What Explains the Race Gap in Teacher Performance Ratings? Evidence From Chicago Public Schools

Racial gaps in teacher performance ratings have emerged nationwide across newly implemented educator evaluation systems. Using Chicago Public Schools data, we quantify the magnitude of the race gap in teachers’ classroom observation scores, examine its determinants, and describe the potential implications for teacher diversity. Between-school differences explain most of the race gap and within-school classroom-level differences—poverty, incoming achievement, and prior-year misconduct of a teacher’s students—explain the remainder of the race gap. Teachers’ value-added scores explain none of the race gap. Leveraging within-teacher variation in the teacher–evaluator race match, we find that racial mismatch does not influence observation scores. Adjusting observation scores for classroom and school context will generate more equitable ratings of teacher performance and mitigate potential adverse consequences for teacher diversity.

On Goals of Language Education and Teacher Diversity: Beliefs and Experiences of Japanese-Language Educators in North America

This article reports the results of the online survey on Japanese-language educators’ beliefs and experiences concerning their profession that we conducted in the fall of 2018. A total of 355 teachers in North America responded to the survey. The responses were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative data suggest that the survey respondents almost unanimously agreed on the importance of global and translingual/transcultural competence as a crucial goal for JFL education. However, the items concerning the legitimacy of language varieties (e.g., standard vs. regional dialects), the importance of accuracy (e.g., grammar, pronunciation), and the views on Japanese culture (e.g., emphasis on uniqueness) received rather conflicting responses from the participants. Moreover, qualitative comments brought up the issues of native-speakerism, nihonjinron, and heteronormativity ideologies as prevailing in JFL education. In short, the results illuminate both converging and diverging perspectives of the survey participants and contradictions or dilemmas between aspirational ideals and mundane practices.

Maintaining Gaps in Teacher Diversity, Preparedness, Effectiveness, and Retention? A Program Theory Evaluation of Mathematics Teacher Training in the New York City Teaching Fellows

This study examines the extent to which the New York City Teaching Fellows (NYCTF) has delivered on its promise of improving mathematics teacher diversity, preparedness, effectiveness, and retention in hard-to-staff city schools. As a program theory evaluation study, it articulates the theory of action for selective alternative route programs and uses this to evaluate NYCTF’s program for secondary mathematics. The analysis draws on longitudinal data from 620 secondary mathematics teachers who began NYCTF in the prior decade. While the results point to potential improvements, it provides evidence that selective programs like NYCTF serve to maintain important gaps in teacher quality that they were designed to address.

Education Policy and Black Teachers: Perspectives on Race, Policy, and Teacher Diversity

This article examines interview responses from prominent education researchers who were asked to consider the role of major educational policies in the underrepresentation of Black teachers in public schools. Participants considered policies related to accountability and market reforms including testing, school choice and charter schools, and alternative teacher education. Although participants agreed that Black teachers contribute greatly to academic achievement for students, their views differed about whether or how policies undermine the presence of Black teachers in schools. We offer conceptual distinctions between participants’ views, including those who described policy as having a mixed impact on Black teachers, those who described policy as having an unintended but harmful impact, and those who described policy as playing a tacit role in systemic marginalization of Black teachers and as a form of institutional racism. We find benefit in all participants’ views and offer suggestions for initiatives that seek to strengthen workforce diversity.