Matching students’ race with those of their teachers can reduce rates of exclusionary discipline for Black and Latinx students in large diverse urban school districts, according to a new paper from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University.
The study examined 10 years’ worth of data from New York City between 2007 and 2017.
According to a K-12 Dive report, in years where students in grades 4-8 were assigned to a greater number of teachers of their same race, students were less likely to be suspended. This proved especially true for Black students, who experienced the largest effect, but the study also confirms a “significant” association for Latinx students and a “marginally significant” association for Asian American students.
Researchers estimate that increasing the representation of teachers from those races can lead to an approximate 3% drop in suspension rates.
Over 10 years, this would mean approximately 1,800 fewer suspensions for Black students, 1,500 fewer for Latinx students, and 230 fewer suspensions for Asian students, translating to an estimated 9,000 more days of instruction for Black students, 7,800 days for Latinx students and 680 days for Asian students.