In an article on “The Brown Center Chalkboard by Seth Gershenson called “The Alarming Effect of Racial Mismatch on Teacher Expectations” the author introduces a study by the author and his colleagues named “Who Believes in Me- The Effect of Student-Teacher Demographic Match On Teacher Expectations”

In that study the authors quote “The 2015 recipient of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) National Teacher of the Year Award, Shanna Peeples” when she said:

“You have to ignore it when a child says, ‘I don’t want to,’ because what they’re really saying is, ‘I don’t think I can and I need you to believe in me until I can believe in myself.’”

The Study opens with the following “Abstract”:

“Teachers are an important source of information for traditionally disadvantaged students. However, little is known about how teachers form expectations and whether they are systematically biased. We investigate whether student-teacher demographic mismatch affects high school teachers’ expectations for students’ educational attainment. Using a student fixed effects strategy that exploits expectations data from two teachers per student, we find that non-black teachers of black students have significantly lower expectations than do black teachers. These effects are larger for black male students and math teachers. Our findings add to a growing literature on the role of limited information in perpetuating educational attainment gaps.”

Obviously this is just one study and IN NO WAY reflects ANY absolute conclusions about the SDUSD…but it is an extremely interesting study that should make All SDUSD Stakeholders think more about equity and fairness for ALL Students in every classroom, every day.

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