Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The percentage of minority students attending public school is now over 50% yet the teacher workforce continues to be heavily dominated by White women. Because data shows that all students, including White students, benefit from having teachers of color and students of all races have more positive perceptions of Black and Latino teachers, there have been national calls for a more diverse teacher workforce. More specifically are the calls for more Black male teachers who make up just 1.81% of the teaching population whereas their students counterparts represent 7.39% of the student population creating the largest teacher-student demographic gap in education.

And because research finds that teachers are less likely to suspend or expel their students of a shared race, an increase in Black male teachers would arguably help decrease the number of Black male students being suspended or expelled, practices that feed the school-to-prison pipeline, a system that impacts Black male students more than any other demographic group.

Despite the calls to action, minority male teachers, specifically Black males, are more likely than any other demographic group to leave the teacher workforce. Coincidently, this pattern of attrition mirrors that of teacher preparation programs when looking specifically at the trends of Black teachers. According to a recent report by the Center for American Progress (CAP), Black enrollment in teacher preparation programs has declined by over 25% since 2010. CAP also found that there is an even steeper decline in the number of male teacher preparation students. These data, in essence, pose an essential research question of why Black male teachers are the least likely to complete teacher preparation programs. Why is this the case?

According to literature, the overwhelming presence of Whiteness [in teacher preparation programs] can be silencing. And given that 80% to 93% of all current teacher education students are White females and 88% of teacher educators are White, being a Black male in a teacher preparation program within a predominantly white institution can be quite startling.

Nonetheless, in order to increase the number of Black men in teaching, increasing the number of Black men in teacher preparation programs is necessary. Thus, this presentation will provide an overview of the experiences of two Black males enrolled in an Ivy League teacher preparation program. Initial findings suggest three major themes of the participant’s experiences: isolation, marginalization, and the need for mentoring.

Keywords: Black males, Black teachers, Black male teachers, teacher preparation, mentoring