Welcome to the EduVerse with ProfessorJBA. This series is designed for parents and caregivers in an effort to inform them about the various roles and aspects of the educational landscape to ensure that caregivers can make informed decisions regarding their child(ren)’s education.

Dear parents and caregivers, I’m sure you already know this, but we need more Black teachers!

We need more Black teachers in classrooms across the nation. However, I’ve been specifically looking at the school districts in Indiana within Marion County. Like most places in the U.S., Black students in Indiana are less likely than white students to master academic standards. This failure impacts Black students’ ability to successfully pursue post secondary options.

Additionally, according to the UNCF’s report, only 2% of Indiana teachers are Black. Typically, people think that teacher union and professional organizations are tasked with advocating for teachers. Today, I want to challenge that notion.

I believe that parent voices are needed in advocating for quality, diverse, and driven teachers. They need to directly ask for school districts to hire more Black teachers and not just simply for the sake of hiring Black teachers to meet a quota.

Black teachers bring a lot to the table, including solutions for improving student achievement and success in schools educating large populations of Black children. Research has shown that having a Black teacher helps all students regardless of racial backgrounds.

Additionally, having Black teachers in schools that have majority white teachers and Black students improves the social emotional learning experience.

I would challenge parents to specifically ask for growth in recruiting and retaining Black teachers in the arts, STEM (Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), SEL (Social Emotional Learning) and history.

Advocating for teacher diversity is a call to action that parents of Black students must take up if there is going to be changes in advanced courses, college prep access and preparation and co-teaching methods that are brought to the table through strong teachers in special education, another area where there are disproportionate numbers of Black students without teachers who look like them.

Parent voices are needed in the teacher diversity conversation.