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WHY BLACK WOMEN TEACHERS
LEAVE AND WHAT CAN BE DONE
ABOUT IT
Desiree Carver-Thomas and Linda Darling-Hammond
ABSTRACT
This study uses the most recent national data from the National Center for
Education Statistics, Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), 2011!2012 and
Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS), 2012!2013 to investigate attrition trends
among Black teachers, and Black female teachers in particular, to inform a
qualitative analysis of proposed and adopted teacher retention policy inter-
ventions. This study asks: Why do Black teachers report leaving, and what
would bring them back to the classroom? What working conditions are asso-
ciated with Black teacher attrition? What policy interventions can meet the
needs of Black teachers in having successful and supported teaching experi-
ences? How have these interventions been successful, and what are the con-
siderations for applying them more broadly? We find that Black teacher
turnover rates are significantly higher than those of other teachers and that
there are several substantive differences in their preparation, school charac-
teristics, and reasons for leaving. We describe policy interventions that target
these conditions, such as teacher residencies, loan forgiveness, mentoring and
induction, and principal training programs. We include in that discussion the
relative benefits and challenges of each implications for policymaking.
Keywords: Black teachers; turnover; attrition; teacher residencies; loan
forgiveness; mentoring
Black Female Teachers: Diversifying the United States’ Teacher Workforce
Advances in Race and Ethnicity in Education, Volume 6, 159!184
Copyright r2017 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 2051-2317/doi:10.1108/S2051-231720170000006009
159
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INTRODUCTION
Black teachers and Black women teachers, in particular, comprise a perpetually
small share of the teacher workforce. While the Black teacher workforce has
grown from 191,000 teachers in 1987!1988 to 231,000 in 2011!2012, the pro-
portion of Black teachers decreased from 8.2% to 6.8% of the teacher work-
force during the same period. Black women comprise 78% of Black teachers,
or 5.3% of all teachers. Meanwhile, Black students comprised nearly 16% of
the public school student population in 2013.
Black teachers play a critical role in the workforce. In a review of the argu-
ments for diversifying the teacher workforce, Villegas and Irvine (2010) identify
two major arguments supported by empirical evidence. First, teachers of color
improve the schooling experiences and academic outcomes of students of color.
Nine out of 15 of the works they analyze investigate the impact of race-match-
ing Black students and teachers and all showed positive effects for Black stu-
dents. Second, Villegas and Irvine find that teachers of color are more likely to
feel called to teaching in low-income, communities of color where openings are
difficult to fill. Four of 10 of the works supporting that conclusion deal specifi-
cally with the reasons Black teachers are motivated to teach. Considering the
important role Black teachers play in the workforce, it is essential to identify
ways to increase their representation in classrooms.
Prior research suggests teacher turnover and attrition have significant effects
on teacher labor market conditions (Ingersoll, 2001). With regard to the rela-
tionship between teacher race and teacher turnover, the focus of most recent
research has been on teachers of color as a general category (Achinstein,
Ogawa, & Sexton, 2010;Ingersoll & May, 2011). This inclusive focus has multi-
ple benefits, including allowing larger sample sizes for both qualitative and
quantitative analysis, including individuals who would otherwise be excluded
entirely due to having very small sample sizes or limited previous research to
draw on such as, Native Americans, Asian American Pacific Islanders, and
those identifying with two or more races, and identifying common trends across
groups. This research has yielded the significant finding that, as with teacher
shortages generally, shortages of teachers of color are generally caused less by
recruitment shortfalls than by retention problems (Ingersoll & May, 2011;
Ingersoll & May, 2016). Although there has been a substantial increase in the
entry rates of teachers of color, more of them exit than enter the profession in a
given year. However, a focus on teachers of color also risks conflating the
experiences of students and teachers with different racial identifications and
may, indeed, obfuscate important distinctions between them. Of course, there is
also variation within racial groups, across gender, language, socioeconomic sta-
tus, and so on. Thus, the particular experiences of Black women that inform
their retention decisions may differ markedly from those of either Black men or
non-Black women.
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Statement of Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the conditions that contribute to
Black teacher attrition and turnover, in addition to identifying promising inter-
ventions to improve Black teacher retention rates, with a specific focus on
Black women. In this study, teacher attrition refers to teachers leaving the
teaching profession, while teacher turnover refers to any movement out of
schools, whether to teach in a different school or to leave the profession. Both
of these measures—teacher attrition and teacher turnover—are important indi-
cators of the teacher labor market nationally and at the state and local levels.
In addition to contributing to shortages of Black teachers, high rates of teacher
attrition and turnover have been shown to negatively impact student achieve-
ment (Ronfeldt, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2013). Furthermore, high rates of teacher
attrition often result in introducing a “revolving door” of inexperienced tea-
chers into classrooms (Ingersoll, 2001), undermining the increases in teacher
effectiveness that occur with experience (Kini & Podolsky, 2016). Thus, these
questions are critically important for students’ welfare as well as for the shape
of the teaching force.
Specifically, this study asks: Why do Black teachers report leaving, and what
would bring them back to the classroom? What working conditions are associ-
ated with Black teacher attrition? What policy interventions can meet the needs
of Black teachers in having successful and supported teaching experiences?
How have these interventions been successful, and what are the considerations
for applying them more broadly?
First, we define our conceptual framework based on previous research on
teacher retention generally, and for teachers of color and Black teachers specifi-
cally. Next, we describe the data and methodology used to answer our research
questions. We share our findings in relation to the factors of teacher turnover
described in the conceptual framework, and finally discuss policy implications
based on evidence from successful policy interventions.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND REVIEW OF PRIOR
RESEARCH
This study draws on the literature on causes of teacher attrition and turnover
among teachers overall and teachers of color. There is scant research on the
attrition and turnover factors for Black female teachers, specifically. As detailed
below, the primary sources of teacher attrition cited in prior studies include,
compensation, school characteristics, teacher preparation and experience, and
working conditions (Guarino, Santibanez, & Daley, 2006;Borman & Dowling,
2008).
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Compensation
Baugh and Stone (1982), using national Current Population Survey (CPS) data,
found that teachers were more likely to continue teaching when their wages
became more comparable to the wage they could expect to earn in other occu-
pations. In Oregon, specifically, they found that teachers were less likely to
move schools when their wages were more comparable to what they could
expect to earn teaching in another district. Other scholars have found similar
results, showing that teachers are more likely to continue teaching at their
school when their wages increase and are comparable with other job opportu-
nities (Murnane & Olsen, 1990;Loeb & Beteille, 2009;Loeb, Darling-
Hammond, & Luczak, 2005). More recently, Ondrich, Pas, and Yinger (2008)
found that, consistent with previous research, teachers were less likely to leave
teaching when their wages were higher relative to nonteaching jobs; teachers
were also less likely to leave their districts if their wages were higher relative to
those in other nearby districts. In addition to wage comparability, data from
the National Center for Education Statistics 5-year longitudinal study (Gray &
Taie, 2015) show that absolute teacher wage is also associated with attrition. In
this study, teachers whose first-year salary was less than $40,000 had an attri-
tion rate 10 percentage points higher than teachers who earned more in their
first year.
School Characteristics
In response to arguments relating turnover to compensation, many studies have
investigated the role of school characteristics in teacher turnover. These studies
have often suggested that teachers prefer teaching in schools with wealthier,
higher-performing, and more White students (Hanushek, Kain, & Rivkin,
2004;Scafidi, Sjoquist, & Stinebrickner, 2007). A study of Texas public school
teachers using data from the 1990s found that turnover was more strongly
related to student race and test scores than to changes in salary (Hanushek
et al., 2004). Another study of Georgia elementary school teachers found that,
in settings with comparable wages, teachers were far more likely to leave their
first teaching assignment when they had more students who were Black, had
low-test scores, and were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (Scafidi et al.,
2007). In both studies, the authors acknowledged that there could be a relation-
ship between student characteristics and other unobserved conditions that
might be discouraging teachers from staying, but neither attempted to disentan-
gle those factors.
Interestingly, Freeman, Scafidi, and Sjoquist (2005) found that between 1995
and 2000, White teachers in Georgia public schools were far more likely to
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leave schools with the greatest proportions of Black students than Black tea-
chers were.
Other research emphasizes the desire of many teachers to work with vulnera-
ble student populations and illustrates how a host of factors, including work-
place conditions and teacher preparation, can make that commitment difficult
to sustain (Allensworth, Ponisciak, & Mazzeo, 2009;Boyd et al., 2011;Loeb
et al., 2005;Johnson, Kraft, & Papay, 2012;Ladd, 2011;Marinell & Coca,
2013).
Working Conditions
Poor workplace conditions are common in schools with disadvantaged student
populations and explain a large share of the high turnover rates those schools
experience (Simon & Johnson, 2015). In many studies that control for working
conditions, teachers’ decisions to leave are no longer strongly associated with
the racial and economic characteristics of students. In a study of Massachusetts
teachers, for example, Johnson, Kraft, and Papay (2012) found that teachers
working in positive work environments expressed greater satisfaction and
planned to continue teaching longer than other teachers, regardless of their
school’s student demographic characteristics. Similarly, a study of California
teachers found that the correlation between student characteristics and teacher
attrition disappeared when working conditions and salaries were taken into
account (Loeb et al., 2005; see also, Ladd, 2011;Boyd et al., 2011).
In an effort to account for the previously unobserved factors influencing
teacher turnover, researchers have identified several workplace conditions asso-
ciated with teacher turnover. For example, in a meta-analysis of 34 studies and
63 attrition factors, Borman and Dowling (2008) found that working condi-
tions, such as instructional resources, teacher collaboration, and administrative
support were associated with greater teacher retention rates. Similarly, Simon
and Johnson (2015) reviewed six studies that investigated the relationship
between teacher turnover and working conditions including, professional devel-
opment, facilities, parental involvement, instructional leadership, time for col-
laboration and planning, resources, school culture, collegial relationships, and
decision-making power. They found that the most significant workplace condi-
tions associated with teacher turnover were teachers’ perceptions of their princi-
pal, collegial relationships, and school culture (Simon & Johnson, 2015).
Teacher Preparation and Experience
Another influence on attrition is the nature and extent of teachers’ preparation.
Throughout the country, states and districts offer a variety of pathways by
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which teachers can become certified. The vast majority of teachers become cer-
tified via a regular, or preservice pathway—enrolling in a teacher preparation
program at a college or university where they complete coursework and student
teaching before they teach. About 15% of all teachers surveyed in the
2011!2012 SASS, and nearly one in four first-year teachers surveyed, had
entered teaching through an alternative pathway, in which they began teaching
before completing coursework, often with little or no student teaching experi-
ence. Studies of the relationship between teacher certification pathways and
teacher turnover generally find that better prepared teachers, including those
who complete their certification before entering, are less likely to leave teaching
in the first few years (see, e.g., Boyd, Grossman, Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff,
2006;Darling-Hammond, Holtzman, Gatlin, & Heilig, 2005;Marinell & Coca,
2013).
The nature of coursework and other requirements varies significantly within
these different pathways, however, and Ingersoll, Merrill, and May (2014)
found that preservice pedagogical preparation was far more predictive of first-
year teacher turnover than pathway type. In their study, teachers who had
received little or no pedagogical training were 2.5 times as likely to leave teach-
ing after a year than teachers who had comprehensive preparation that
included observing others’ teaching, student teaching a full semester and receiv-
ing feedback, taking five or more courses in teaching methods, and receiving
training in learning theory and selecting instructional materials. Indeed, a 5-
year longitudinal study of new teachers found that those who had not student
taught were almost twice as likely to leave the profession within 5 years (29%
left compared to 15% of teachers who had student taught) (Henke, Chen, &
Geis, 2000).
In addition to high-quality preservice preparation, research has also found
that high-quality induction and mentoring for beginning teachers can reduce
teacher turnover (Ingersoll & Strong, 2011). An analysis that looked at the fea-
tures of such programs found that turnover was reduced by 34% for novices
who received mentoring from an experienced teacher, collaboration with other
teachers for planning instruction, and a beginning teacher seminar. And for
those who received mentoring, plus collaboration, a strong teacher network, a
reduced teaching load, and a teacher’s aide, turnover rates were cut by more
than half, from 41% for an unsupported teacher to 18% for a well-supported
one (Ingersoll & Smith, 2004).
This study builds upon several key findings from previous research, provid-
ing an overview of variables associated with teacher attrition and their preva-
lence for Black women teachers. These include absolute and perceived salaries,
student characteristics, the comprehensiveness of teacher preparation, and
working conditions. To our knowledge, this is the first analysis undertaken to
understand the relationship between these conditions and Black women tea-
chers’ attrition and retention decisions.
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STUDY DESIGN
This study draws primarily on data from the US Department of Education,
National Center for Education Statistics Schools and Staffing Survey
(2011!2012) and Teacher Follow-up Survey (2012!2013). The SASS is a set of
questionnaires administered to a nationally representative sample of teachers
across the country. The TFS has three components: (1) the teacher status form,
completed by the principal to identify “stayers,” “movers,” and “leavers” since
the previous year; (2) a questionnaire for a subset of former teachers (all begin-
ners plus a stratified sample of others, by school sector (i.e., public or private),
teacher status (stayer, leaver, movers, and unknown), experience, grade level,
and race/ethnicity); and (3) a questionnaire for a subset of current teachers.
The dataset is completed with imputed data and sampling weights.
1
Measures
As stated, this study discusses both teacher attrition rates (the rate of “leaving”)
and teacher turnover rates (the rate of “moving” and “leaving”), with an
emphasis on turnover. Teacher attrition is an important metric in understand-
ing overall teacher shortages, because when teachers leave the profession they
must be replaced with new teachers or re-entrants, teachers who have left the
profession and are returning. When attrition is high, more teachers must be
hired. When there are not enough new or re-entering teachers to make up for
high attrition rates, shortages occur and schools often respond by hiring
unqualified teachers, increasing class sizes, or cutting class offerings (Sutcher,
Darling-Hammond, & Carver-Thomas, 2016). While several factors create
teacher shortages, attrition is the driving factor. Other factors, like decreasing
teacher preparation enrollment and completer rates and a growing student pop-
ulation, contribute to the increasing severity of shortages, but explain a rela-
tively small share of the problem.
In schools experiencing teacher shortages, high turnover rates can further
exacerbate those shortages. When teachers move between schools, even if they
stay in the profession, the effect on students in those schools is essentially the
same as if they had left teaching all together.
Teacher turnover, especially in hard-to-staff schools, often requires schools
to replace movers and leavers with relatively inexperienced teachers. Turnover
has been found to negatively impact student performance in classrooms beyond
those which teachers left (Ronfeldt et al., 2013). This can occur because (1)
turnover changes the distribution of teacher quality and experience in schools,
and (2) it disrupts school stability as it undermines collegial relationships, com-
mon teaching practices, and the accumulation of institutional knowledge.
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The impacts are particularly severe on historically underserved students and
communities, since turnover rates tend to be highest in schools with more low-
income students, students of color, and lower-performing students
(Allensworth et al., 2009;Hanushek et al., 2004;Ingersoll, 2001;Johnson, Berg,
& Donaldson, 2005;Marinell & Coca, 2013;Ronfeldt et al., 2013). By
highlighting these disparate turnover rates, in addition to attrition rates, and
investigating not just what impacts their decision to leave teaching, but also to
move schools, we can better understand the extent of Black teacher mobility in
our schools and develop policies that more comprehensively address the factors
that influence it.
Data Analysis Methods
We use descriptive statistics and differences of means test results to identify dif-
ferences in turnover rates and key characteristics, informed by the literature, of
Black and non-Black teachers. Consistent with prior literature, we describe
teacher gender and age. Age has a U-shaped relationship with turnover, and so
we describe the age distribution of Black teachers, including the average age
and those older than 50. We also describe trends in district types (rural, town,
suburb, and city) using the NCES specification.
2
We examine teacher turnover for teachers in schools with different propor-
tions of students eligible for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and
students of color, examining these by quartiles across the nation. Schools in the
quartile with the fewest students of color have less than 9% and those with the
most students of color have greater than 56%. Students of color include Asian
American, Pacific Islander, Black, Latino, Native American, and multiracial
students. Of course, these groups are economically heterogeneous both within
and across racial categories. However, we expect to find some similar trends
among schools serving different proportions of students of color. Because of
the distributions of income and advantage, these differences are more extreme
when looking at outcomes concerning Black and Latino students alone.
The Black teacher variable is coded as “1” when teachers self-identify as
Black and “0” for all other responses. Alternative pathway is an indicator vari-
able coded as “1” if a teacher reports she/he entered teaching through an alter-
native certification program and “0” if she/he indicates entering through a
regular pathway. It should be noted that regular pathway and regular certifica-
tion are not interchangeable terms. A teacher who enters teaching through an
alternative pathway may eventually complete all the requirements to earn a reg-
ular certification, but would still be coded as an alternative pathway teacher.
For elementary school teachers and other self-contained classroom teachers,
average class size is the class size they report in the base year. For secondary
school teachers, average class size is calculated by averaging the number of
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students they report in each class or section they teach in the base year. “Push-
in” and “pull-out” teachers are excluded from this portion of the analysis, since
they do not manage a full class in the same way that classroom teachers do.
Self-contained special education classes are included in class size. We divide
average class size into quartiles from 12 to greater than 50 students. Next we
describe the main subject a teacher reports teaching. We combine math and sci-
ence subjects, due to their similarities. Similarly, we combine English and social
studies into humanities. We also include the following main assignments: ele-
mentary, special education, teaching English learners, arts, foreign languages,
career technical education, physical education, and miscellaneous subjects.
Finally, we create working conditions constructs from survey responses,
using Cronbach’s alpha to combine multiple responses on the same topic. All
Cronbach alphas are equal to at least 0.7. The working conditions constructs
are defined as follows:
•Administrative support is a construct that measures teacher attitudes on four
questions about their administrator and is on a scale from 1 to 4, where 1 is
the most favorable attitude toward their administrator and 4 is the least
favorable attitude.
•Salary satisfaction is a report of how satisfied teachers are with their salary,
where 1 means they strongly agree that they are satisfied with their salary
and 4 means they strongly disagree that they are satisfied with their salary.
•Student behavior problems is a construct created from seven survey responses
about whether student behaviors are a problem (i.e., tardiness, misbehavior).
•Parent support is a measure of whether teachers agree that they have the sup-
port they need from parents, where 1 means they strongly agree that they
have the parent support and 4 means that they strongly disagree.
•Resources is a measure of whether teachers agree that resources are available
to them in their school, where 1 means they strongly agree that they have
resources available and 4 means they strongly disagree.
•Interference is measure of whether teachers believe that paperwork and other
duties interfere with their teaching time, where 1 means they strongly dis-
agree that paperwork and duties interfere with their teaching time and 4
means they strongly agree.
•Collegiality is a construct that combines three survey questions that measure
the degree to which staff collaborate and hold similar values and is scaled
from 1 to 4, where 1 represents the most positive attitude of colleagues and 4
represents the least positive attitudes about colleagues.
•Job security is a measure of how worried teachers are about their job security
due to assessment and accountability measures, where 1 indicates that a
teacher strongly disagrees that she/he is worried and 4 indicates that a
teacher is strongly agrees that she/he is worried about job security.
•Classroom control and school influence are constructs created from six and
seven survey questions, respectively, and measure the degree of either control
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or influence a teacher feels she/he has, where 1 represents having lots of con-
trol or influence and 4 represents having none at all.
We also describe teachers’ beginning salary in the district and the highest
possible salary in the district.
FINDINGS
Trends in Black Teacher Employment
Based on our analysis of the 2011!2012 SASS and 2012!2013 TFS, Black tea-
chers continue to be under-represented in the teacher workforce, compared to
both labor force rates and student enrollment rates. As illustrated in Fig. 1,
Black teachers made up just 6.8% of the public school teacher workforce dur-
ing the 2011!2012 school year. In comparison, African-Americans made up
11.6% of the US labor force
3
in 2011 (US Department of Labor, 2012), and
15.8% of public school enrollment during the 2011!2012 school year (National
Center for Education Statistics, 2016). Black women in the teacher workforce
are more representative of the labor force at 5.3% of all teachers and 6.2% of
the entire US labor force in 2011.
Black representation in the teaching force has declined noticeably since
1990, when the proportion was 8.3%. Since then, about 26,000 African-
American teachers have disappeared from the nation’s public schools—even as
the overall teaching workforce has increased by 134,000 (Rizga, 2016). This has
been substantially a function of teacher layoffs during the recession and school
closings in urban districts due both to declining enrollments and sanctions tar-
geted to schools with low-test scores under No Child Left Behind. Decreases in
the numbers of Black teachers have been proportionally much greater than
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
Northeast Midwest South West
Black teacher population Black student population
Fig. 1. Black Teacher and Black Student Population, by US Region.
168 DESIREE CARVER-THOMAS AND LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND
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decreases in the size of the overall teaching force in all of these cities (See
Table 1.) In New Orleans, more than 7,000 teachers—most of whom were
Black—were fired en masse after Hurricane Katrina. They were replaced by
predominantly young, White teachers brought into charter schools that
replaced the district schools. When the courts found the move illegal years later,
the new teachers stayed on and the former teachers were not rehired. As a
result, the number of Black teachers declined there by more than 62%.
The age distribution of Black teachers is not meaningfully different from
that of other teachers. On average Black teachers are a year older (43.7 vs.
42.3, p¼0.15) and slightly more likely to be over age 50 (33.3% vs. 30.5%,
p¼0.44). Most Black teachers and Black female teachers teach in Title I
schools and in the schools with the most students of color. While about 36% of
all teachers teach in schools in the top quartile of students of color, nearly 79%
of Black teachers and Black female teachers do. Black teachers make up over
14% of teachers in those schools despite comprising just 6.8% of all teachers,
and Black women make up over 11% of teachers in those schools despite com-
prising just 5% of all teachers. Similarly, 71% of Black teachers teach in Title
I-eligible schools and 75% of Black women teachers do. In comparison, just
44% of teachers overall teach in Title I-eligible schools. While about a quarter
of all teachers teach in schools that are both high-poverty and high-minority
schools, about 60% of Black teachers and 62% of Black female teachers do.
Black teachers are especially concentrated in the South and in cities. Just
over 70% of Black teachers, and Black female teachers, teach in the South,
compared to just 40% of non-Black teachers (see Fig. 1). In 2000, 57% of the
US Black population
4
lived in the South suggesting that Black teachers are
under-represented in other regions of the country (Rastogi, Johnson, Hoeffel,
Table 1. Percentage Change in Teacher Population by Race and Ethnicity,
2002!2012.
City Overall White Black Hispanic
Boston !3.3 !0.8 !18.3 1.1
Chicago !13.4 !3.2 !39.2 6.4
Cleveland !17.4 !12.0 !33.9 !9.4
Los Angeles !16.9 !28.0 !33.2 6.5
New Orleans !44.4 3.3 !62.3 43.5
New York City !2.0 !1.9 !15.1 2.4
San Francisco !11.9 !21.9 !32.4 8.1
Source:Albert Shanker Institute (2015).The state of teacher diversity in American education.
Washington, DC: Albert Shanker Institute, http://www.shankerinstitute.org/resource/teacherdiver-
sity. Accessed on November 2016.
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& Drewery, 2011). Even so, Black women teachers make up under 9% of all
teachers in the South, while 24% of students enrolled in the South in 2012 were
Black. Nearly half of Black female teachers teach in cities, compared to one in
four non-Black teachers (see Fig. 2). Black teachers overall, and Black women
teachers specifically, are less likely than non-Black teacher to teach in suburbs,
towns, or rural areas.
While over 70% of Black teachers teach in the South, there is wide variation
in the population of Black students and teachers across southern states. Black
teachers make up over 10% of teachers in the South, however, in 9 out of 17
southern states, Black teachers comprise an even greater proportion of the
teacher workforce. In Washington DC, for example, about 56% of teachers are
Black. In the remaining states, Black teachers are more scarce. For example,
they comprise only 1.2% of the teacher workforce in West Virginia.
BLACK TEACHER ATTRITION TRENDS
Black teacher and Black female teacher turnover rates are high. At 21.1%, the
Black teacher turnover rate is nearly 60% greater than the non-Black teacher
turnover rate (13.4%). The turnover rate for black women, 21.8%, is signifi-
cantly greater than that of non-Black women (13.4%, p¼0.01) but not discern-
ably greater than that of Black men (18.54%, p¼0.48) (see Fig. 3). Black
teacher turnover rates are particularly high in the region of the United States
where Black teachers are most likely to teach: the South. While overall turnover
rates in the South are higher than other regions of the country at 16% annu-
ally, the rate among Black women is still higher, at 26%.
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
City Suburb Town Rural
Black teacher population Black student population
Fig. 2. Black Teacher and Black Student Population, by Community Type.
170 DESIREE CARVER-THOMAS AND LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND
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Patterns of attrition and turnover for Black teachers are different in many
respects than those for White teachers. The rate of involuntary turnover was
much higher for Black teachers (12%) than for others (10%) (Sutcher et al.,
2016). Perhaps because of school closings and layoffs that were frequent in
2012, the proportions of those leaving their schools involuntarily were surpris-
ingly high, and especially so for Black teachers (Executive Office of the
President, 2012). While about 30% of all movers did so involuntarily
(Goldring, Taie, & Riddles, 2014), over 50% of Black teachers moved involun-
tarily. All told, among Black teachers, involuntary turnover constituted nearly
a third of all turnover.
Retirement was a relatively small component of Black teacher turnover,
accounting for less than 18% of total annual turnover and about 38% of the
leaver rate (Fig. 4). This was a higher rate, however, than for other teachers. In
comparison, fewer than a third of all teachers reported that retirement was a
very or extremely important reason for why they left teaching. Finally, about
half of Black teachers who left their schools did so voluntarily before retirement.
7.5%
10.1%
7.7%
7.8%
11.7%
8.1%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%
Non-Black teachers
Black teachers
Teachers overall
Leaver rate Mover rate
Fig. 3. Teacher Leaver and Mover Rates, 2012.
Stayers, 78%
Retirement
Involuntary
turnover
Voluntary,
pre-retirement
leavers
Voluntary
movers
Turnover,
22%
Fig. 4. Black Teacher Turnover Trends.
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Note: Involuntary turnover includes both movers and leavers, but
excludes those who go on to retire. Retirement includes involuntary
leavers.
Black teachers who left or moved were far less likely to cite personal life rea-
sons than teachers on average (see Table 2). While 30% of teachers, overall,
reported moving schools to be in a more convenient location, less than 15% of
Black women teachers did so (see Table 2). Similarly, about a third of all lea-
vers reported that personal or family reasons were very or extremely important
in their decision to leave, but less than 10% of Black women did. Instead Black
women teachers tended to cite specific issues with respect to their teaching con-
ditions that can be addressed by policy interventions, which can be a tool for
increasing Black teacher retention.
FACTORS AFFECTING BLACK TEACHER RETENTION
Below, we share findings for Black teachers based on each of the key factors
for turnover identified in the literature: compensation, school characteristics,
teacher preparation and experience, and working conditions.
Compensation
In our sample, average teacher salaries were not statistically or meaningfully dif-
ferent by race and gender, but Black women were more likely to report dissatis-
faction with their salary (65%) than other teachers were (just over 50%). Black
Table 2. Reasons for Leaving and Moving: Personal Reasons.
Very and Extremely Important
Reasons Teachers Report for Leaving
and Moving
Overall Mean
(Standard
Error)
Black Teachers
Mean (Standard
Error)
Black Woman
Teachers Mean
(Standard Error)
Reasons for Leaving
Location 9.83% 5.19% 4.71%
(1.81) (4.65) (5.10)
Personal & family reasons 33.48% 9.67% 9.85%
(4.69) (5.40) (5.99)
Reasons for Moving
Location 30.23% 14.48% 15.37%
(3.83) (4.91) (6.38)
Personal and family reasons 19.91% 9.47% 6.68%
(3.46) (4.17) (3.44)
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women and men earned about the same beginning salaries. Average Black teacher
beginning salaries, $38,933, were about $948 higher than beginning salaries for
other teachers (p¼0.0099), however this does not take into account cost of living
differences common in cities where Black teachers are over-represented, nor does
it take into account the comparability of teacher wages with those of other profes-
sions requiring similar hours and education. Black teachers were about twice as
likely to be teaching in cities compared to other teachers and were more than
twice as likely to teach in high-poverty, high-minority schools that face additional
challenges, which may contribute to salary dissatisfaction.
Teacher Preparation and Experience
Black women had about the same teacher experience distribution as all other
teachers (13.9 years of experience, on average, compared to 13.8 years for tea-
chers overall, with 12.9% of the sample being new teachers as compared to
11.3% overall).
However, Black women in their first year of teaching in 2012 were 3.5 times
more likely to have no student teaching experience than all other first-year tea-
chers (29.4% vs. 8.3%), a discrepancy driven by disproportionate entry through
alternative certification routes. Three in four Black women beginning teaching
with no student teaching experience were alternatively certified and nearly half
of newly hired Black teachers were certified through an alternative pathway
compared to just 22% of all other first-year teachers. First-year teachers who
entered teaching through an alternative certification program were less likely to
have completed student teaching and had fewer preparation classes.
Black first-year teachers were just as likely as first-year teachers on average
to report being offered induction and mentoring, but found their mentoring
experiences to be less effective (Fig. 5). About 63% of Black first-year teachers
reported being assigned a mentor who had taught the same subject as they
taught, slightly higher than the first-year teacher average of 57%. Similarly,
Black first-year teachers reported meeting with their mentor weekly slightly
lower rates as first-year teachers on average (44% and 46%, respectively). Only
56% of Black first-year teachers reported meeting with their mentor at least
once or twice a month, as compared to 66% of first-year teachers on average.
And, Black teachers were less than half as likely to report that their mentor
contributed to improving their teaching to a great degree (11.4% did compared
to 28% of all other teachers). This finding indicates that there may be differ-
ences in mentoring quality as well as frequency.
In addition to mentoring, teachers reported their participation in a series of
induction supports, including having a reduced schedule, common planning,
seminars, extra help, supportive communication, and ongoing mentoring. While
very few teachers reported receiving the most comprehensive induction package
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that includes each of those supports, Black women teachers were one-tenth as
likely to report receiving that set of supports as other teachers (0.26% vs. 2.6%).
Working Conditions
Black teachers cited different concerns with working conditions than teachers
on average (see Fig. 6). Black teachers were more likely to express dissatisfac-
tion with their salary (a key component of compensation), lack of resources,
worries about job security due to accountability measures, lack of classroom
autonomy, and lack of collegial support. Nearly twice as many Black teachers,
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
Participated in
induction
Participated in
mentoring
Met with mentor
at least weekly
Met with mentor
at least once or
twice a month
Mentor has
taught the
same subject
Mentor improved
teaching to a
great extent
Black, first-year teachers First-year teacher average
Fig. 5. Mentoring and Induction Experiences.
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
Lack of school influence
Lack of administrative support
Interferences on teaching time
Lack of parental support
Student behavior problems
Lack of collegial support
Lack of classroom autonomy
Test-related job insecurity
Lack of resources
Salary dissatisfaction
Non-Black teachers Black teachers
Fig. 6. Reports of Working Conditions (% of Teachers Who Report Agreeing
with Each Survey Statement).
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and Black female teachers, strongly disagree that the materials they need to
teach were readily available to them (e.g., textbooks, supplies, copy machines,
and so on). On the other hand, Black teachers were no more likely to cite dis-
satisfaction with student behavior problems, lack of parental support, interfer-
ences on teaching time, lack of administrative support, or lack of school
influence. In addition, Black teachers and non-Black teachers had similar class
sizes (25 and 26 students, respectively, p¼0.14).
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Black teachers occupy an important space in the teacher workforce, and policy
interventions designed to increase teacher retention can help increase the Black
teacher population. Policy interventions should address the particular reasons
Black teachers tend to leave the profession, as these differ in some specific ways
from the rest of the teacher population. Furthermore, policy interventions
should be long-term solutions, rather than quick-fixes that might exacerbate
shortages in the long run. Given the experiences of Black teachers, policy inter-
ventions should address compensation, teacher preparation and ongoing sup-
port, and school working conditions.
Create Compensation Packages That Make Living as a Teacher More
Affordable, Including Housing Supports and Childcare Supports
Black teachers were both more likely to report salary dissatisfaction and to
report that they could be brought back to the teaching profession with financial
incentives. Nearly 37.6% of Black teachers (and 37.9% of Black female tea-
chers) reported that they strongly disagree that they are satisfied with their sal-
ary (as compared to 26% of non-Black teachers) and over 65% of Black
teachers and Black female teachers strongly or somewhat disagreed that they
were satisfied with their salaries (as compared to 52% of non-Black teachers).
Black teacher leavers were also far more likely to report that the following
aspects of compensation would be very or extremely important to bringing
them back to the profession, compared to teachers overall: better salaries (52%
vs. 36%), loan forgiveness (49% vs. 13%), housing incentives (42% vs. 12%),
and the availability of childcare options (39% vs. 16%).
Support High-Retention Preparation Programs That Better Prepare and Support
Black Teachers to Have Successful, Lasting Careers in the Classroom
Black teachers were more likely than non-Black teachers to have entered the
teaching profession with little teacher preparation, often through an alternative
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certification pathway, which is associated with a much higher probability of
teacher turnover. This is likely a function of both the costs of training and the
opportunity costs of foregoing a salary while training.
According to Baum and O’Malley (2003),Blackundergraduateandgraduate
students are more likely than students of other racial or ethnic identities to report
that they wish they had borrowed less to fund their postsecondary education, that
they changed their career plans because of their loans, or that their loan payments
were burdensome. With fewer family assets in most Black families, student loan
debt is much greater for Black students than for White ones, and both the amount
of debt and the gap grow substantially over time (Scott-Clayton & Li, 2016)
States and districts should put the financial supports in place that allow pro-
spective teachers to receive the kind of high-quality training and support they
need to be successful in the classroom, without having to go into debt in order
to be well prepared. Research shows that when teachers have stronger training,
they have a greater sense of self-efficacy, and they are encouraged to continue
teaching for the long haul (Darling-Hammond, Chung, & Frelow, 2002;
DeAngelis, Wall, & Che, 2013;Yost, 2006).
Loan Forgiveness and Service Scholarships
According to Podolsky and Kini (2016), when loan forgiveness and service
scholarships are well-designed—providing enough of an incentive to offset
tuition costs and living expenses—they can be an effective tool for recruiting
and retaining teachers to high-need positions. They are especially effective at
recruiting teachers when they cover a greater proportion of tuition.
Promising models include the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program,
which produced very high retention rates in teaching for its high-ability
entrants by subsidizing all 4 years of college education, including teacher prepa-
ration, in exchange for 4 years of service in teaching (Henry, Bastian, & Smith,
2012), and the Woodrow Wilson-Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowship for
Aspiring Teachers of Color, which provides 3 years of mentoring and a $30,000
stipend to put toward a master’s degree in education, in exchange for a commit-
ment to teach in an urban or rural high-need school for 3 years. The Minority
Teachers of Illinois (MTI) Scholarship Program is much larger scale, but with
variable service requirements. It offers $5,000 scholarships to about 400 under-
graduate or graduate students of color each year who are interested in becom-
ing teachers. Students commit to teaching at least 1 year for each year that they
receive the MTI scholarship. More information is needed to determine the
effects on retention rates among teachers of color.
Teacher Residencies
Teacher residences provide another promising high-retention approach to prep-
aration of teachers of color. Teacher residencies are partnerships between dis-
tricts and universities designed to subsidize and improve teachers’ training to
176 DESIREE CARVER-THOMAS AND LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND
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teach in high-needs schools and in high-demand subject areas (Guha, Hyler, &
Darling-Hammond, 2016). There are at least 50 residency programs currently
operating around the country. Participants spend a year working closely as an
apprentice with a highly effective mentor teacher while doing related course-
work at a partnering university. During this time, residents receive financial
support, often in the form of a stipend and tuition assistance. After their year
of training, they commit to teaching an additional 3!4 years in their district,
with ongoing mentoring support, for a total of 4!5 years of teaching.
This model improves upon alternative certification programs in a few ways.
Teachers have extensive classroom experience with best practices in a high-needs
school before becoming solely responsible for their own class. This increases their
chances of success once they are classroom teachers and gives the residency pro-
gram an opportunity to assess resident performance before entrusting them with
students of their own. The service commitment has the dual effect of filtering out
candidates not willing to make a serious commitment to teach and ensures that
they continue to teach in high-needs schools as their effectiveness increases
(Wiswall, 2013). The residency model helps new teachers build strong relation-
ships, by clustering cohorts in university classes and school sites and by providing
ongoing mentoring and support once residents become teachers. Thus, residents
are able to collaborate and support one another through the challenges of being
beginning teachers (Guha, Hyler, & Darling-Hammond).
Nationally, about 49% of residents are people of color, which is the same pro-
portion of public school students of color and far exceeds the 18% of teachers who
are people of color nationally (Boston Teacher Residency, n.d.). Principals find
graduates of residency programs to be well prepared, and in many cases to be bet-
ter prepared than typical new teachers. In addition, a review of residency program
evaluations shows that residents tend to have higher retention rates over time than
nonresident teachers (Guha et al., 2016;seealsoNational Center for Teacher
Residencies, 2016;Solomon, 2009;Sloan & Blazevski, 2015). The San Francisco
Teacher Residency (SFTR) program, for example, focuses on recruiting teachers
in areas of high need, such as math, science, and bilingual education and two-
thirds of their residents are people of color. In an evaluation of the program, over
80% of graduates still taught in San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD)
after 5 years, compared to 38% of other teachers hired by SFUSD (Guha et al.,
2016; San Francisco Teacher Residency & DataUse Consulting Group, n.d.).
Support Ongoing Development of Black Teachers through High-Quality
Mentoring and Induction, Improved Working Conditions, and Opportunities for
Career Development
Mentoring and Induction
While beginning Black teachers are just about as likely to report being offered
mentoring and induction support as non-Black teachers, they are only half as
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likely to report that their mentor greatly improved their teaching and about a
tenth as likely to have received the most comprehensive induction package. In a
review of the impact of mentoring and induction on first-year teacher outcomes,
Ingersoll and Strong (2011) find that induction programs have a positive relation-
ship with teacher retention and commitment to continue teaching. In particular,
they find that teachers who participated in the most comprehensive induction
programs, which involved multiple forms of support, were far more likely to
report having a positive first-year teaching experience and were far more likely to
continue teaching and to stay at the same school. As we noted earlier, Black tea-
chers were one-tenth as likely to experience these combinations of supports.
The New Teacher Center (NTC) offers one model for improving the quality
of mentorship by training experienced teachers to become high-quality mentors
and providing tools and dedicated time for them to mentor new teachers. An
evaluation of their model in Broward County Public Schools (BCPS), Chicago
Public Schools, and Grant Wood Area Education Agency, found that NTC
supported teachers were more likely than a control group to be assigned a men-
tor (90% vs. 52%) and met their mentor with much greater frequency (75% vs.
16%). More importantly, NTC supported teachers were more likely to report
that the time they spent with their mentor was used for high-quality activities,
including for observation and feedback (57% vs. 9%), to discuss the strengths
and needs of students (55% vs. 18%), to discuss instructional issues (50% vs.
20%), and to develop a professional growth plan (42% vs. 9%) (Picucci,
2016a). An initial analysis of the impact of the NTC model on teacher retention
found that 86% of teachers receiving NTC support continued teaching in their
district compared to 80% of teacher receiving traditional support (Picucci,
2016b). While these data do not address outcomes for Black teachers specifi-
cally, both CPS and BCPS are racially diverse districts with about 40% Black
students and over 20% Black teachers in each.
Improved Working Conditions through Better Prepared Principals
Even if teachers are prepared for the challenges of teaching, poor working con-
ditions can drive them to other schools or out of the profession entirely. The
most frequently cited reason for moving schools among Black teachers is dissat-
isfaction with administration (Appendix B). School administrators are tasked
with making hiring decisions, being instructional leaders, setting norms for stu-
dents and staff, nurturing a positive and encouraging culture, keeping school-
wide systems running smoothly, and more. When they are not able to do those
things well, it has consequences for teachers and students that make it difficult
for teachers to stay. Poor school leadership more than doubles the likelihood
that teachers will move or leave their classrooms and schools. Effective school
leaders, on the other hand, can help keep teachers in their classrooms and
improve the chances that students will have access to high-quality educators
and learn at higher levels.
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The 2015 Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (formerly
Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) Standards) provide a
research-based summary of the skills school leaders need: the abilities to
develop and enact a school-wide vision; act ethically and professionally; create
an equitable, culturally responsive environment; develop a rigorous and coher-
ent academic program; cultivate a caring school environment; provide relevant
and effective professional development and leadership opportunities for all staff
members; foster a professional community; engage families meaningfully; and
manage school operations effectively (Darling-Hammond, LaPointe, Meyerson,
Orr, & Cohen, 2007;National Policy Board for Educational Administration,
2015. For a comprehensive description of the research basis for leadership stan-
dards, see Taylor, Tucker, & Pounder, 2012).
Unfortunately, many school leadership-training programs do not prepare
principals to be effective in all of those roles. A 2005 study of school adminis-
trator training programs found that these programs were among the weakest
US education school programs (Levine, 2005, see also Fry, Bottoms, & O’Neill,
2005). Clinical training requirements, for example, varied considerably between
programs with some requiring as few as 45 hours at a school site and others
requiring as many as 300, while the actual assessment of their clinical work was
lax. Many prospective principals report that their coursework fails to prepare
them for the realities of leading a school and that some programs face barriers
to providing meaningful clinical and mentorship experiences (The Wallace
Foundation [Wallace], 2016). Some researchers recommend that states influence
changes in university schools of education through accreditation and licensure,
so that they restructure their leadership programs to have more rigorous admis-
sion and graduation requirements, to offer more relevant coursework, and to
organize practical internships for prospective principals (Darling-Hammond
et al., 2007; Wallace, 2016).
The Promise of University-District Partnerships
Progress in training effective school principals has been made by some univer-
sity-district partnerships, which actively recruit talented future administrators,
and especially those who have demonstrated a commitment to working in hard-
to-staff schools.
The nationally recognized educational leader cohort program at Delta State
University (DSU) in the Mississippi Delta, for example, partners with local
school districts to recruit excellent teachers with strong school leadership poten-
tial (LaPointe, Davis, & Cohen, 2007). Half of their recruits each year are
African-American. Most of these teachers have been working in the Delta—a
mostly rural region plagued by poverty and racial segregation—and they have
braved a demanding selection process to be nominated for the program by their
district. With state, federal, district, and university funding, DSU is able to
fund their full-time paid internships at school sites. This joint investment of
179Why Black Women Teachers Leave
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funds allows well-qualified candidates to participate regardless of their financial
means. According to DSU, 85% of all their graduates since the program began
in 1998 are currently holding administrative positions in Delta schools and dis-
tricts (Delta State University [DSU], 2016). While not perfectly comparable,
5
the school leader placement rate in over 60 Texas principal preparation pro-
grams was about 60% over 5 years (Fuller & Hollingworth, 2014). In one
California preparation program, the placement rate was just 38% over 5 years
(Adams, 1999). It is clear that DSU is able to recruit candidates who are com-
mitted to being leaders in a hard-to-staff region, while some programs struggle
to recruit and train candidates who will become administrators at all.
The Chicago Leadership Collaborative and the Bank Street Principals
Institute in New York City have similar models, with the addition of ongoing
mentorship and support (Wallace, 2016). In fact, DSU recently received a fed-
eral grant, in part, to add ongoing support for new principals once they are
hired as well (DSU, 2016). While successful university-district partnerships
offer models and strategies to aspire to, there is no guarantee that they will
scale on their own or that the quality of every program will truly be a departure
from business as usual (Hess & Kelly, 2005)
The Power of State Accreditation and Licensure Standards
State standards can leverage universities to take action where they might other-
wise be reticent to do so. In Iowa, for example, changes to principal licensure
requirements and principal preparation approval led to significant changes in
principal preparation programs and greater uniformity across programs
(Hackmann & Wanat, 2007). Due to the new standards, five preparation pro-
grams terminated their programs while five were approved by the state.
Approved programs developed conceptual frameworks and cohort models,
required significantly greater clinical hours than they had before (360!400
hours), and had greater consistency in coursework across programs. The 2015
Report on the State of Educator Preparation in Iowa found that the vast
majority of newly trained principals in the state felt they performed well or very
well in each of the principal standards. Even more telling, superintendents rated
new principal performance similarly (Iowa Department of Education, 2015).
Similar strategies for sunsetting programs and requiring them to meet new
standards led to much stronger and better-rated programs in Mississippi and
New York, as well (Darling-Hammond et al., 2007). These strategies need to take
into account the skills that will allow principals to support teaching and teachers,
as well as to develop equitable learning environments that support diverse lear-
ners. State principal preparation and licensure regulations ultimately play a sig-
nificant role in shaping the content and format of principal preparation programs
and can help ensure that they are held to a standard of excellence. These regula-
tory strategies could help improve Black teacher retention by requiring that pro-
gram participants have clinical experiences in schools with diverse students and
180 DESIREE CARVER-THOMAS AND LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND
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staff and learn to create collaborative, supportive work environments for the tea-
chers they work with. In the program accreditation process, states can require
that programs survey graduates on how well prepared they felt to handle each of
the duties, including supporting a diverse staff.
CONCLUSION
Previous research on teacher retention and the retention of teachers of color,
while instructive, misses some of the key factors associated with Black teacher
attrition and turnover. This study, with a focus on Black teachers and Black
women in the field, reveals that policymakers should take note of the striking
rate at which Black teachers are involuntarily pushed out of their schools and
out of the profession entirely. Involuntary movers and leavers make up a siz-
able share of all Black teacher turnover (about a third), and would benefit from
further investigation.
In addition, the data suggest that policymakers should take special care to
develop interventions that create competitive compensation packages, improve
subsidized, high-quality preparation pathways and mentoring, and enable prin-
cipals to create supportive professional teaching conditions that can help retain
Black female teachers if they want to ensure that our schools reflect the rich
diversity of our country.
NOTES
1. The NCES Handbook of Survey Methods includes a thorough discussion of the
survey methods used to produce the SASS and TFS data (Burns, Wang, & Henning, 2011).
2. For more information, please refer to Documentation to the NCES Common Core
of Data Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey: School Year 2009!2010
(NCES 2008-332).
3. The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures the labor force as those 16 years of age or
older, employed or looking for work.
4. Here we refer to data for the “black alone” population, which the US Census
defines as those who marked only the “Black or African American” category option on
the 2010 Census.
5. These rates were calculated in different time spans and in locations that might have
experienced different employment opportunities.
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