EDUCATION Black Teachers Are Fed Up — and They’re Quitting in Droves

By Maya Pottiger Word in Black

Monise Seward is a middle school math teacher in Metro Indianapolis. She’s worked in schools for the last nine years, but has been in the field of education for a long time, including homeschooling her children.

And, thanks to her Twitter following of 17,000, she has a front row seat to the industry’s changing landscape. Through her online community, Seward has seen teachers quitting throughout the school year, even posting that they are resigning a month before the end of the academic year.

In its 2021 State of the U.S. Teacher Survey, RAND Corporation researchers found that about half of Black teachers reported they were “likely” to leave their jobs by the end of the school year, which was higher than other races.

As with so many aspects of life, Black adults serve multiple roles in schools — and not all of them are visible. Children of color are, widely, more academically successful when they have a Black principal, and that success continues down the ladder. Black students who learned from a Black teacher in elementary school are more likely to graduate from high school and enroll in college — 13% more likely if they had one Black teacher, and more than double that at 32% if they had at least two.

Overall, the RAND survey found a lot of job-related stress among teachers. The percentage of teachers who reported “frequent job-related stress and symptoms of depression” was much higher than the general adult population. And, the survey found, the main stressors were the mode of instruction and their health. Teachers described experiencing depressive symptoms and burnout.

To help address and alleviate those problems, districts and school leaders need to find a way of understanding what teachers want to see in their jobs and what causes them stress, like interacting with parents, not having enough substitutes or the right curriculum.

Not only has the pandemic taken a huge toll on our mental health, but it’s also highlighted the importance of having mental health resources. Yet public schools often don’t have a full staff of counselors, social workers, or mental health professionals. And, Seward points out, mental health doesn’t stop when school lets out at 3:30. On her current salary, she doesn’t make enough to pay for therapy.

On average, Black educators are paid less than their white colleagues — they’re the racial group least likely to earn more than $15 an hour — and have higher student loan debt. Plus, there’s the workplace culture with discrimination, hostility, and feelings of isolation, or being given more responsibilities as the representatives of their race. A Donors Choose survey found that more than 30% of Black teachers were tasked with disciplining students of color, teaching their school communities about racism, and serving as the liaison between the school and families of color.

Seward says she doesn’t think most people would believe what a public school looks like on a typical day. Teachers are still spending their own money on classroom supplies. They’re still working off the clock. Seward has even cut back on her water consumption because, since she can’t leave a classroom unattended, she can’t go to the bathroom when she needs to.

Whether it’s from students, parents, school staff, or policymakers, teachers are looking for one thing: respect. The respect they’re seeking comes in many forms: compensation, public policy, and accountability. She also says the task of fixing public education also shouldn’t fall on teachers, who weren’t the ones to break it.

The teacher shortage has been around for the better part of a decade, but it was exacerbated by the pandemic, Ingram says. And it stems from not having enough college graduates who are choosing teaching as a career. The numbers are “abysmally low,” Ingram says, so people can expect to see fewer Black teachers this upcoming school year.

To help reverse this, Ingram says kids need to start being encour- to collect all the tax dollars due from someone engaged in some other form of tax evasion. Seventy percent of IRS audits happen through the mail, and 50% involve EITC claimants.

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Finally, the team wondered if the racial disparity in audits springs from IRS and congressional concerns about refundable tax credits, including the EITC and several others. When someone claims one of these social security tax credits, they receive a refund even if they did not pay any taxes. And some in government think it’s more important to avoid paying money to someone who claims it inappropriately than

“Even holding fixed how many audits are devoted to EITC claimants who report business income, we still observe racial disparities,” Elzayn said.

The study’s authors have not made any formal recommendations for making the IRS audit selection algorithm more just. Instead, they have written about the possible effects of alternative policies. This allows the IRS to reduce the racial aged to join the profession in middle school, and young African American men and women need to be taught that teaching is still a noble profession. impact of its system of choosing auditors.

Half of Black teachers graduate from HBCUs, Ingram says, so those schools need funding for their education programs. This, he thinks, will help boost the number of Black educators.

Maya Pottiger is a data journalist for Word in Black. Read the full article at www.sdvoice.info.

Before Biden signed the Racial Justice Executive Order that engendered this research project, the IRS needed more impetus and the ability to do that. Now that they know the equity implications of how they select audits, Ho hopes they will tweak their confidential audit selection algorithm.

“Racial disparities in income are well known, and what the IRS chooses to focus on has big implications for whether audits complement, or undercut, a progressive tax system,” Ho said.