Is there a relationship between racial composition of school teaching staff and student engagement, student trust in teachers, and student achievement? an examination of schools in an urban district

Abstract

Achievement gaps, which are disparities in academic performance and educational attainment based on racial and socioeconomic factors, have continued to get worse. Various causes for these gaps are poverty, ineffective teaching, unequal educational opportunities, and biased testing. The “Coleman Report" revealed a significant achievement gap between African-American and White students and suggested that racially and socioeconomically diverse schools could be a solution. There is growing awareness of the benefits of teacher diversity and having same-race teachers, particularly for students of color. Yet, most of the existing research has primarily focused on the micro-level of this phenomenon, examining dyadic matches (and mismatches) between the race of teacher and student and their relationship to a host of student outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations of the diversity of a teaching corps within a school to overall school-level student engagement, student trust, and student achievement in a high-poverty district with over 70 schools, 2,000 teachers, and 30,000 students. The interplay between racial composition of school teaching staff and student body racial composition was examined and, given the limited findings, also reported the results of more specific teacher/student racial alignment data at the school level, with a particular focus on black-black racial alignment indices and their relationship to student outcomes. Overall findings demonstrate limited evidence of effects with respect to racial composition of school teaching staff, student trust in teachers, and achievement. However, a positive effect was found for racial composition of school teaching staff and student engagement. All examined relationships were not found to be moderated by student body racial composition. However, deeper analysis revealed that Black teacher/student alignment index, measured as the product of the proportion of Black teachers in a school and the proportion of Black students was positively related to reading and math achievement and these effects were large.