The Role of HBCUs in the Preparation of Teachers

Vinetta C. Jones, Ph.D. Howard University

Strengthening Teacher Education in Mathematics at

Historically Black Colleges and Universities

QUALITY EDUCATION FOR MINORITIES (QEM) NETWORK

Jackson State UniversityAugust 28-29, 2009

American Education at a Crossroad

• One of the biggest challenges this nation faces at the beginning of this new millennium is helping ALL students reach the high standards needed to be able to successfully live, learn, work, communicate, compete and be productive citizens in the highly technological, global community of the 21st century.

American Education in Crisis

• Teacher shortages---• the shortages occur disproportionately in

schools heavily populated by African American and Hispanic students.

• There are huge achievement gaps between African American and Hispanic students vs. white students. The gap widens as students progress from K-12th grades.

American Education in Crisis

• The students least well served by American education are the fastest growing part of our population-----African American and Hispanic.

• The student population is increasingly students of color, while the teaching population is increasingly white and from backgrounds where they have little interaction with anyone different from themselves.

• Fewer than 8% of teachers are African American and the number is dwindling.

Context

• Large numbers of these African American teachers are expected to retire within the next five years while reduced numbers of African Americans are entering the teaching field each year.

Context

• “…many African American students will complete their K-12 schooling without having been taught by a single African American teacher.” Jacqueline Jordan Irvine, “Why We Need African American Teachers”, 2001.

American Education in Crisis• Teacher education programs in most predominantly

white institutions do not adequately prepare teachers and administrators for diverse student populations.

• As the number of African American teachers dwindles so does the pool of potential African American principals and other administrators, including superintendents.

• There are significant inequalities in the allocation of resources for education, including qualified teachers. There is a recurring pattern of placing the most inexperienced, least qualified teachers in schools with the most challenges.

•Since the historic Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) U.S. Supreme court decision, one problem that has continued to plague the field of educationis the lack of African American teachers in United States (U.S.) public schools.

The educational community has come to a consensus in recommending that more African Americans are needed to deliver “culturally relevant pedagogy” (Ladson-Billings, 1994)

C.W.Lewis, 2004

. According to Gordon (2000), reasonsinclude:

• the continued low academic performance of students of color (Dentzer & Wheelock, 1990; Ford & Moore, 2004; Moore & Pachon, 1985);

• the inability and/or the unwillingness of middle-class teachers to teach low-income children of color (Book, Byers, & Freeman, 1983);

• the need for all children to gain knowledge from a multiethnic teaching force (Banks & Banks, 1989);

C.W.Lewis, 2004

. According to Gordon (2000), reasonsinclude:

• the high cost of prisons and welfare (Doston & Bolden, 1991);

• “the desire for a more honest representation in the

curriculum of the diversity of ideas and skills that have contributed to the development of America” (Dotson & Bolden, 1991, p. 11).

C.W.Lewis, 2004

The Context

Meier Steward and England (1989) study found that “…in school districts with large populations of African American teachers:– Fewer African American students were placed in special

education classes;– Fewer African Americans received corporal punishment;– Fewer African Americans were suspended or expelled;– More African Americans were placed in gifted and

talented programs, and – More African Americans graduated from high school.”

(in Irvine, 2001)C.W.Lewis, 2004

C.W.Lewis, 2004 12Thanks to Dan Losen, Harvard Civil Rights Project, for use of this graph.

Black, Hispanic, and White Underrepresentation and

Overrepresentation by Gifted, Mental Retardation, and Suspensions

17

8

33 33

159 10

15

63

76

5450

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Black Hispanic White

%Enroll%Gifted

% MR

%Susp.

U.S. Department of Education – Office For Civil Rights: 1998 Elementary and Secondary School Civil Rights Compliance Report: National Projections – August 2000.

U.S. Department of Education – Office For Civil Rights: 1998 Elementary and Secondary School Civil Rights Compliance Report: National Projections – August 2000.

The Problem

. Over the years, since the historic BROWN

decision, scholars (Mercer & Mercer, 1986)have noted that “[operating] a public school

system without African American teachers is [like teaching] White supremacy without

saying a word” (p.105).

C.W.Lewis, 2004

Role of HBCUs

• In the 1950s and 1960s, African American pre-service teachers enrolled in teacher preparation programs at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in record numbers because of the lack of opportunity in other fields of study (Clem, 1986).

C.W.Lewis, 2004

Role of HBCUs

• In 1954, the year of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, approximately 82,000 African American teachers were responsible for the education of the nation’s two million African American public school students (Hawkins, 1994)

C.W.Lewis, 2004

HBCUs

• After graduation, many African American

teaching graduates went back into their communities to serve the educational and social needs for the next generation of African American students.

• Historically, African Americans served not only as teachers but also as counselors, role

models, and spiritual leaders (Clem, 1986).C.W.Lewis, 2004

Role of HBCUs

…a decade after Brown, over 38,000

African American teachers, school counselors, and administrators lost their positions in 17 southern and border states because of integration and other ramifications of the Brown decision (Ethridge, 1979; Holmes, 1990; Tillman, 2004).

C.W.Lewis, 2004

The Role of HBCUs

• Approximately one third of African American teachers graduate from HBCUs (today).

• Because of this fact, HBCUs are uniquely poised to lead the nation in designing and implementing programs that produce African American teachers.

Freeman (2001),

18C.W.Lewis, 2004

American Education in Crisis

• The future of our nation is inextricably tied to an educated population that can contribute to the labor force and the economy, as well as to the national well-being.

• The future of our nation---politically, socially and economically---depends on whether it is able to successfully address the issue of diversity and rapidly changing demographics.

American Education in Crisis

• Education will determine the kind of world we live in.

• The issue is domestic tranquility as well as international relations.

The Role of HBCUs

• HBCUs have produced almost 50% of all African American teachers in the past.

• Many of these teachers have become principals, and other district administrators including superintendents.

• Educators prepared at HBCUs have been equipped to teach diverse populations

Challenges Facing HBCU Teacher Education Programs

• Impact of Title II testing requirements• Successfully addressing PRAXIS I and II.• Successfully meeting the new NCATE

accreditation standards --- requires 80% pass rate on PRAXIS

• Working relationship an d shared responsibilities for teacher preparation between HBCU Schools/Departments of Education and Colleges of Arts and Science.

• Enrollments

Challenges Facing HBCU Teacher Education Programs

• Lack of support and priority for teacher education across campus in some places.

• Lack of recognition that all programs at HBCUs are ultimately dependent, for an adequate supply of well prepared students, on the production of well qualified K-12 teachers who hold high expectations, standards and levels of encouragement and support for African American students.

Title II:

• What are the Challenges for Teacher Education Programs at HBCUs?

The State

•Identifies the assessment to be used to determine quality of preparation (e.g. PRAXIS I & II).

•Determines cut-off scores for passing

•Collects report cards for IHEs in the state containing various information describing the programs, their missions, and indicators of success but rank orders IHE teacher preparation on one variable ONLY-----

the state assessment score.

.

The Title II ReportThe stated purpose of the report is:

•To improve the quality of teaching

•To inform the public about:–Teacher preparation

–State requirements for teaching

–Standards for the teaching profession

The Problem

• The quality of teacher preparation is operationalized as a single factor, scores on a standardized/ high stakes test------PRAXIS I & II. in many states.

•Pass rates are calculated only on the basis of initial certification tests used by the state in which the IHE is located. Many IHEs experience their best students moving to other states after graduating.

The Problem

• Cut-off scores and quartile rankings very drastically from state to state. An 86% pass rate in some states could land it in the bottom quartile, while it would be classified much higher in other states.

• Some IHEs circumvent the assessment of the quality of their teacher preparation programs by requiring passage of the state assessment to enter and/or to graduate from the program. This method assures 100% pass rates but bars many potentially good teachers from entering the field

The Problem• Such important issues as providing culturally

relevant pedagogy and high expectations as powerful predicators of student achievement in diverse populations are lost in this whole assessment

system

• It is possible for an IHE in an urban setting which never requires its students preparing to be teachers to set foot in an urban school, to rank in the top quartile by accepting only students who score well on standardized tests.

The Problem• Violation of standards for appropriate test use---

i.e., use of a single assessment to make high stakes decisions

• Lack of adequate research linking performance on state assessments to teacher effectiveness and student achievement in the classroom with diverse populations

• Adverse impact on HBCUs and the shrinking number of teachers of color in particular

The Problem

• Though HBCUs produced 50% in the past and now produce over one third of African American teachers, many may be forced out of the teacher preparation arena at a time of critical shortages in schools serving African American students

Impact on HBCUs at the Turn of the 21st Century

• There were 108 HBCUs

• Sixty-one (61) reported Title II 1999-2000 data (Others had less than 10 completers or no education program)

Impact on HBCUs

• Number of HBCUs in Quartile I =23 (38%)

• Number of HBCUs in Quartile II= 1 (.01%)

• Number of HBCUs in Quartile III= 8 (13%)

• Number of HBCUs in Quartile IV=29 (48%)

• 61% of HBCUs reporting were in Quartile III or IV

Recommendations to National Policymakers

• If the gaps are to be closed and we are to make progress toward leaving no child behind, policy makers must:– Increase their level of knowledge about the students

that HBCUs serve, and the contributions that they make to supplying a diverse teaching population committed to critical K-12 shortage areas.

– Involve in the decision-making and consultative process those who have firsthand knowledge of the technical assistance and support that will be needed to stem the tide of the shrinking number of African American teachers.

– .

Recommendations to National Policymakers

– Build in the technical assistance and resources needed for those institutions which serve students who enter college under prepared by their K-12 backgrounds, but who have the ability and commitment to become excellent teachers when given needed support.

– Make sure in their decisions and actions that

HBCUs are considered an integral part of the higher education process.

We cannot afford not to win this one. The stakes are too high. Our children are dying, some a physical death, but

many more a spiritual death that comes from a crushed spirit as reflected in this

passage from the writings of Toni Morrison….. Our children are

depending on us to, in the words of Marian Wright Edelman, “Leave no

child behind.”

Education is still the last, best hope, separating haves from have-nots in

America.