Poster #66 - Decomposing the Drivers of Teacher Demographic Shifts by Race/Ethnicity Over Five Decades

• In Event: Saturday Poster Luncheon

Abstract

The lack of racial diversity in the teacher workforce remains a significant concern in education, prompting several policy efforts. Despite its significance, empirical research exploring the underlying demographic factors shaping the racial/ethnic composition of the teacher workforce was sparse, especially in the context of population shifts. To fill this gap, we decomposed the changes in racial/ethnic composition of the teacher workforce over the past five decades into three primary factors: (1) changes in the racial composition of the overall population, (2) changes in college degree attainment rates by race/ethnicity, and (3) changes in teacher workforce entry rates by race using the decennial census and American Community Survey (ACS) 1970–2022.

We found that the US teacher workforce has gradually diversified, with the percentage of minority teachers increasing from 9% in 1970 to 30% in 2022. Our decomposition analysis reveals that the strongest driver of this change was the growth of minority population, accounting for over 85% of the total change between 1970 and 2022. In the absence of this demographic shift, minority teachers would have constituted only 9% of the workforce, rather than the observed 31%. This underscores the importance of considering demographic population trends in the design and evaluation of teacher workforce policies, that often ignore the strong “denominator effects” (Rowland, 2003).

That said, improvements in college degree attainment rates among students from minoritized backgrounds, which has often been the focus of higher education policies, has contributed positively to the diversification of the teacher workforce. However, we found that changes in teacher workforce entry rates have worked against minority representation, particularly among Black teachers from 1970 to 1990. This decline may be linked to the mass firing of Black teachers after the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Jackson, 2009; Thompson, 2022) and the expanding array of alternative job opportunities for women and minoritized populations after the civil rights and women’s rights movements (Bacolod, 2007; Hoxby & Leigh, 2004; Kraft & Lyon, 2024). Simultaneously, the decreased attraction of teaching as a profession might also be tied to the growing availability of higher-paying jobs for college graduates of color, compared to the more limited opportunities of previous decades.

Our projections indicate that, without improvements in college access and workforce entry, the existing disparity between the teacher workforce and the student body is likely to persist. However, our findings also highlight that if we equalize access to (and success in) college degrees for all racial groups, we can significantly enhance minority teacher representation, potentially bringing it close to full parity. This improvement is primarily because college degree attainment rates drive the overall composition of the teacher candidate pool. If this pool is not expanded to include minority populations, the impact of workforce entry will remain comparatively limited when it comes to diversifying the teacher workforce.

Author

• Jilli Jung, Stanford University
  Presenting Author