The terms/acronyms “woke,” “DEI,” and “CRT” are used in a derogatory way, interchangeably, as a coded language to signify or designate a Black person as either Black or the N-word. Political conservatives use these frequently. They’re not hiding their vitriol for any backlash against whiteness, white supremacy, and racial capitalism. They’re highlighting it and, specifically, perpetuating harm done to Black people.   Their narrative shaping, unfortunately, changes not only the use of these but a...

A decade ago, when new to the teaching profession, the real world interrupted the classroom with the murder of Trayvon Martin. The very next time we had class after his murder, I spent the entire day wrestling with what happened with all my classes. It was a day well spent—where we discussed all the various circumstances surrounding the murder: racial profiling, racism, law-enforcement, and the history of these. We also discussed what solutions were necessary and how young people could get invo...

It is one thing to hire teachers of color. It is another thing to retain teachers of color. As a Black educator, I know this truth all too well. I’ve worked places where my expertise and skill set were not valued by my peers or superiors. I was viewed as the Black teacher in the building for disciplinary support and community buy-in. I met conflict in those spaces and was often forced out. This is one example to explain the inability of schools and/or districts to retain teachers of color. But this is not necessarily the norm.

I’ve had the distinct privilege to be part of teacher hiring teams in school districts where I have worked. I call such service on hiring teams significant, but it is not always a guarantee that hiring teams are reflective of the diversity of its communities. As an African American educator, I brought a unique perspective to the group—as did my Asian and Latino colleagues who worked with us. My perspective was displayed in the qualities I looked for in a teacher and how my criteria showed up in the questions I asked.

Research shows that all students benefit from having teachers of color. Those benefits range from academic to relational. Therefore, it is no wonder that district leaders are choosing to recruit more teachers of color to work in their schools. When you consider that teachers of color are less than 20% of teachers (male teachers of color are less than 5% of all teachers), there is a need to recruit more people of color to the teaching profession. Knowing that your school district needs teachers of color is the easy part. Recruiting is where it can get harder.

Making it a goal of your district to hire more teachers of color is a great thing. But sometimes more important than hiring teachers of color is retaining them. However, teacher of color have a higher rate of teacher turnover than white teachers. According to a Teach Plus and Education Trust report, teachers of color leave the classroom for a number of reasons, including the emotional and psychological toll of being an educator of color in a white institutional space, the lack of autonomy to tailor their teaching to students of color, and the lack of respect for their content knowledge.

Once the recruitment and hiring process is done, onboarding will be the next in line. Supporting teachers of color during onboarding can make or break their retention in a school or district. Having these 4 tips on how to better the onboarding programs for minority teachers will ultimately improve their retention rate.

The hiring process is always tough because while looking for the “perfect” teacher candidate, you’ll never find them. You just hope to find an individual who is a good fit for students and the school culture. Too often, when hiring teachers of color, the hiring team may get too pre-occupied with fit, content knowledge and qualifications of those candidates because quite frankly, they’re not white. This is not to say that white people in the position to hire are inherently racist. But it is to say that people hire who they are familiar with and considering the demographics of teachers and administrators, one can argue that white educators are a bit too familiar when hiring teachers for their buildings.

Professionally speaking, teaching has been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. But my degree isn’t in teaching. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do when I entered college but teaching wasn’t one of the things that came to mind. When I graduated from undergrad I entered grad school, still not thinking about teaching. Until one day one of my professors who remains a mentor suggested that I entered the classroom. Once I graduated, rather than entering field the public administration and

By Rann Miller / Special To The Washington Post The school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, generated international attention to the vulnerability of children, particularly children of color, in a state with few gun regulations. But gun violence is not the only threat students of color are facing in the classroom. Shortly after the May leak of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade, Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, wondere

On July 19, 2021, President Biden signed legislation declaring Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth, taking its name from combining the words ‘June’ and ‘nineteenth,’ marks the occasion of June 19, 1865, when Union troops entered Galveston, Texas, to announce all enslaved people were free upon the surrender of the last Confederate stronghold. While Juneteenth being celebrated as a national holiday is long overdue, Juneteenth has a very special meaning in Texas.

A few weeks ago, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum gave a speech that disregarded the rich history of Indigenous people, saying that [white people] birthed a nation from nothing. It is this very thing, what W.E.B. DuBois termed the propaganda of history, which led Dr. Carter G. Woodson to create the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). Much like Santorum, the “scholars” of Woodson’s time, some who taught him while at Harvard, believed that Black people of...

Parents often know when their children have engaged in mischievous behavior. Sometimes, they become private investigators to get to the bottom of the mischief in question. Sometimes, once at the scene of the crime, the child may have told on themselves. For example, a rule in my home is no ice cream after school. Fruit, crackers and cereal are the available snack options. One day, I came home to find a spoon with chocolate ice cream residue on the kitchen table, in the spot where my oldest daug

Something that educators love to tout, particularly white educators, is the diversity that they have in their schools; specifically, the diversity of their students. I remember in a previous district where I worked, a guidance counselor, when talking about the pros of the district, mentioned the diversity of the district. She highlighted the student body configuration of Black, white and Latino/a students as proof of the diversity of the school. It was a point of pride for her. Meanwhile, most

Rann Miller: Teaching Critical Race Theory Is About Liberating All of Us Rann Miller writes for The Progressive about the importance of lessons on race and racism. And it all starts with this jaw-dropping quote. “Helping kids of color to feel they belong has a negative effect on white, Christian, or conservative kids,” Mary Beeman, the campaign manager for a Republican school board candidate in Connecticut, said in October. Beeman’s comments were made during a virtual forum on the subject of c

Much of the rhetoric concerning critical race theory (CRT) has come from politicians and parents, many of whom are white. Missouri serves as an example. But educators have offered some commentary as well. Nine out of 10 teachers never taught CRT in their classrooms. Thankfully, both the National Educational Association and the American Federation of Teachers both pledged to defend teachers facing legal action for teaching CRT or anything “related” to it. I say “related” because “The 1619 Projec

ImpactED, an evaluation and research center at the University of Pennsylvania, recently released a report finding that Camden public school students in grades three-to-eight have narrowed the proficiency gap in both math and reading since the 2014-15 school year, when the Camden City School District was taken over by the state of New Jersey under then-Governor Chris Christie. The report also makes mention that since 2014, student proficiency in both math and reading has nearly doubled.

I recently saw a tweet that cautioned Black folks to divest from the “Black Male Educator as the Messiah” myth in education and it got me thinking; is there a messiah myth about Black male educators in education circles? The answer depends on who you ask. I can say from personal experience that my Black-maleness was welcomed in schools by both Black and white educators alike, but for different reasons. Black educators welcomed my presence because my presence could serve as another model for Bl

On April 20, a verdict was rendered: Derek Chauvin, guilty on all three counts for the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May of last year. Floyd’s family — and, by extension, Black America — saw the system hold a police officer accountable for killing a Black person. The verdict is a modicum of justice at best, and an anomaly at worst. Sadly, the work of fighting police brutality is far from over. While we continue to hope for justice concerning the murders of Daunte Wright, Adam Toledo, Anthony Thompson Jr. and Ma’Khia Bryant, we’ve yet to receive it. As an educator, I find that what makes these murders particularly tragic is the ages of the victims: 20, 13, 17 and 16, respectively.

So, you want to teach REAL history … You’re a teacher. Maybe you’re even a history teacher. But truth is, you didn’t learn much other than white supremacy propaganda during your formal education. But you’ve gotten a taste of truth. You’ve heard the terms white supremacy, systemic racism, and institutional racism. You’ve discovered the Tulsa Race Massacre, the Underground Railroad that led to Mexico, and Juneteenth. You want to teach that history, the marginalized voices who can attest to that