Findings from a recent Mn BOT study on Minnesota Teachers

Jim Robinson shared this article from the Star Tribune: State can learn much from new study on teachers.

The article includes critical information about current teacher/student diversity statistics:
·         Of 58,000 teachers in MN, only 4% are people of color
·         Of 830,00 students,  25% are students of color
·         The population of minority students grows about 1% each year

The article also points out areas where there are shortages of qualified teachers:
·         School psychologists
·         Middle/High school math, chemistry, and physics
·         Special education
·         English as a second language

As a P-12 and higher education partnership, it is especially critical to reach out to students of color who have considered teaching, and educate all students about positions which are currently experiencing shortages.

Teacher Diversity in MN

Jim Robinson shared this article from Minn Post: Minnesota’s increasingly diverse students need a more diverse teacher corps.

The article points out some interesting statistics regarding Minnesota’s growing diversity:

·      Teachers in Minnesota, on average, are caucasion (over 95% on average)

·      As of Fall 2014, the majority of children in US schools were expected to be non-white

·      By 2050, it is expected that 34% of US schoolchildren will be immigrants, or children of immigrants

Why is this important?

·      Research has shown that teachers of color have a positive and significant impact on students of color – including improving academic achievement.

TPI is focused not only on recruiting, preparing and supporting an increased number of teachers of color, but also improving the cultural competence of all of our teacher candidates. 

How can we do a better job as a partnership between higher education and P-12 to encourage students of color to become teachers?  To increase our teacher candidates and veteran teachers/faculty members cultural competence?

Learning from the Experiences of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HCBUs)

Learning from the Experiences of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HCBUs)

John Hoover

On October 9 I attended a conference in St. Paul entitled Learning and teaching with fire and subtitled Lessons from HCBUs & tribal colleges. The conference was jointly sponsored by Grotto, Target, General Mills, the Cargill Foundation, the United Negro College Fund, the African American Leadership Forum, MIGIZI Communications, St. Paul Indians in Action, and the Center for School Change. The latter organization organized the conference, held at the Wellstone Center in St. Paul.

While all of the conference presentations were excellently informative, in this posting I want to stress the factors from HCBUs that statistically related to the success of African American students from low SES backgrounds. Among these young people, the historically-black universities succeed at rates higher than all other types of institutions except for the most prestigious universities (e.g., Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Cal et al.). 

I wanted to take the approach of pulling apart these findings because both of the morning speakers persuasively argued that there are lessons to be learned from their experiences with implications for secondary and post-secondary schools in Minnesota. I have organized the remainder of the blog entry as a table, with a brief statement of the main points occupying a column, an expansion of the topic in the middle, and references at the end that readers might find useful in their own readings.

The information in this posting was provided by the following experts:

·       Dr. Brian K. Bridges, Vice President of Researcher, and Member Engagement Coordinator, United Negro College Fund

·       Dr. Ivory Toldson, Deputy Director, White House Initiative on HCBUs

Table 1. Findings re HCBUs with implications for SCSU and partner districts.                                     

Finding	Expansion on Principles	References & Resources
HCBUs are extremely successful at retaining African American students	When one controls for SES and high school quality indicators, HCBUs are as successfully retain and graduate African American students, particularly Black males, at rates higher than nearly all other U.S. Institutions. This is true especially in STEM domains; enrolling only about 20% of AA college students, they issue 16% of baccalaureate degrees, while producing 40% of STEM degrees; they train about half of Black teachers, and are among the top 20% of American institutions at sending students on to STEM advanced degrees.	Changing Face of HCBUs See a summary of Bridges’s remarks here Bridges publication 1

Finding	Expansion on Principles/ Implication for SCSU and the Partnership	References & Resources
Relationships, relationships, & more relationships	Research has shown that at HCBUs higher rates and intensities of student-faculty interactions and mentoring occur. These differences have been shown to correspond to the decisions of students to remain in college and to complete degrees. HCBUs hire faculty members with very high expectations regarding the time that they will spend individually with students.	Relations with faculty as social capital Bridges et al. : Piecing together the student success puzzle
Employ intrusive or protective advising	Bridges demonstrated that faculty members participate in what might be called intrusive advising, taking personal responsibility for the success of individual students. While appreciative advising is clearly goal-directed, it also extends to personal relationships with students. Faculty members “intrude” into advisees personal lives more frequently and more intensely than is true at traditional universities. This practice is associated with candidate success.	Bridges et al. : Piecing together the student success puzzle Bridges publication 1 Definitions The appreciative advising revolution (Book)
Promotion of engagement based on culture	Faculty members at HCBUs are expected to remain aware of African American culture and to bring this knowledge differentially to bear on instruction and advising (see intrusive advising above). Several examples from secondary schools could be benchmarked by partner districts including Chicago’s Urban Preparatory Academies, and Knowledge is Power Programs, both of which have successfully build programs around African American cultural patterns. Another often-repeated phrase regarding planning with cultures was “do with us, not to us.” One suspected reason for the relative success of HCBUs was that they build environments where African American students feel supported and comfortable. Can traditional secondary schools and post-secondary institutions create these structures? Both speakers thought this possible—by benchmarking the HCBU practices!	http://www.kipp.org/ http://www.urbanprep.org/ Lessons from HCBUs (2001) Why HCBUs are still important
Moving up by setting high standards and goals	Programs demonstrating the most success with African American boys stress goal setting. For HCBUs, this means expressing frequent and intense expectations for attending graduate school. For secondary schools, this means the same: the communication of intense expectations for college attendance and preparing students and parents by systematically passing along “college knowledge.” Research has shown that high expectations and goal setting for the future produce increments in current performance among all students. Both speakers stressed that better preparation for college is a need in urban high schools in the U.S. This means, for example, more enrollment in college preparatory courses, advanced placement, international baccalaureate, and foreign language courses.	Secretary of Education on HCBUs (2013)
STOP using STEM courses to weed out students RIGHT NOW	Professors at HCBUs do not see mathematics and science courses as ways to weed out students, while Toldson argued that at many traditional universities STEM courses are seen as excessively difficult and as ways to weed students out of high-prestige fields. This has to end if we want to retain students from low SES backgrounds. Since students from HCBUs succeed in graduate schools, this approach has worked. Better teaching and more support, better teaching and more support, better teaching and more support!!!	General comments on STEM: Energy department HCBU partnership

Anyone with an interest in expanding on this conversation, please let me know!

Recruiting More Diverse Teachers

Jim Robinson, TESL Professor and Facilitator of the Prepare Working Group at St. Cloud State University, shared the following article regarding the changing student population in both our nation and in Minnesota. We will be highlighting many articles over the next few weeks that focus on the achievement gap, diversity, and teaching approaches that work for ALL students. 

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/07/31/minnesota-school-diverse-staff

Article highlights:

*  Nearly 30% of Minnesota’s students are children of color.

* As Minnesota becomes more diverse, schools are facing a shortage of teachers of color.

* Fewer non-white students go on to higher education and even fewer get a degree in education.

* In Minnesota, school districts are trying to overcome these challenges by partnering with community and four-year colleges to develop new teaching programs.

TPI is working to find new ways to recruit and license teachers with diverse backgrounds.  We are seeking out solutions and exploring alternative licensure pathways.  We will share more information about our work in this area in the coming months.

What ideas do you have for recruiting more candidates with diverse backgrounds into the teaching profession?