Teachers of Color as Activists and Organizers

While urban public school are made of mainly students of color, the teachers of these students are mostly white (Murray and Jenkins-Scott). The need for teachers of color has been of renewed interest after two recent articles showing that student of color who have teachers of color tend to academically perform better and were more likely to graduate college and that “students of all races preferred teachers of color” (Gershon, Hart, Lindsay, and Papageorge, 2017; Cherng and Halpin, 2016). If teachers of color can have this profound of an affect on students in school performance what ways can they act as advocates for their students, schools, and the wider social issues affecting their schools and surrounding community?  Throughout urban education while there are many educational inequities, many of those are caused and perpetuated by societal injustices and inequities such as residential segregation, both by race and class, housing policies, eugenics, white supremacy, market-based education reform and school choice, capitalism, and poverty. Social issues inform the issues students experience in and out of school. What ways can teachers, especially teachers of color work to address these issues? This website is dedicated to exploring the ways in which teachers of color can act as activists and organizers around educational equity, racial justice, and social justice. From organizing protests, proposing legislation changes, or creating social justice curriculum, teachers of color can have a profound impact acting as advocates for students in urban school and the communities surrounding these schools.