Expulsion and suspension rates among African American students are the highest of all racial groups across elementary, middle, and high schools. This study investigates whether a more racially diverse teaching force could alleviate exclusion rates among Black students. Using administrative data from the universe of K-12 public schools in the state of Wisconsin from 2002-2003 to 2012-2013 and employing a school fixed effects approach, results suggest that increasing the representation of Black teachers by even a single percentage point is associated with lower suspension rates among Black students at the high school level. Across levels of schooling, exclusion rates of White students are unrelated to teacher racial composition.
AlexanderM. (2012). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York, NY: The New Press.
2.
ArumR.VelezM. (Eds.). (2012). Improving learning environments: School discipline and student achievement in comparative perspective. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
3.
AudS.KewalRamaniA.FrohlichL. (2011). America’s youth: Transitions to adulthood (NCES 2012-026). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.
4.
BeadyC. H.HansellS. (1981). Teacher race and expectations for student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 18, 191-206.
ChristleC.NelsonC. M.JolivetteK. (2004). School characteristics related to the use of suspension. Education & Treatment of Children, 27, 509-526.
10.
ClarkeP.CrawfordC.SteeleF.VignolesA. (2010). The choice between fixed and random effects models: Some considerations for educational research (Working Paper No. 10-10). London, England: Department of Quantitative Social Science-Institute of Education, University of London.
11.
CroningerR. G.RiceJ. K.RathbunA.NishioM. (2007). Teacher qualifications and early learning: Effects of certification, degree, and experience on first-grade student achievement. Economics of Education Review, 26, 312-324.
12.
DeeT. S. (2005). A teacher like me: Does race, ethnicity, or gender matter?The American Economic Review, 95, 158-165.
13.
EhrenbergR. G.GoldhaberD. D.BrewerD. J. (1995). Do teachers’ race, gender, and ethnicity matter? Evidence from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988. Industrial & Labor Relations Review, 48, 547-561.
14.
EitleT. M.EitleD. J. (2004). Inequality, segregation, and the overrepresentation of African Americans in school suspensions. Sociological Perspectives, 47, 269-287.
15.
EvansA. E. (2007). School leaders and their sensemaking about race and demographic change. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43, 159-188.
16.
FergusonA. A. (2001). Bad boys: Public schools in the making of black masculinity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
17.
FiglioD. N. (2006). Testing, crime and punishment. Journal of Public Economics, 90, 837-851.
18.
FirebaughG.WarnerC.MassogliaM. (2013). Fixed effects, random effects, and hybrid models for causal analysis. In MorganS. L. (Ed.), Handbook of causal analysis for social research (pp. 113-132). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
19.
GregoryA.CornellD.FanX. (2011). The relationship of school structure and support to suspension rates for Black and White high school students. American Educational Research Journal, 48, 904-934.
20.
GregoryA.SkibaR. J.NogueraP. A. (2010). The achievement gap and the discipline gap: Two sides of the same coin. Educational Researcher, 39, 59-68.
21.
GrissomJ. A.KernE.RodriguezL. A. (2015). The “representative bureaucracy” in education: Educator workforce diversity, policy outputs, and outcomes for disadvantaged students. Education Researcher, 44, 185-192.
22.
GrissomJ. A.Nicholson-CrottyJ.Nicholson-CrottyS. (2009). Race, region, and representative bureaucracy. Public Administration Review, 69, 911-919.
23.
GrissomJ. A.RodriguezL. A.KernE. (2017). Teacher and principal diversity and the representation of students of color in gifted programs: Evidence from national data. The Elementary School Journal, 117, 396-422.
24.
Ladson-BillingsG. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32, 465-491.
25.
LewisC. W.ButlerB. R.BonnerI. I.FredA.JoubertM. (2010). African American male discipline patterns and school district responses resulting impact on academic achievement: Implications for urban educators and policy makers. Journal of African American Males in Education, 1(1), 7-25.
26.
LimH. H. (2006). Representative bureaucracy: Rethinking substantive effects and active representation. Public Administration Review, 66, 193-204.
27.
LindsayC.HartC. (2017). Teacher race and school discipline. Education Next, 17(1), 72-78.
28.
LosenD.HodsonC. I.KeithI. I.MichaelA.MorrisonK.BelwayS. (2015). Are we closing the school discipline gap? (K-12 Racial Disparities in School Discipline). Los Angeles: The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at The Civil Rights Project of University of California, Los Angeles.
29.
MalesM. (1999). Framing youth: Ten myths about the next generation. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press.
30.
MeierK. J.StewartJ. (1992). The impact of representative bureaucracies: Educational systems and public policies. The American Review of Public Administration, 22, 157-171.
31.
MendezL. M. R. (2003). Predictors of suspension and negative school outcomes: A longitudinal investigation. New Directions for Youth Development, 2003(99), 17-33.
32.
MonkD. H.KingJ. A. (1994). Multilevel teacher resource effects in pupil performance in secondary mathematics and science: The case of teacher subject matter preparation. In EthrenbergR. G. (Ed.), Choices and consequences: Contemporary policy issues in education (pp. 29-58). Ithaca, NY: ILR Press.
33.
MonroeC. R. (2005). Why are “bad boys” always Black? Causes of disproportionality in school discipline and recommendations for change. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 79, 45-50.
34.
MonroeC. R. (2009). Teachers closing the discipline gap in an urban middle school. Urban Education, 44, 322-347.
35.
Nicholson-CrottyS.GrissomJ. A.Nicholson-CrottyJ.ReddingC. (2016). Disentangling the causal mechanisms of representative bureaucracy: Evidence from assignment of students to gifted programs. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 26, 745-757.
36.
NogueraP. A. (2003). Schools, prisons, and social implications of punishment: Rethinking disciplinary practices. Theory into Practice, 42, 341-350.
37.
NoltemeyerA. L.WardR. M.McloughlinC. (2015). Relationship between school suspension and student outcomes: A meta-analysis. School Psychology Review, 44, 224-240.
38.
O’ConnorC. (1999). Race, class, and gender in America: Narratives of opportunity among low-income African American Youths. Sociology of Education, 72, 137-157.
39.
OuazadA. (2014). Assessed by a teacher like me: Race and teacher assessments. Education Finance and Policy, 9, 334-372.
40.
PaceJ. L.HemmingsA. (2007). Understanding authority in classrooms: A review of theory, ideology, and research. Review of Educational Research, 77, 4-27.
41.
PayneA. A.WelchK. (2010). Modeling the effects of racial threat on punitive and restorative school discipline practices. Criminology, 48, 1019-1062.
42.
PayneA. A.WelchK. (2013). Restorative justice in schools: The influence of race on restorative discipline. Youth & Society, 47, 539-564.
43.
ReskinB. F.McBrierD. B.KmecJ. A. (1999). The determinants and consequences of workplace sex and race composition. Annual Review of Sociology, 25, 335-361.
44.
ReynoldsC. R.SkibaR. J.GrahamS.SherasP.ConoleyJ. C.Garcia-VazquezE. (2008). Are zero tolerance policies effective in the schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations. The American Psychologist, 63, 852-862.
45.
RochC. H.PittsD. W.NavarroI. (2010). Representative bureaucracy and policy tools ethnicity, student discipline, and representation in public schools. Administration & Society, 42, 38-65.
46.
RocqueM. (2010). Office discipline and student behavior: Does race matter?American Journal of Education, 116, 557-581.
47.
RumbergerR. W.LosenD. J. (2016). The high cost of harsh discipline and its disparate impact. Los Angeles, CA: The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at The Civil Rights Project of University of California, Los Angeles.
48.
SkibaR. J.ChungC. G.TrachokM.BakerT. L.SheyaA.HughesR. L. (2014). Parsing disciplinary disproportionality: Contributions of infraction, student, and school characteristics to out-of-school suspension and expulsion. American Educational Research Journal, 51, 640-670.
49.
SkibaR. J.EckesS.BrownK. (2010). African American disproportionality in school discipline: The divide between best evidence and legal remedy. New York Law School Law Review, 54, 1071-1112.
50.
SkibaR. J.HornerR. H.ChungC. G.RauschM. K.MayS. L.TobinT. (2011). Race is not neutral: A national investigation of African American and Latino disproportionality in school discipline. School Psychology Review, 40(1), 85-107.
51.
SkibaR. J.MichaelR. S.NardoA. C.PetersonR. L. (2002). The color of discipline: Sources of racial and gender disproportionality in school punishment. The Urban Review, 34, 317-342.
52.
SkibaR. J.PetersonR. (1999). The dark side of zero tolerance: Can punishment lead to safe schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 80, 372-382.
53.
SkibaR. J.ShureL.WilliamsN. (2012). Racial and ethnic disproportionality in suspension and expulsion. In NoltemeyerA. L.McloughlinC. S. (Eds.), Disproportionality in education and special education. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher.
54.
U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2004). Percentage distribution of public school teachers by race/ethnicity, percentage minority, and state: 2003–04. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/state_2004_18.asp
55.
U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2015). Percentage of public schools that used safety and security measures: Various school years, 1999-2000 through 2013-14. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_233.50.asp
VerdugoR. R. (2002). Race-ethnicity, social class, and zero-tolerance policies: The cultural and structural wars. Education and Urban Society, 35, 50-75.
58.
WaldJ.LosenD. J. (2003). Defining and redirecting a school-to-prison pipeline. New Directions for Youth Development, 2003(99), 9-15.
59.
WallaceJ. M.Jr.GoodkindS.WallaceC. M.BachmanJ. G. (2008). Racial, ethnic, and gender differences in school discipline among U.S. high school students: 1991-2005. The Negro Educational Review, 59(1-2), 47-62.
60.
WelchK.PayneA. A. (2010). Racial threat and punitive school discipline. Social Problems, 57(1), 25-48.
61.
WilsonW. J. (2009). More than just race: Being black and poor in the inner city (Issues of Our Time). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
62.
YossoT. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8, 69-91.
