By Jessica Washington
If you’ve been doom-scrolling since the start of the year, you probably missed this tidbit of good news. Earlier this month, the Department of Education granted $18 million to teaching programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other predominantly minority-serving institutions.
The money could not have come at a better time. Even though 15 percent of K-12 students are Black, only 7 percent of teachers are Black.
And that’s a shame because the benefits of Black students having a Black teacher are widely documented.
One working paper from the National Bureau of economic research found that Black students who have one Black teacher by third grade were 13 percent more likely to enroll in college. What’s more, if a Black student has two Black teachers by third grade, they were 32 percent more likely to enroll in college.
The choice to single out HBCUs as a way to close the racial gap in teaching is smart. Nearly half of all Black teachers attended an HBCU. And the evidence suggests that HBCU graduates are uniquely good at getting the best out of Black students.
A recent North Carolina study found that Black students performed better in math when they had a teacher who attended an HBCU than white or Black non-HBCU graduates.
The study also found that Black boys were less likely to be suspended when they had HBCU-trained teachers.
The report argued that the training teachers receive at HBCUs could account for these improvements in students’ academic success as well as the amount of discipline they receive.
The money from the Biden administration could bring more of these teachers into the fold. It definitely won’t be enough funding to bridge the racial teaching gap. (The grant money is only going to 12 minority-serving schools).
But it could be the start of more investments in teachers who attend historically Black schools. And if the data about the benefits of HBCU-trained teachers holds up, that’s definitely a good thing.
