TEACHER DIVERSITY

sample of charter school teachers is small for the first few years (because the charter sector was small during those
years), and, even in the latter years of our data, when the charter sector is larger, it only includes about 20 Hispanic
teachers. These small samples mean that the results for charter teachers in the early years, and those for Hispanic
charter teachers across all years, should be interpreted with extreme caution (it bears mentioning, however, that
the low numbers of Black and Hispanic teachers is precisely what is at issue). We have therefore excluded Hispanic
charter teachers from some of the graphs below (although the results are still available in Table CLE-A).
That said, citywide, between 2000 and 2011, the proportion of the Cleveland teaching force that was White
increased by about 4 percentage points (Figure CLE-2), while the share of Black teachers decreased moderately
(about 6 percentage points, with most of the loss coming in the charter sector) and low Hispanic representation
remained relatively stable. 1
FIGURE CLE-2: TEACHER RACE AND ETHNICITY DISTRIBUTION, BY SECTOR, 2000–2011
100
90
Charter Schools
85.4
100
90
District Schools
80
70
66.7
80
70
66.7 65.3
60
60
50
50
40
30
20
30.7
12.4
40
30
20
29.6 28.3
10
0
1.8 1.1
10
0
2.8
3.8
White Black Hispanic
White Black Hispanic
Figure CLE-3, which includes teachers in both the charter and district sectors, presents another way to visualize
these data. Here, we see changes within each racial and ethnic category during the period for which we have
data.
FIGURE CLE-3: TEACHER POPULATION CHANGES BY RACE AND ETHNICITY, 2000–2011
50
40
Decreasing Increasing
30
20
10
0
-10
-20
-30
-17.4
-12.0
-9.4
-40
-33.9
-50
Overall White Black Hispanic
As you can see, differences in group sizes for the various racial and ethnic categories can mean that relatively
1 When interpreting trends in race and ethnicity distributions in this profile, particularly when comparing estimates between sectors, note
that the “Multiracial” category was used for charter school teachers between 2003 and 2011, and for district school teachers between 2008 and
2011. In all cases, however, the relative frequencies of multiracial teachers tend to be minimal—no more than a small fraction of 1 percent—so
their impact on our results is negligible.
ALBERT SHANKER INSTITUTE 46 THE STATE OF TEACHER DIVERSITY