Black teachers are critical resources for children and schools. In experimental data, I document large effects of Black upper-elementary teachers on the self-efficacy (0.9 SD) and classroom engagement (0.7 SD) of their Black but not non-Black students, potentially driven by role modeling. Black teachers also benefit the test scores (0.2 SD) and absences (over 20% decrease) of all students—no matter their race/ethnicity—that often persist years later in high school. Furthermore, Black teachers bring unique mindsets and practices to their work (differentiated instruction, growth mindset beliefs, well-organized classrooms) that mediate a moderate to large share of effects on student outcomes. These findings help bridge the quantitative race/ethnicity-matching literature with theoretical discussion and qualitative exploration on why Black teachers matter.
BaileyD.DuncanG. J.OdgersC. L.YuW. (2017). Persistence and fadeout in the impacts of child and adolescent interventions. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 10(1), 7–39.
2.
BenjaminiY.HochbergY. (1995). Controlling the false discovery rate: A practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 57(1), 289–300.
3.
BlazarD.BraslowD.CharalambousC. Y.HillH. C. (2017). Attending to general and mathematics-specific dimensions of teaching: Exploring factors across two observation instruments. Educational Assessment, 22(2), 71–94.
4.
BlazarD.KraftM. A. (2017). Teacher and teaching effects on students’ attitudes and behaviors. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 39(1), 146–170.
5.
BlazarD.PollardC. (2023). Challenges and tradeoffs of “good” teaching: The pursuit of multiple educational outcomes. Journal of Teacher Education, 74(3), 229–244.
6.
BristolT. J.Martin-FernandezJ. (2019). The added value of Latinx and Black teachers for Latinx and Black students: Implications for policy. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 6(2), 147–153.
7.
CherngH. Y. S.HalpinP. F. (2016). The importance of minority teachers: Student perceptions of minority versus White teachers. Educational Researcher, 45(7), 407–420.
8.
CohenJ.RuzekE.SandilosL. (2018). Does teaching quality cross subjects? Exploring consistency in elementary teacher practice across subjects. AERA Open, 4(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858418794492
9.
ConstantineJ.PlayerD.SilvaT.HallgrenK.GriderM.DekeJ. (2009). An evaluation of teachers trained through different routes to certification (NCEE 2009–4043). National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance.
10.
DeeT. S. (2004). Teachers, race, and student achievement in a randomized experiment. Review of Economics and Statistics, 86(1), 195–210.
11.
DurlakJ. A.WeissbergR. P.DymnickiA. B.TaylorR. D.SchellingerK. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1), 405–432.
12.
EdmondsL. (2022). Role models revisited: HBCUs, same-race teacher effects, and Black student achievement (Working paper). Stanford University.
13.
EgaliteA. J.KisidaB. (2018). The effects of teacher match on students’ academic perceptions and attitudes. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 40(1), 59–81.
14.
FenningP.RoseJ. (2007). Overrepresentation of African American students in exclusionary discipline the role of school policy. Urban Education, 42(6), 536–559.
15.
FryerR. G.Jr. (2017). The production of human capital in developed countries: Evidence from 196 randomized field experiments. In DufloE.BanerjeeA. (Eds.), Handbook of economic field experiments (Vol. 2, pp. 95–322). North-Holland.
16.
FryerR. G.Jr.LevittS. D. (2004). Understanding the Black-White test score gap in the first two years of school. Review of Economics and Statistics, 86(2), 447–464.
17.
GayG. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. Teachers College Press.
18.
GershensonS.HartC. M.HymanJ.LindsayC. A.PapageorgeN. W. (2022). The long-run impacts of same-race teachers. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 14(4), 300–342.
19.
GoldhaberD.CowanJ.WalchJ. (2013). Is a good elementary teacher always good? Assessing teacher performance estimates across subjects. Economics of Education Review, 36, 216–228.
20.
GoldhaberD.HansenM. (2010). Race, gender, and teacher testing: How informative a tool is teacher licensure testing?American Educational Research Journal, 47(1), 218–251.
21.
GriffinA.TackieH. (2017). Through our eyes: Perspectives from Black teachers. Phi Delta Kappan, 98(5), 36–40.
22.
HernandezD. J. (2011). Double jeopardy: How third-grade reading skills and poverty influence high school graduation. Annie E. Casey Foundation. https://www.aecf.org/resources/double-jeopardy
23.
ImaiK.KeeleL.TingleyD.YamamotoT. (2011). Unpacking the black box of causality: Learning about causal mechanisms from experimental and observational studies. American Political Science Review, 105(4), 765–789.
24.
JacksonC. K. (2009). Student demographics, teacher sorting, and teacher quality: Evidence from the end of school desegregation. Journal of Labor Economics, 27(2), 213–256.
25.
JohnsonR. C. (2011). Long-run impacts of school desegregation & school quality on adult attainments (Working Paper No. w16664). National Bureau of Economic Research.
26.
KaneT. J.McCaffreyD. F.MillerT.StaigerD. O. (2013). Have we identified effective teachers? Validating measures of effective teaching using random assignment. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
27.
KaneT. J.StaigerD. O. (2012). Gathering feedback for teaching: Combining high-quality observations with student surveys and achievement gains. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
28.
KieranL.AndersonC. (2019). Connecting universal design for learning with culturally responsive teaching. Education and Urban Society, 51(9), 1202–1216.
29.
Ladson-BillingsG. (1994). Who will teach our children: Preparing teachers to successfully teach African American students. In HollinsE. R.KingJ. E.HaymanW. C. (Eds.), Teaching diverse populations: Formulating a knowledge base (pp. 129–142). State University of New York Press.
30.
Ladson-BillingsG. (1995a). But that’s just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy. Theory Into Practice, 34(3), 159–165.
31.
Ladson-BillingsG. (1995b). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465–491.
32.
LewisA. E. (2001). There is no “race” in the schoolyard: Color-blind ideology in an (almost) all-White school. American Educational Research Journal, 38(4), 781–811.
33.
MarkowitzA. J.BassokD.GrissomJ. A. (2020). Teacher-child racial/ethnic match and parental engagement with Head Start. American Educational Research Journal, 57(5), 2132–2174.
34.
ParisD. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93–97.
RasheedD. S.BrownJ. L.DoyleS. L.JenningsP. A. (2020). The effect of teacher–child race/ethnicity matching and classroom diversity on children’s socioemotional and academic skills. Child Development, 91(3), e597–e618.
37.
ReddingC. (2019). A teacher like me: A review of the effect of student–teacher racial/ethnic matching on teacher perceptions of students and student academic and behavioral outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 89(4), 499–535.
38.
RivkinS. G. (1995). Black/White differences in schooling and employment. Journal of Human Resources, 30(4), 826–852.
39.
SolandJ.Rimm-KaufmanS. E.KuhfeldM.Ventura-AbbasN. (2022). Empirical benchmarks for changes in social and emotional skills over time. Child Development, 93(4), 1129–1144.
40.
SteeleC. M.AronsonJ. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 797–811.
41.
ThompsonO. (2022). School desegregation and Black teacher employment. Review of Economics and Statistics, 104(5), 962–980.
42.
TranL.GershensonS. (2021). Experimental estimates of the student attendance production function. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 43(2), 183–199.
43.
U.S. Department of Education. (2019). The condition of education.
44.
VanderWeeleT. (2015). Explanation in causal inference: Methods for mediation and interaction. Oxford University Press.
45.
VillegasA. M.LucasT. F. (2004). Diversifying the teacher workforce: A retrospective and prospective analysis. Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 103(1), 70–104.
46.
WrightA.GottfriedM. A.LeV. N. (2017). A kindergarten teacher like me: The role of student-teacher race in social-emotional development. American Educational Research Journal, 54(Suppl. 1), 78S–101S.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
