Losing Recipes: Black Teacher Displacement and the Long Shadow of Desegregation

• In Event: New Evidence on Teacher Recruitment and Workforce Diversity

Abstract

Between the 1960s and early 1980s, thousands of Black teachers were displaced as schools desegregated under federal court orders. Did displacement then shape who teaches now? I assemble a new database of desegregation-era school closings and district records of teacher employment by race, and I use a stacked difference-in-differences design that compares districts that came under court orders with districts that did not. After an order, Black schools, where most Black teachers taught, were 10 percentage points more likely than White schools in the same district to close. Districts that closed more Black schools lost more Black teachers and tilted hiring away from them. The loss persisted: 40+ years later, the Black share of teachers in ordered counties is about a third lower than it would have been without an order. This impacted would-be entrants, as young Black women college graduates in ordered counties fell 5 to 7 percentiles in their state's earnings distribution. Desegregation also contracted the teacher pipeline. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), which played a prominent role in training Black teachers, that were exposed to desegregation orders graduated fewer teacher education graduates for decades. Districts that closed more Black schools also lost the Black principals who hire Black teachers. The episode is a case of hysteresis: a temporary demand shock permanently lowered the supply of Black teachers by disrupting the institutions that trained and recruited them.

Author

• Lavar Edmonds, Stanford University
  Presenting Author