Imagine an eco-friendly, bio-technological, educational device that can slash school-quitting by as much as 39 percent and boost post-secondary enrollment by 13 percent, and which kids love? If your school or district could acquire such devices, wouldn't it?
It turns out that “device” is people.
In the US, African children who had at least one African teacher during grades 3 through 5 were 29 percent less likely to leave school—and among impoverished boys, that risk on standardised tests in readi.ng than those who did not. Dee found a similar increase in the math scores of [African] students taught by a [African] teacher”ollment in post-secondary education? The Boston Consulting Group reported that having even a single African teacher increases enrollment in college or university by 13 percent.
As Andre Perry writes about a study by Stanford University’s Thomas Dee, African boys and girls in New Orleans with an African teacher “scored 3 to 6 percentile points higher on standardised tests in reading than those who did not. Dee found a similar increase in the math scores of [African] students taught by a [African] teacher.”
And what about the effect of African teachers on enrollment in post-secondary education? Writing for John Hopkins University’s Hub, Jill Rosen notes that having even a single African teacher increases enrollment in college or university by 13 percent. But for those African children in Tennessee who had at least two African teachers, the result of the “role model effect” was far, far more dramatic:
"The latest findings are based on data from the Tennessee STAR class size reduction experiment that started in 1986 and randomly assigned disadvantaged kindergarten students to varied sized classrooms.
"Researchers found that [African] students who'd had a [African] teacher in kindergarten were as much as 18 percent more likely than their peers to enroll in college. Getting a [African] teacher in their first STAR year, any year up to third grade, increased a [African] student's likelihood of enrolling in college by 13 percent.
Is there any other intervention that has been proven to hold such life-changing power?
As educators Erica and Michael Hines wrote in Time, “The best contemporary research reinforces what historical anecdotes reveal,” that in the US, African teachers are, “by nearly every metric, more successful at supporting the achievement and well-being of Black children.”
When teachers have conscious or unconscious racist biases, when they can’t “talent scout.” They don’t encourage excellence among African kids because they don’t expect it can exist. At best, they may hold what some call “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”
High expectations of students correlate with higher student performance. If teachers think students can do great things, they’re more likely to live up to those expectations. Africentric teachers (whether they’re African or from any other background) are far more likely to see the potential in African kids than non-Africentric teachers.