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1/11 Always an honor to collaborate with @PaCrossroads and @WHYYNews and to contribute to this terrific reporting from @SojournerAhebee. https://twitter.com/byKevinMcCorry/status/1339580172069167106
2/11 Apologies for a loooong thread, but we wanted to share a few additional nuggets that didn’t make it into the piece about students of color (SOCs) and teachers of color (TOCs) in PA.
3/11 First, the gap between SOCS and TOCs in PA isn’t normal. Yes, there are gaps in every state, but PA is an outlier. Nationally, the share of SOCs is 2.5 times the share of TOCs, but in PA the share of SOCs is 6 times the share of TOCs. (Only NE, NH, and IN do worse…)
4/11 We found that 184 school districts in PA employ only White teachers.
5/11 And there are 1,500 schools in PA (50% of all schools) that employ only White teachers
6/11 Female teachers comprise nearly 74% of all PA teachers and the gender gap persists across race/ethnicity subgroups.
7/11 The percent and number of female teachers increased each of the past 7 years, while the percentage and number of male teachers decreased.
8/11 However, (not shown in the graph), there has actually been a modest increase in the number of Black male teachers —129 more in 2019-20 than in 2013-14. (Shout out to @fellowshipbmec @CenterBlackEd @selmekki and many more for their impactful work!)
9/11 The report includes a focus on Philadelphia, because while the city employs 54% of the state’s TOCs even though it enrolls only 27% of the states SOCs.
10/11 SDP and the Philadelphia charter school sector now employ similar rates of TOCs (32.2% in the district and 32.8% in charter schools) and that represents an increase in the charters over the past seven years.
11/11 Check out the Appendix for tables that identify schools and school districts across the state that employ high and low rates of TOCs relative to their share of SOCs. Here’s one example:
Finally, perhaps the biggest contribution of this project is the availability of new data. Student demographics are easy to find in PA (race/ethnicity, gender, disability, language, poverty, homelessness, foster care, etc.) But teacher demographics are not publicly reported.
RFA cleaned data received by @SojournerAhebee and users can now download at the state, district, county and school levels. There’s lots more to explore and unpack! https://www.researchforaction.org/publications/teacher-diversity-in-pennsylvania-from-2013-24-to-2019-20/
PS. To review research on the importance of diversity teachers and learn about strategies and initiatives to increase diversity see our prior report “Patching the Leaky Pipeline” https://www.researchforaction.org/publications/patching-the-leaky-pipeline/
PPS. And click here to learn more about Aspiring to Educate, the promising program from @PADeptofEd to increase diversity in PA’s educator workforce https://www.education.pa.gov/Postsecondary-Adult/Pages/Aspiring-to-Educate.aspx
PPPS. And to contribute to an organization that’s leading the effort to increase the number of Black teachers in PA and beyond, visit and contribute to https://www.thecenterblacked.org/
