Black Teacher Turnover Rate Higher Than White Peers In Tennessee

An analysis of Tennessee’s teaching workforce shows schools in the state are struggling to recruit black teachers. And, even if these teachers do get into the pipeline, many quickly shift to another school.

So classrooms serving the state’s neediest students are often disrupted over and over again, says Jason Grissom, author of a new study on teacher turnover from the Tennessee Education Research Alliance.

"Teachers of color are systematically teaching in schools that have high concentrations of poverty, low achievement, large numbers of kids of color," Grissom says. "So those are exactly the schools where you’d like to have a very stable teaching workforce."

He says black teachers in the state aren’t any more likely than white teachers to exit the profession altogether.

Read more: http://www.nashvillepublicradio.org/post/black-teacher-turnover-rate-higher-white-peers-tn