The Future Is Male: Why California Needs More Male Teachers Of Color

Speaker 1: 00:00 Fewer than 10% of California's teachers are non white men. And that's a problem because they could play a significant role in helping to close the achievement gap for black and Brown boys as part of our California dream collaboration. [inaudible] Vanessa run Canio reports Speaker 2: 00:17 today in third period English teacher. Darryl McKellar has a writing assignment for his ninth grade students. Speaker 3: 00:23 So this is what I'm asking you guys to do. What does racism mean to you? How was racism related to uh, the apartheid that's discussed in the text? They seems sorta kinda interesting, but some phones are out. How many people have experienced, let's do it this way. You've experienced something because you black or Brown, you've experienced something hands go up Speaker 2: 00:40 around the room. All the students in this veteran teacher's classroom in South central LA are black or Latino. Speaker 3: 00:47 What'd you guys do? Go ahead. Jake. One says, two days ago he was at a store in Santa Monica that was just following me around, like keeping a close eye on me, seeing if I was going to steal something. McKellar tells the students about a time in college when a classmate made a racist comment about him. I get a flip out before it cause if I, if I've live out them, would I get kicked out. The class can't graduate then you would never have me in front of you. He gets a smile out of the students. They keep their eyes on him and I don't want you guys to, to be, to be part of that. Oh well you know I'm black, I'm Brianna, I ain't gonna make it. I go to school in the hood. I call BS on that. Speaker 3: 01:23 Don't make, do not make your life hard. To connect with his students to relate to and understand their experiences makes a difference. When students of color have teachers of color in classrooms like this one, there's strong evidence. They learn more, finished high school at higher rates and are more likely to aspire to college. When you see someone in front of you that looks like you and you can relate to what they're talking about and they can code switch and come, come to where you're at and then come back out and say like, see, I just jumped somewhere else but I was just there with you. So what does that mean that you need to do? And I think I had a jump with you for almost my whole school year life. I only had like woman teachers, Speaker 2: 02:05 student Elijah foster says having a teacher like McKellar is still a pretty new experience. His classmate Tyler banner says it's just [inaudible] Speaker 3: 02:13 different. It feels like the man expect more out of you. CMS like the homie, like a close friend, like as in Mike, trustable Speaker 2: 02:23 McKellar knows he can play a critical role for his students. That's why he sharing his 20 years experience in the classroom with aspiring male teachers of color. He's part of a program at a handful of California state university teachers, colleges. That could be a model for getting more men of color into teaching because sometimes we could sit in a class, show me that. It's 25 young ladies in, it's only like three of us, 28 year old Fabienne floras is in the future minority male teachers of California program. He says he almost quit early on after a veteran teacher warned him away from the profession saying it's underpaid, undervalued. Speaker 4: 03:02 I was kind of like on the ropes like, yeah, should I continue? Yes, no bad. I don't really belong. Even Speaker 2: 03:07 he says, having McKellar as guidance and a support group of other men of color gave him the confidence to believe that not only does he belong, he's really needed, but he had another problem. He was scrambling to pay for school and that's not unusual, especially for students of color who are disproportionately burdened by debt. The program offered Florida is a $5,000 scholarship. Speaker 4: 03:31 I would not be here if it wasn't for that extra money. Speaker 2: 03:35 Now for him, it's a matter of overcoming his own doubts about what comes next. Speaker 4: 03:40 What scares me is getting a job at an elementary school where I don't have a mentor that shows me the ropes. Speaker 2: 03:49 Domingas Hills is trying to make sure students like Florida stay on track to finish and move into classrooms as full fledged teachers. The next challenge is actually keeping them there in Los Angeles. I'm Vanessa Trengganu. Speaker 1: 04:03 Joining me is KQBD reporter Vanessa Ranconyo and Vanessa, welcome. Thanks for having me. Now. I suppose keeping male teachers of color in the classroom has a lot to do with the teacher salaries. What is an average salary for a beginning teacher in [inaudible] Speaker 2: 04:19 four yeah, according to the department of education, it's between about $43,000 a year and $52,000 a year and that's across all different kinds of districts. Speaker 1: 04:31 Now, is there a fear that that kind of salary is not enough to encourage these new male teachers to keep on teaching? Speaker 2: 04:40 Sure. But that's a factor I think for a lot of teachers and prospective teachers, especially as the cost of living rises in California for teachers of color. This issue is compounded by specific factors like a greater debt burden on average than white college grads carry. And for male teachers of color specifically, or I should say for, for male teachers in general, there can be a kind of stigma around teaching, especially at the elementary school level. Um, this is something I heard from people who run teacher preparation programs, right? That there's just sort of an unease around men being around young students. So that's something that they have to work against. And then I heard from a lot of these male teachers of color that they feel like they're really not respected by their peers as sort of experts in their field that they tend to get called in when there's a disciplinary issue, right? Speaker 2: 05:49 So they're sort of seen as the campus police. Um, and, and that can be really disheartening for them. And as we know, the numbers are quite low. So there's this isolation that many can feel that just compounds these other feelings. Now, what you've just been talking about are these, some of the reasons that we hear in your report, three quarters of students in California are kids of color, while only 10% of teachers are men of color. Are these some of the reasons that why that teacher gap exists? Yeah, I think the issue of debt burden, again, is something that disproportionately affects college graduates of color, college completion rates in general for college students of color are disproportionately low. Um, and then just the cost of completing a teacher preparation program and doing a year of student teaching, right, which you've got to manage the cost of, um, and the licensure exams, all of that comes together to make it especially challenging for teacher candidates of color. Speaker 2: 06:56 Now, what do educators think men of color as teachers are going to add to the classroom? Yeah, so there are some theories about white teachers of color in general make this difference that we see in outcomes for students of color. Um, people think it could have to do with this role model effect. Um, others theorize that it has to do with implicit bias, right? That teachers of color may be exhibiting less implicit bias in interacting with their students of color, that they have higher expectations for these students or that students of color aren't experiencing the same kind of stereotype threat when interacting with a teacher who looks like them. Um, then when interacting with a white teacher. So I think part of the interest in getting men, specifically men of color specifically into the field just has to do with diversity in general, right? That as a society, this tends to be something that we value and that we think is good for students and it's going to help prepare them to go out into a diverse world. Speaker 2: 08:01 But there's also a hope that specifically for male students of color who've often scored at the bottom on state tests, that having a male teacher of color as a role model could really make a difference. You know, programs like these, I think always run the risk of disrespecting the work of female teachers who've been plugging away in classrooms. Of course for decades, our existing teachers groups supporting this effort. I can't speak to specific teachers groups, but I know that the CS CSU leadership is behind this effort and I think the people who are leading these efforts would say that they are certainly not trying to disrespect anybody. They're trying to address a narrow problem. Right, which is the very low number of male of color. I think they'd probably argue that there should be specific supports for female teachers of color. Right, but they're just addressing this narrow issue. Speaker 2: 09:06 Now I know this is the first of two reports. Vanessa, what will we hear in tomorrow's report? Tomorrow you're going to get to sit in on a pretty unusual meeting of male teachers of color at a high school in Compton where a UC Berkeley researcher is leading an initiative to try to improve retention of male teachers of color. Cause this shortage is not just about recruitment. A big part of the problem is that new teachers coming in leave and male teachers of color in particular leave at really high rates. Okay. Then I've been speaking with KQD reporter, Vanessa Ranconyo. Vanessa. Thank you. Thank you.