacher Workforce

As highlighted by a recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineer- ing, and Medicine report, Monitoring Educational Equity (NASEM, 2019), “there is growing and compelling evidence that teacher-student racial match has important effects on student outcomes” (p. 87). Not only do these effects appear for both short-term outcomes, such as student test scores and academic attitudes (Dee, 2004; Egalite and Kisida, 2018; Egalite, Kisida, and Winters, 2015; Goldhaber and Hansen 2010) but also they are observed for long-term outcomes, such as dropping out of high school (Gershenson, Jacknowitz, and Brannegan, 2017).

For example, Gershenson and colleagues (2018) conducted a longitu- dinal study in North Carolina and found that Black students who were as- signed to a class with a Black teacher at least once in 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade were less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to aspire to go to college. Black boys that had at least one Black teacher during grades 3–5 were more likely to stay in school as evidenced by the high school dropout rate cut in half. Although less pronounced, the same holds true for Black boys from low-income families who were 39 percent less likely to drop out of high school than those who had never had a Black teacher (for more discussion, see Carver-Thomas, 2018). In other words, the benefit

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CONTEXTUAL FACTORS THAT SHAPE THE CURRENT TEACHER WORKFORCE 25

of having a Black teacher for just 1 year in elementary school can persist over several years, especially for Black students from low-income families (Carver-Thomas, 2018).

In addition to academic benefits, students of color can experience social and emotional benefits from having teachers of color. A study using longitudinal data for North Carolina K–5 students and teachers between 2006 and 2010 found that students with teachers of another race had more unexcused absences and an increased likelihood of being chroni- cally absent than students with race-matched teachers (Lindsay and Hart, 2017). In particular, boys of color taught by White teachers were more likely to be chronically absent and to have more suspensions than did other students. Thus, it is increasingly clear that students of color benefit from having teachers of color. While the mechanisms that lead to these positive impacts are not fully understood, the committee notes that the underrepresentation of teachers of color in the workforce is particularly troubling.

Although one option for trying to create more purposeful role mod- els for students of color would be to place more teachers of color in schools serving high concentrations of students of color, the committee argues that it is important that all teachers are able to recognize and leverage the various assets students are bringing into the classroom, and receive some preparation to respond to the shifting population of students (the ways in which the makeup of the student population has changed will be described in the next section). Central to the work of teachers is for them to be aware of when teachers and their students do not share similar backgrounds and experiences, as teachers need to develop an understanding of their students’ incoming knowledge and experience. Additionally, as Chapter 4 will articulate, there are substantial local dif- ferences in the distribution of teachers—inherent inequity exists when a school system has students from one race but lacks many teachers of that race. Lastly, as articulated above, students can benefit from having teachers from the same background in terms of motivation and having visible role models. Through the use of inclusive pedagogies, discussed in Chapter 3, teachers can equip themselves with a better understanding of their students and position them as capable learners and contributors in the classroom.

STUDENT DIVERSITY IN THE CLASSROOM

There have been substantial changes to the student population over the past 20 years. These shifts in student population and new understand- ings of the role of culture in learning (see Chapter 3) have also given rise to changing expectation for teachers. We outline these changes in student demographics below.

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26 CHANGING EXPECTATIONS FOR THE K–12 TEACHER WORKFORCE

Race and Ethnicity

One of the major changes in student demographics over the period from 2000 to 2015 is the decline in the percentage of White students in the K–12 public school population from 61 percent to 49 percent.5 In 2015, 50 percent of the students enrolled in public schools were students of color (i.e., Black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaska Na- tive, and two or more races6), reflecting an ongoing increase in the racial/ ethnic diversity of students in U.S. public schools (de Brey et al., 2019; see Figure 2-2). The fastest growing group are Hispanic students; between fall 2000 and fall 2015, the proportion of Hispanic students increased from 16 percent to 26 percent. Over the same period, the percentage of Black students dropped slightly from 17 percent to 15 percent. The percentage of Asian students stayed almost the same moving from 4 percent to 5 percent.

Native Language and Country of Origin

Coupled with the increase in the racial/ethnic diversity of U.S. public school, the linguistic diversity within the student population has also

5 Note that the percentage of White students is 49 percent, whereas the percentage of White teachers is 80 percent. For that same time, Hispanic students were 26 percent of the population and Hispanic teachers were only 8.8 percent. This difference is less striking for the relationship between Black students (15%) and Black teachers (6.7%)

6 Students self-identifying as two or more races were first reported in the 2008–2009 school year.

FIGURE 2-2 Percentage distribution of all public school students enrolled in preK–12, by race and ethnicity: fall 2000, fall 2015, and fall 2027 (projected). SOURCE: de Brey et al. (2019).

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CONTEXTUAL FACTORS THAT SHAPE THE CURRENT TEACHER WORKFORCE 27

increased (see NASEM, 2018). Students enrolled in U.S. schools come with a variety of linguistic resources. For many students, English is not spoken in the home, or is not the only language spoken in the home. One way that research instruments have attempted to capture information about linguistic diversity is by classifying students as English learners (ELs). While the prac- tices that districts and researchers have used to make these classifications are fraught, looking across data on students that have been classified as ELs does reveal important trends.

ELs constitute a sizable and fast-growing segment of the K–12 student population in the United States: nearly 5 million students are classified as ELs in K–12 public schools, making up about 10 percent of total stu- dents enrolled (McFarland et al., 2018). Although ELs are found across all grades in K–12 public schools, there are higher percentages of ELs in the elementary grades (see Figure 2-3; McFarland et al., 2018). ELs are enrolled in every state and the District of Columbia, and a significant proportion of EL students (nearly 54.6%) reside in California, Texas, and Nevada. Following California, Texas, and Nevada, New Mexico (15.7%) and Colorado (11.6%) reported the next highest percentages of ELs. Additionally, ELs are more concentrated in urban and suburban areas ( McFarland et al., 2018).

There has also been a rise in the number of immigrant students in U.S. elementary and secondary schools, reflected in the increase in the population overall.7 The proportion of U.S. children, ages 0–17, growing up in immigrant

7 All data were accessed from the Migration Policy Institute’s Data Hub, see https://www. migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/state-immigration-data-profiles.

FIGURE 2-3 Percentage distribution of EL students in public schools by grade level: fall 2015 SOURCE: McFarland et al. (2018).

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28 CHANGING EXPECTATIONS FOR THE K–12 TEACHER WORKFORCE

families8 is approximately 26 percent. Currently, the overwhelming majority of all children in immigrant families (88%) were born in the United States. However, within the group of children and youth born outside of the country, there has been an increase in the number of unaccompanied minors, growing from 13,625 in 2012 to 57,496 in 2014. The majority (approximately 75%) of these children are ages 14–18 and they are entering U.

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