Black Male Teachers Disappearing

Press Release

The majority of school teachers recently laid off by the Chicago Board of
Education are people of color, and hardest hit are African teachers in schools
serving African American students, according to a new analysis released today by
the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).

An analysis of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) layoffs shows 55 percent of
teachers who lost their jobs this past year are people of color.  The data are
especially troubling because according to the Illinois State Board of Education
(ISBE), blacks make up only 30 percent of all public school teachers. Given the
push for a longer, better school day neighborhood schools need more teachers not
less.

According to the ISBE School Report Card data for 2010:

• 50.6 %  of CPS teachers are White
• 29.6 % of CPS teachers are African American
• 15.2 % of CPS teachers are Latino

Yet, a demographic analysis of the 75 percent of laid off teachers for whom
data was available on ISBE’s Teacher Service Record reveals:

• 43 % of  laid off CPS teachers are African American
• 40 % of laid off CPS teachers are White
• 12 % of laid off CPS teacher are Latino

“Clearly I am disturbed when any teacher is put out of work, however, this
is a disturbing trend that has real consequences  for the overwhelming Black and
Latino student population in our schools who look to their teachers as role
models for achievement and success,” said CTU President Karen GJ Lewis. “We want
to know what CPS is doing to address this racial disparity.

With unemployment soaring in the black community, why is CPS exacerbating
this crisis by getting rid of experienced and valuable educators in the first
place?”

In addition to the racial disparity in the teacher layoffs, there are
disparities regarding the schools from which teachers were laid off. The 930
school-based teachers laid off are 4.4 percent of teachers working in schools.
However, these layoffs were twice as likely to occur at schools with greater
concentrations of low-income students or African American students.

Throughout CPS, 87 percent of students receive free or reduced lunch.
However, these low-income students are not evenly distributed throughout the
system. The schools that have a higher concentration of economically
disadvantaged students have twice the teacher layoff rate of those schools with
lower concentrations of these students, as shown in the chart below.

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