In the 2007-2008 school year, of the 22,773 CPS teachers, 31.4 percent, or 7,168, were black, according to Illinois State Board of Education data for traditional CPS schools, not charters.
Currently, 4,910 – or 22.6 percent – of the 21,726 non-charter teachers in CPS are black, CPS data shows.
The drop off has been fueled, in part, by school closings and resulting layoffs that disproportionately impacted black teachers – and hiring that has disproportionately favored white and, increasingly, Latino teachers, according to records and interviews.
“Black teachers are the first ones fired and the last ones hired,” Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis asserted at a recent rally.
Forrest Claypool, CPS’ CEO, wouldn’t comment. But his press office released a statement acknowledging the racial disparity in hiring and insisting the district is trying to make the teacher workforce more diverse through recruiting partnerships with historically black colleges, and school programs that encourage existing CPS students – about 85 percent of who are black or Latino – to consider teaching as a profession, among other measures.
“As districts around the country work to address this important issue, CPS is taking additional proactive steps to improve the diversity of our workforce,” CPS said in the statement.
It matters that such a minority-heavy student body has a fairly representative teaching population, experts said.
Studies show that students exposed to a diverse teaching staff perform better in elementary and high school, said Pedro Noguera, an education professor at New York University. Having teachers with similar racial and ethnic backgrounds builds confidence in students and gives them role models, Noguera said.
But the relatively low numbers of minority teachers hired in Chicago does not surprise Noguera or others who pay attention to city schools. “If it is not explicitly a priority, racial diversity just doesn’t happen,” he said.
Click Here to Read Full Story