Nearly 36% of Chicago Public Schools students but only 21% of the district’s teachers are Black, and Dixon Elementary’s Daniel Jackson is proud to be one of them.
“As a Black male raised in Bronzeville and Englewood, I’ve had to learn how to be teachable, socially conscious of the disparities among different groups of children,” Jackson said. “… There is power in the teachers of color. We understand our children’s stories. We can relate to them.”
Another 21% of CPS teachers are Hispanic or Latino, the largest group of students at 47%. Fewer than 11% of students but nearly half of the district’s teachers are white. On Tuesday, CPS leaders announced a new partnership with City Colleges of Chicago and Illinois State University, called “Teach Chicago Tomorrow,” to cultivate a diverse group of educators who graduated from CPS schools and better reflect the demographics of their future students.
Starting with a group of 100 high school students in the class of 2021, the goal is to more than triple the number of CPS graduates hired as teachers each year, from about 140 to 500.
After earning an associate degree through City Colleges, the students in the program can enter a bachelor’s degree program at Illinois State University and spend a year student teaching in CPS schools. Once they earn their Illinois teaching license, CPS has promised priority job placement.
With support from Crown Family Philanthropies and the Joyce Foundation, the program will include financial counseling, paid work opportunities in CPS, and student teaching stipends.
“Teach Chicago Tomorrow will build a new network of teachers who look like Chicago kids, come from Chicago communities and are invested in Chicago neighborhoods,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said. “… Existing recruitment pathways simply aren’t producing enough high-quality teachers of color. We must build our own pathways through smart strategies that tap into an already-interested and invested talent pool.”
To recruit its first class, the district will have counselors and recruiters follow up with students who have expressed interest in teaching. According to CPS, that’s about 10% of high school students.
“Far fewer of them are ever able to realize that dream,” said CPS CEO Janice Jackson. As a former CPS student and teacher, Jackson said the initiative is very personal to her. “My students benefited from the fact that we had a common experience at schools in similar communities and I could connect with them,” she said.
Both research and her own experience have shown that a diverse teacher workforce leads to positive student outcomes, she said. Through a “Teach Chicago” initiative, the district has already made efforts to recruit and retain more diverse teachers, especially for high-needs schools. But existing programs haven’t been enough.
Over the past decade, Illinois has seen a 54% decline in African American students and 28% decline in Latino students earning education degrees, according to a CPS analysis of Illinois Board of Higher Education data.
“In order to make a real impact on teacher diversity, we must take a two-pronged approach that focuses on short-term and long-term solutions,” said Matt Lyons, the district’s chief talent officer.
City Colleges Chancellor Juan Salgado said he, Lightfoot and Jackson have been working to strengthen the relationship between CPS and the colleges.
“We know that CPS schools are filled with emerging leaders … we have a responsibility and opportunity to release this potential,” Salgado said. “Our young people are eager to educate and inspire.”
Illinois State President Larry Dietz said with the school’s beginnings more than 150 years ago as a teachers college, “the desire to educate finds us and teaching and learning remain core to our ISU mission.”
One out of every six teachers working in Illinois graduated from Illinois State, which is the seventh-largest producer of teachers in the nation and largest in the Midwest, Deitz said. He introduced Daniel Jackson as a teacher “who exemplifies the mission” of the new pipeline program.
When Jackson, a graduate of Jones College Prep and Illinois State, told his second-grade students why he’d be speaking in a news conference, many said they wanted to grow up to be teachers. Jackson said he hopes the new initiative will normalize filling schools with educators of color.
After high school, he feared a rough transition to college, but his professors became his mentors. Jackson said his experience at Illinois State solidified his commitment to becoming a teacher and prepared him to serve children and his community in Chicago.
“Through my teachers I’ve always felt a connection of them being dependable, trustworthy and loyal,” he said. “Their spirit in the classroom drew me closer to their lessons because they taught me how to become a critical thinker.”
Carolina Velez, a counselor at Curie High School who attended Lane Tech College Prep and University of Illinois at Chicago, has been working with seniors on college and financial aid applications, and talking to them about their plans.
“When I embarked on this journey as a daughter of Ecuadorian immigrants, I wanted to make a difference and help others,” Velez said. “I didn’t exactly know how I was gonna do it. This pathway did not exist for me but it does, and it’s here now.”
Velez made a plea to students considering careers in education: “We need you. You know CPS, you know the needs, you know the talent and the resources, and have great ideas to implement. In some cases, you already have.”
In response to the CPS announcement, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Stacy Davis Gates issued a statement in support of the program but called on the district to do more for current Black and brown teachers.
“There is growing evidence that diversity among educators can lead to more positive outcomes for all students, so the Union welcomes efforts to increase the number of Black and Latino educators in our district,” Davis Gates said. “… Our union has long been committed to increasing diversity in the CPS teaching ranks, and has partnered with programs like Grow Your Own Illinois to encourage educators of color to enter the teaching profession and work in the communities that nurtured them.”
She pointed to investments in the latest CTU contract for pipeline programs to draw in educators from other local colleges like Chicago State and Northeastern Illinois universities, and UIC.
“To truly make this initiative a success, CPS must value both incoming and veteran educators of color in its buildings, and make schools hospitable places to learn and grow in professional, anti-racist communities,” Davis Gates said. “The district must also be committed to collaborating with stakeholders who have been doing the work in this arena for years, and also to eradicating policies that have stripped our schools of Black and Brown educators: charter proliferation, school closings, punitive teacher evaluation and high-stakes entry programs.”
hleone@chicagotribune.com
